And cue two young women in front of a TV. (Miss Osborne would have joined them had her health permitted it.) Due to technical difficulties (curse you, Comcast!), Miss Ball and Mrs. Fitzpatrick arrive on the scene ten minutes in. Please supply your own witty dialog for that period.
[Jane Fairfax leaves Donwell secretly.]
Miss Ball: I think Emma’s been running around Salzberg in nothing but some old drapes . . . from 1988. That dress is appalling.
[Mr. Knightley says that Emma might be mistress of Donwell, ha ha ha.]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Hint, hint.
[Emma rants about Miss Bates.]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: A bit of foreshadowing, is it?
Miss Ball: For the awkwardness that is to come. Sure.
[Mr. Knightley makes a rude comment about Frank Churchill, but it falls flat.]
Miss Ball: I love how Switzerland is the ends of the earth, instead of . . . the middle of Europe. I feel like, instead, he should backpack through Nepal with like six sherpas (because it’s not like he’s going to carry his own stuff) and listen to a lot of Dave Matthews Band.
Miss Ball: I know beer and cold meats do wonders for my constitution. Especially . . . together?
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Michael Gambon as Mr. Woodhouse just isn’t right. He doesn’t strike the sort of kindly silliness of Mr. Woodhouse.
Miss Osborne, there in spirit: The real Mr. Woodhouse wouldn’t have pterodactyl arms.
[A green blob—continued technical difficulties, we hope—appears on Mrs. Fitzpatrick's TV just as the party arrives at Boxhill.]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: It’s THE BLOB!! From original Star Trek! It’s going to EAT THEM!!
[Frank Churchill inadvertently and singlehandedly chases the entire party away (therefore saving them from a green and blobby death, v. difficult to explain to the pre-NASA set).]
Miss Ball: Frank Churchill, Captain of Awkward Conversation.
[Mr. Knightley yells at Emma.]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: He just seems like a blustering schoolboy to me. No dignity. No style!
Miss Ball: I think he sounds like he’s yelling at a pet. Like she’s been scratching on the couch again.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: FAIL, Jonny Lee. FAIL.
[Emma converts to thoughtfulness and grace.]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Look, she’s stepping into the light! I can’t stand it!
[Emma goes to the Bates's.]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: I swear Mrs. Bates is a zombie.
Miss Ball: I believe you could write a book about that and make some serious money.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: That is SO five minutes ago, Miss Ball!
[Mr. Knightley thinks about kissing Emma's hand, but doesn't. Miss Ball thinks he was shaking it.]
Miss Ball: The 2005 P&P did that so much better.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: They didn’t do that very well. Especially since you didn’t even get it!
Both: Clearly, we have moved past the time when a man taking a woman’s hand = HE’S GOING TO KISS HER HAND!!! [spontaneous flaily jazz-hands duet]
[Emma wants to reupholster Mr. Knightley's chair (or whatever the kids are calling it these days).]
Miss Ball: …with angels and unicorns, perhaps?
[Mrs. Churchill dies; everybody pretends to be sad while actually forming an emotional conga line.]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: That was actually pretty well done—that pretty much sums it up.
[Baby Frank Churchill rides away in his carriage in the past. Again.]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Flashback attack!
[Frank and Jane Fairfax are reunited.]
Miss Ball: I’m sort of disappointed in Jane now. He’s such a douchebag. You can do better, Jane Fairfax! (Governess-hood notwithstanding.)
Frank Churchill: Now for the first time in our lives we can do anything we want!
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: That isn’t a Regency thought in the least—or at least not a Jane Austen thought.
Miss Ball: That’s a relief. Ugh.
[Emma hides behind a shrub, poorly, when Mr. Knightley arrives in the garden.]
Miss Ball: Don’t worry, Emma. . . we’ve all been there.
[Emma and Mr. Knightley walk and chat.]
Miss Ball: Are her long sleeves attached to anything, or are they just. . . sleeves? Because that’s sort of brilliant.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: I actually don’t know. I do know Mrs. Bennet liked them! Kind of a punk look, you think?
Miss Ball: Just add safety pins. I like it.
[Mr. Knightley tries to propose.]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: He’s squinting. Why is he squinting?
Miss Ball: No room in those tight pants for his sunglasses.
[Emma bursts into Donwell crying, says she can't marry Mr. Knightley because of her father, and then bursts out again.]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: What is this, a French farce? She’s not Lucille Ball, for goodness’ sake!
Miss Ball: A little abrupt, sure, but I think it’s okay. We’re running out of time.
[Mr. Knightley volunteers to move to Hartfield.]
Miss Ball: Mr. Knightley, you’ll never make it with the ladies if you keep telling them your heart is at your house.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: No, no, he means his heart is with Emma! He’s pointing at her!
Miss Ball: Ah, his heart—her—is at his house. Currently. But not forever. Riiiiight.
[Frank Churchill apologizes to Emma.]
Miss Ball: I do not forgive you, Frank Churchill.
[Mrs. Bates speaks.]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: GASP! The zombie speaks!
Miss Bates: Mother has recovered her voice!
[Emma says goodbye to her father pre-honeymoon.]
Miss Ball: That is one yellow dress. Lucky for her she’s a summer.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Wait—they’re going on a honeymoon? So they must be married? These quick cuts are making me dizzy!
Miss Ball: I had the same question. Harriet and Robert Martin get married, and Emma and Mr. Knightley take a honeymoon? That’s some set-up.
[Emma rests her head on Mr. Knightley's shoulder.]
Miss Ball: That looks really uncomfortable. Much better after the carriage era.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: They must be going to the seaside.
Emma: Oh! It’s the seaside!
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: I’m freakin’ prescient!
fin
Final thoughts:
The Curmudgeonly Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Well, it had its moments. When they just let the actors speak and feel what Jane Austen wrote, it was fine—though really none of the main parts were convincing to me. But the additions were SO cheesy (Slow-motion flashbacks? Children torn asunder in the rain?) and the transitions were SO film-school (Look, there’s flowers now, it must be spring!), that I couldn’t really believe I was in the story. It’s a hard novel to adapt, but . . . they should have tried harder. Or less hard? It was too forced, and too sloppy for this purist.
The Happy-Go-Lucky Miss Ball: I agree with Mrs. F’s assessment of the hilariously melodramatic editing, but in general, I liked the whole product pretty well—it was certainly modern in feel, but not in a way that generally offended my not-very-strict sensibilities. I especially liked Romola Garai: she makes some fabulous faces, and her ability to both play and acknowledge awkward moments served her well in this particular instance. So, they certainly played fast and loose with the text, but I didn’t mind too much. Also, I sort of like Jonny Lee Miller in hero mode. (Less so in scoldish pet-owner mode.)
Miss Osborne: I ended up watching the rest of Emma this morning, and it almost made up for the earlier installments. With the exception of the sun rising over Emma and the unnecessary flashback of Frank Churchill leaving as a child, this installment was more thoughtful. I finally found myself rooting for Emma—for her emotional growth and the love between her and Mr. Knightley. Knightley, of course, is wonderful (though I think Jonny Lee Miller looks like a muppet when he’s not smiling). Unlike Mrs. F, I didn’t find him blustery in the Box Hill scene. He has every right to scold Emma, and I felt her pain. Hasn’t everyone been scolded at one point or another for doing something they knew was stupid? It hurts when someone you love is rightfully giving you the smack down. Overall, this mini-series was uneven, but the last hour was enjoyable.
As someone who celebrates eating and cooking, I thought it would be excited to write an Austenacious cooking article or two. But I have to tell you that it’s been slow going trying to put aside my food sensibilities and imagine eating Regency-era food. Fan of Jane Austen that I am, she doesn’t exactly provide any tantalizing descriptions of meals.
Before you start to think of me as Judgey McJudgemental Food Snob, you have to know that I’m not truly a snob. Nor am I afraid to try new things. Yes, I get a weekly organic vegetable box. Yes, I looooooove to bake complicated and artery-clogging desserts. And I (heart) Julia Child. But I also love candy corn, sweet potatoes with melted marshmallows on Thanksgiving, Oreos, and processed cheese. I think, mainly, I’m afraid of animal parts. You know—the pieces that are fatty, stringy, and not particularly meaty.
Here are some ingredients that jumped out at me as I perused The Jane Austen Cookbook to find a starter recipe:
suet My issues here are 1) it’s mostly used to make tallow, and that to me sounds as appealing as eating earwax, and 2) as a prime ingredient in various English puddings, I find it such a disappointment that “pudding” equals something that isn’t a creamy, sweet dessert (that might even have “Jell-O” on the package).
veal knuckle Really?
mutton Whenever I think about Regency food (or any pre-1900s British cooking), “mutton” is always the word that comes to mind. Actually, I’m quite sure that when I first started talking to Mrs. Fitzpatrick and Miss Ball about making an Austen-appropriate meal, I muttered something like, “Good God, am I really going to have to cook mutton?” Why is it that “lamb” just doesn’t sound half as bad? Maybe it’s just that I always picture a morbidly obese Henry VIII chomping away at a mutton haunch and complaining about his gout.
chicken joints Why? I mean, they’re so tiny. And bony. Why bother?
furred game Could we be a little more specific? (Note: I used to be horrified at the though of eating rabbit—poor Thumper!—but I became a convert after eating the most delightful rabbit and pasta dish at Bottega last year.)
forcemeat balls I gather forcemeat is something like a sausage or salami, so that’s appealing. The name is not.
pigeon livers They’re dirty, horrible animals…particularly if you live in an urban area. When I lived in London, there were pigeons that had eyes missing, partial wings, and they were simply covered in grime. I realize that people willingly eat pigeons in France, but here (and in London), pigeons are winged rats. There’s no way in hell I’m going to eat their livers.
sweetbreads Sweetmeats don’t contain meat, and sweetbreads aren’t bread. So confusing. I have to remind myself that it sounds good, but it’s made from the thymus and pancreas. I just have a really hard time with organs.
beetroot This isn’t odd at all. I just added it to the list because I’m passionately offended by the taste of beets. (Yeah, yeah, I know…some people think they’re delicious. I think they taste like jellied dirt. On the other hand, I love Brussels sprouts, so give me a pass on the Beet Hate.)
anchovies It’s funny, for all the horrible blandness that you think of when you think of traditional British food, half the recipes in the book call for anchovies. Sounds promising.
streaky bacon rashers I have no idea what these are, but I liked the name! (“In local news, the Oakland Raiders game was halted for five minutes while stadium security subdued more streaky bacon rashers. This is the second incident in the month.”)
negus This spicy, hot beverage actually sounds delightful! But nerd that I am, I saw it and thought, “Hee…like the Grand Nagus in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” And who doesn’t like Wallace Shawn?
Isinglass Fish bladders. I just don’t know what to say about that.
Despite my aversion to organs and stringy animal bits, I will not be deterred! Who knows…maybe I’ll love mutton. Well, I might…if it were fed to me by Jonathan Rhys Meyers. 
INT. LIVING ROOM – NIGHT
We open on a television set. The screen is black.
An eerie chord sounds and splinters; text appears.
LOST.
EXT. REGENCY HOME – DAY
When we return, gone is the island! Instead, OUR HEROES materialize, bedraggled and apparently out of thin air, on the grounds of a grand Regency estate. CHARLES WIDMORE looks on from a nearby window, twirling his nonexistent mustache.
Surprise!
You’re gonna love it. LOST: The Regency Season! What a way to go, right?
We zero in on the action.
JACK SHEPHARD
You fell down a hill and twisted your ankle? I’ll save you! Don’t you love me? Fine. I’ll be off crying in the forest if you need me TO AMPUTATE YOUR LEG.
JAMES “SAWYER” FORD
I challenge you to a duel, Mr. Shephard! I say, have I misplaced my shirt again?
KATE (ahem) AUSTEN
I love you, Mr. Shephard! No. I love you, Mr. Ford! No, I love you, Mr. Shephard! No, I love you, Mr. Ford! No, I love you, Mr. Shephard! What? You want your gun(s) back? La la la I can’t hear you! What?
SAYID JARRAH
Tell me where Wickham and Lydia went, or I’ll kill you with my thighs!
JOHN LOCKE
That Churchill fellow cultivates an admirable air of mystery. Care for some backgammon, shooting, and/or pseudo-religious posturing? Don’t tell me what I can’t do!
VINCENT
Woof!
BEN LINUS
(stares)
JULIET BURKE
I can kill every single one of these ladies with my brain.
CLAIRE LITTLETON
Gypsies warned me not to send my baby away, but what do they know?
DESMOND HUME
These ladies are tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me…away from mah Penneh. PENNEH!
ELOISE HAWKING
This time-travel nonsense is no match for the majesty of Rosings Park!
PENNY WIDMORE
Memo, Anne Elliott: Don’t let your man go off to sea. The only thing worse than years of crushing loneliness is having to rescue him from a lifeboat in the South Pacific ten years later. Ask me how I know!
HUGO REYES
Dude, where’s the Dharma cold meats platter?
We close on the castaways burning a bonfire as the sun sets. They’re alone. OR ARE THEY? Mr. Collins skulks around the shadows, unbeknownst to all.
END
We open on three girls, a couch, and Laura Linney looking oddly solemn.
[Frank Churchill proposes a ball]
Miss Osborne: Oh, I do love a ball! (TM Lydia Bennet)
Miss Osborne: Does she not have a ballroom or a dining room in her house?
[Frank sweeps Emma up for an impromptu dance]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: They would not have been doing that.
Miss Ball: “I would much better be married than right”: words to live by?
[Frank acts like he's going to propose and then doesn't]
Miss Osborne: Why can’t people tell the truth? This is annoying.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Like you tell the truth all the time?
Miss Osborne: Well, he’s acting like he loves her.
Miss Osborne: And he has a man-ring.
[Harriet bawls her eyes out]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Harriet’s such a modern teenage girl. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have the internet or TV to distract her with a massive gallery of males.
[Mrs. Elton arrives]
Miss Osborne: Ohhhhh, it’s THAT girl. She plays the bitch in everything!
Miss Ball: Like?
Miss Osborne: Like What a Girl Wants, which I only saw because of Colin Firth. And, um, Amanda Bynes.
Miss Ball: No, I saw that, too! With the leather pants! Amanda Bynes is my hero(ine), and I don’t care who knows it.
[Mr. Knightley brought Emma a library book]
Miss Osborne: It’s Twilight.
[Misses Osborne and Ball and Mrs.Fitzpatrick pause to discuss crooked ears, including but not limited to Stephen Colbert and Victor Garber. Mrs. Fitzpatrick has perfect, delicate ears. She's the only one.]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: I think I’ll start calling Mr. Fitzpatrick “Mr. F”, like Mrs. Elton does.
Miss Ball: Like he’s a substitute teacher with a difficult name?
[Misses Osborne and Ball and Mrs.Fitzpatrick pause to discuss the technical term for Emma's face-framing curls, which Mrs. Fitzpatrick calls "scare curls" but thinks she made that up. Google tells us this.]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Now, this is weird, because in the book, Mrs. Elton suggests the whole Box Hill expedition, and Emma doesn’t seem particularly sad about being stuck in Highbury.
Miss Ball: It’s a modern take on the situation, certainly.
[Mrs. Elton has quite a horror of finery.]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Too matchy-matchy?
Miss Ball: Bridesmaid quality, definitely.
Miss Osborne: The voice-over is worse than Superman.
Miss Ball: I do miss the choreographed group dancing.
[Frank disses Mrs. Elton's hairstyle]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: He is a little…dickish.
Miss Ball: Catty.
Miss Osborne: A douchebag.
[Mr. Knightley asks Harriet to dance]
Miss Ball: Mr. Knightley! You’re the dreamiest man the world right now! Such a mensch!
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Isn’t he?
Miss Osborne: I like the idea of wearing gloves. That way you don’t get sweaty hands.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Plus, it’s more sexy.
[Dancing ensues]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: I think they’re doing the Congress of Vienna waltz.
Miss Osborne: I can do the polka!
Miss Ball: Me, too!
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: I wonder how authentic the dancing in this really is?
Miss Ball: We’re totally ruining the mood of this very romantic dance.
[Harriet gushes about Frank's rescue of her from the scary scary gypsies]
Miss Osborne: Harriet’s so pale, she could be a vampire.
Miss Ball: Don’t say that out loud.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: There’s already going to be Emma and werewolves.
Miss Osborne: Um, did she just faint?
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: I think Jane had a thing against fainting—it never really works out in her books.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: If this were a murder mystery, Harriet would be shot dead now.
[The camera cuts, inexplicably, behind Mr. Knightley's coat as he reminisces about Emma's hotness]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: SIGH.
[Mr. Knightley walks away from Emma and the too-hot fire]
Mrs. F: Well, I definitely liked this chapter better—now that she’s not so incredibly bouncy.
Miss Ball: And now that the story’s picking up, minus Exposition City.
Miss Osborne: Augh, when he yells at her, he’s so right, and it’s so horrible, because we’ve all been yelled at by somebody we care at like that. So terrible.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: And they’re…following the book. Such a concept!
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: It’s weird how little Mr. Woodhouse is in this version. Usually, he’s in the background of everything.
Miss Osborne: Maybe Michael Gambon’s pterodactyl arms wouldn’t fit in the picture.
Aaaaaaand, scene.
In Thoughts on Mansfield Park, Part 1: Fanny and Mary, I started to talk about this book: Why does it seem so different from Austen’s other books? Why is Fanny so serious? Last week(ish) was about Fanny as a person, and about Mary as a quasi-parallel to Elizabeth Bennet. But now I’m thinking about the novel in general—why does Jane seem so much more serious, and why does it all seem rather forced?
Scholars (such as Marvin Mudrick) seem to see the novel as a penitent rewriting of Pride and Prejudice—the clergyman’s daughter being serious. Mansfield Park was Jane’s first novel after a 10-year hiatus, and while she was writing it, she was seeing Pride and Prejudice through the press, and commented on its “rather too light, and bright, and sparkling” manner, its “playfulness and epigrammatism.” This is more than a little depressing, though published authors will understand Austen’s dislike of re-reading her own work in proofs.
But, rather than think that Austen was now a humorless person, I think that, after 10 years, she was taking herself more seriously as a novelist, and had a deeper sense of observation and storytelling. Mudrick argues that, for the most part, in Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice, Austen doesn’t delve into her characters much. She is content to equate manners with morals: witty people are good, dull or obnoxious people are bad. (Shades of Oscar Wilde: “It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.”) Even in her early novels, personality and character aren’t the same thing. Just think of Willoughby, Wickham, Isabella Thorpe, even the respectable but self-absorbed Lady Middleton—all these people aren’t what they first seem.
There’s no doubt that Mansfield Park is a turning point, though, and Jane Austen is thinking about all sorts of new things. In Pride and Prejudice, some first impressions are wrong, but it seems like in Mansfield Park, they all are. We’re in the author’s confidence, but the characters (except for Fanny) misjudge each other constantly, and there’s far fewer truly good people. Jane’s gotten much more cynical since we last saw her. Austen told her sister Mansfield Park was to be about “ordination,” that is, one assumes, Edmund’s ordination as a clergyman. This seems to make it revolve around Edmund’s struggles, and the different views about morality and the role of the clergy than anything else. And these views were much in upheaval in Austen’s time. They illuminate the characters, and provide a backdrop. We are meant to judge the characters by their attitude towards serious things (something that changes in Henry Crawford’s transformation) and expect that we will like them accordingly.
Yet in fits and starts there’s something more real about these characters than we’ve seen before. Austen goes into their motives, their psychology even (think of Julia Bertram sulking at Sotherton, a prey to good breeding, but lacking fortitude). In Mansfield Park Austen has also broadened her vision to take in a nature vs. nurture argument that was popular in her day: the beauties of nature and the evils of town, and their opposite effect on people. She tries to explain why Maria Bertram, Sir Thomas, Mary Crawford, and everyone else, are the way they are, based on their upbringing and these outside effects. Really, a startlingly modern idea, but she doesn’t let the real feelings of her characters take her where it might. She still wants to push them around, have the good end happily and the bad unhappily. (“That is what fiction means.” —Wilde again ) Sometimes the characters feel real to us, and sometimes they don’t. And that’s the tension of the novel, the weirdness that readers react to.
To me Mansfield Park is an experiment that Austen is trying out before she explores her ideas of good and evil in normal society, opposing forces in normal people, in a more natural, complex, interwoven way in Emma and Persuasion. Both these books have deep themes of people not being what they seem, even to themselves, but the characters and plots seem to evolve quite naturally. I think of Fanny Price as more a precursor for Anne Elliot than anything else. Like Fanny, Anne is a quiet, ignored observer, a serious and feeling character, but Anne has her touches of humor, of worldly knowledge, that Fanny, in her innocence, finds it hard to come by.
But for all that, there’s something raw, something out of control, in Mansfield Park, that I find compelling. And that’s why I come back to it.
Photo credit:
Memo, universe: We at Austenacious have had just about enough of this “rain” business. Yes, we’re in California; yes, Minnesota, we feel you staring daggers at the backs of our heads right now. But you’ve got to know: it is the birthright of all Californians to experience 365 perfect weather days a year, and so far 2010 is just a giant vitamin D deficiency waiting to happen. And I think it goes without saying that you don’t want to see us cranky and/or with impaired bone mineralization.
In the mean time, as one does, we look to the grey-weather experience (see what I did there, Anglo-spellers?) of a people so steeped in precipitation, so accustomed to mist and gloom, that anything less than moss-growing conditions may as well be July in Death Valley. Would Jane mope when things get rainy? Would the young ladies of Jane’s novels faint when the sun seems simply gone forever? They would not, because they are English, and the English would never get anything done if they let the perpetual drizzle get them down. The English simply keep calm and carry on being . . . whatever it is they are. Awesome, I suppose?
And so, today, we present the Jane Austen Ladies’ Survival Guide for Soul-Crushing Weather, AKA Tips For the English, From the English (Regency Edition):
Tip #1: Become accomplished.
This is Priority One, obviously, and also blends conveniently with damp conditions. While your skin pales and your muscles atrophy, brush up on your painting! Practice that piece for next week’s ball, so as to avoid Mary Bennet Syndrome! Laziness is unbecoming, and the picturesque (though, of course, visibility-impaired) scene outside your (closed) window isn’t going to sketch itself, ladies, so let’s get moving, shall we?
Tip #2: Freak yourself out with Gothic tales.
This works better when things get truly squally, but with a little imagination, you, too, can slash the fine membrane between fiction and reality! Bonus points if you accuse your future husband’s father of killing his wife.
Tip #3: Matchmake.
Hey, we watched the premiere of Emma too, okay? Social parties and romantic walks are out of the question for now, sure, but bracket charts, Rolodexes, and sheer intuition function just fine under persistent cloud cover.
Tip #4: Go for a walk.
What have we Austenites learned, but that a nice stroll in a driving rain is sure to net 1) the sudden appearance of a dashing young man on horseback (blessing or curse? Discuss!), 2) a muddy hem, 3) brightened eyes (it helps if they’re “fine” already), and 4) a flu the likes of which will let you stay in the home of your crush for as long as you like! Game, set, match, my friends.
Tip #5: Read.
This falls under the umbrella of Tip #1, technically—nothing says “accomplished” and/or “sexy” like a great reader—but we think it bears repeating. Find yourself a soft surface and a cozy blanket and spend a few hours in another world. May we recommend one Jane Austen? You’ll like her. Promise.
The Austenacious sisters are too old-school (so far) to be on Twitter, so we decided to have our own live new-Emma-watching/blogging party. And the opening credits roll . . .
Miss Ball: This is all very Pushing Daisies, isn’t it? There goes Mom.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Frank and Jane’s sending-away is so much more emotional than it is in the book.
[Everyone grows up. Quickly. Thank goodness, all this exposition is getting boring.]
Miss Osborne: Who does Emma look like to you guys?
Miss Osborne: Did they really wear big bows on their backs? (Consensus: Not sure.)
Miss Osborne: No cake for the wedding? Well, that’s just crazy. Turn it off! I’m done.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: The thing about Michael Gambon is, it’s hard to believe he can be as stupid as Mr. Woodhouse after being Dumbledore.
All: Boo hoo! Loneliness and tinkly pianos! SLO-MO CHILDREN! Too cheesy!
Miss Osborne: Romola Garai’s not as stately or graceful as I expected Emma to be.
[Emma visits Mrs. Goddard's school.]
Miss Ball: Gypsies! Ooh, foreshadowing!
Miss Ball: That hat’s like a bell. How is it staying on her head?
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: What? A scene from the book? And only twenty-five minutes in!
Miss Osborne: I’ve got it! Drew Barrymore meets Starbuck!
Miss Ball: It’s the mouth.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Who? Oh, Romola. But what about Harriet Smith? She reminds me of someone.
Miss Osborne: She was in something called Lesbian Vampire Killers!
Miss Osborne: Mr. Martin’s got mutton chops to rival Mr. Darcy’s!
Miss Osborne: Gotta love a field trip to see the poor.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Well, they’re making much more of deal about it than in the book.
Miss Osborne: I realize that the refusal of Mr. Martin is straight from the book, but it makes me want to barf.
[Painting on the lawn.]
Miss Ball: Oh, Jane. You and your crazy dads.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Oh! Harriet Smith reminds me of the chick from Doctor Horrible.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: I can see Emma’s roots. I can see! Her roots!
Miss Osborne: Check out Elton. Boyfriend’s a close-talker. Three feet, dude.
Mr. Knightley: Robert Martin! Is that you?
Miss Osborne: . . . nobody here by that name . . .
[Emma and Mr. Knightley fight.]
Miss Ball: I like Emma’s yellow wallpaper. Just not in the Charlotte Perkins Gilman sense.
Miss Osborne: Jonny Lee Miller just made a Muppet face.
Miss Osborne: Well, I think Emma’s right. So many men do want pretty and ditzy. So why shouldn’t everyone fall for Harriet Smith.
Miss Ball: I just want to watch him make more faces.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: She makes the same argument in the book.
Miss Ball: I like Romola Garai.
[Emma and Harriet manage two pages of reading.]
Miss Ball: Two pages of Milton? I think she deserves a cookie.
[Emma explains her life plans to Harriet.]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Well, Emma’s ideal situation is Jane Austen’s situation: a well-to-do old maid with nieces.
Miss Osborne: I take umbrage at the “old maid” label. She died at forty-one!
Miss Osborne: I don’t even really understand why Emma’s friends with Harriet. She’s dumb!
Miss Ball: Haven’t you seen Clueless? She wants to better Harriet.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: It would be like living your whole life with the people you went to elementary school with. Not much of a choice, right?
[Dinner party at the Westons]
Miss Osborne: Michael Gambon has the biggest basketball-player arms in all of movies, and he’s always flailing them around like a pterodactyl.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Mrs. Weston has a maid now. She should have better hair. And stop looking defeated. Because she isn’t.
[Elton proposes.]
Miss Ball: I sort of love Elton. I totally know that guy.
Miss Osborne: Wow, that CGI snow is terrible. It’s like a bad screen saver.
Miss Ball: Flying toasters.
Miss Osborne: Why is Elton so sweaty? It’s SNOWING.
[The Great Miss Fairfax Live and In Person!]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Hmmm. They changed Jane Fairfax almost getting thrown overboard from a boat to Jane Fairfax almost . . . slipping on a rock? Must have been too expensive.
[Emma and Harriet meet Frank on the road.]
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Apart from that not being the way Emma and Frank meet, it’s just. . . all wrong. She’s so flirty with him!
[Emma and Frank meet officially.]
Miss Osborne: Dude is short!
Miss Ball: And not much of a looker. Which Frank Churchill should be, right? (Consensus.)
[And . . . the episode sort of peters out. Not much dramatic closure of any type.]
Miss Ball: 3 out of 5 start
Miss Osborne: Meh
Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Can we watch figure skating now?
Overall, it’s not great, but not bad. The scene changes are achingly obvious, and they do love to make a point, then drive it home, in case you didn’t get it the first time. Kind of an Emma for Dummies. Romola’s giving Emma a good go: we couldn’t agree on whether she was acting smart enough, but do think she should be more refined. More conclusions pending the next episode(s). Readers, your gut reactions?
Just a note, readers: don’t let the spam filter get you down!
If you submit a comment here at Austenacious and it doesn’t show up on the post, please drop us an e-mail. Your input gets us out of bed every morning, and although we try to keep an eye on the spam situation, we’d hate to think that we missed anything, therefore eventually becoming glamorous recluses and existing solely in a vortex of silk sleep masks, menthol cigarettes, and dry Cap’n Crunch.
Our senses of personal purpose thank you.
Signed,
Mrs. Fitzpatrick and Misses Ball and Osborne
So, apparently we all voted for Mr. Darcy and ended up with, what, Mr. Collins?
First of all…huh? This woman wants to dance with Obama/Darcy instead of a husband? Is this a War on Husbands? Yeah, man. HUSBANDS SUCK.
Second, what’s with people who use the men of Austen as a shorthand for exotic romantic heroes?
As I see it, there are two options here: either people who do this have not read Jane Austen, or they have read Jane Austen and then had their memories wiped by aliens. Take your pick.
It’s not that the Austen men aren’t romantic; they are. I think we can all (mostly) find common ground in the notion that our heroines’ love interests smolder on at least an occasional, private basis. But Jane is nothing if not consistent: nice guys finish first, and guys with wicked notions of sweeping ladies off their feet finish in disgrace (and, in my imagination, duels). Yes, Darcy scours the countryside in the dark of night, looking for Lydia and Wickham, but he does so because he cares for Lizzy, not because he’s into midnight scavenger hunts—and I wouldn’t call him “dashing” so much as “painfully awkward, yet rich.” Captain Wentworth is a sailor, but he’s been pining for nearly a decade and is ultimately just looking for some monogamy. Both Knightley and Henry Tilney like giving advice to the flighty. Colonel Brandon wears—wait for it—a flannel waistcoat! He’s practically Mr. Rogers! So: romantic, yes, but maybe not quite Romantic in the technical sense.
Furthermore, Jane warns us of the dangers of dashing young men to a degree that borders on silly: in each novel, any man who seems like fun from the get-go, is a hit with the ladies (on purpose), or otherwise seems too good to be true, gets pegged as a scoundrel—by Jane and by the reader, if not by the characters in the novel—at a hundred paces. In Jane’s world, sweeping the ladies off their feet (without a very impressive show of loyalty and/or self-sacrifice, at least) isn’t an indicator of hero status; it’s a giant red flag and a cue to go looking for the faithful guy on the sidelines.
Perhaps this is part of Jane’s point: the difference between romance—true romance—and being swept away by a good horseman with an eye for pretty hat ribbons. It doesn’t lend itself well to use in unthinking literary allusions, but then, Jane probably wouldn’t mind that so much.
So where does this leave us? With a grudging understanding that people don’t understand the difference between Fitzwilliam Darcy and Rhett Butler? With a campaign for public education on the actual, and not assumed, characters in Austen’s novels (please send poster ideas to missb at austenacious dot com)? With a call for a national discussion on the nature of romance? Or maybe just a polite request and a library card. I don’t know.
But if anybody starts equating the President to everybody’s favorite cousin/suitor, I’m writing my representative.
Time for a Very Special Announcement from Austenacious: the newest BBC Austen adaptation, 2009’s Emma, starts its American run this Sunday, January 24, on PBS.
To the ethically minded and/or BBC-less among us—i.e., those who neither got the chance to watch this new adaptation legally nor seized the chance to watch it illegally—let this be a reminder! Sundays, PBS, 9 p.m. Be there.
For those without such geographical or moral barriers—so, those who have already seen it—we have here the San Francisco Chronicle’s review, which seems more positive than most, or at least more positive than many. Critic David Wiegand claims that this Emma is good because it’s subtle: he compares it to the Paltrow version, with Alan Cumming bouncing off the walls and spitting the scenery out afterwards, and compliments this new adaptation on characters acting like…oh, right: actual people. Interestingly, Wiegand mostly addresses the supporting characters, and then skirts around the perpetual dilemma of Emma herself—that is, her inherent, if well-meant, obnoxiousness—by bringing her up and then failing to comment on Romola Garai’s performance at all. This also begs the question of what makes a successful portrayal of Miss Woodhouse in the first place: how much are we really supposed to like Emma, how much leeway do her portrayers have in the role, and to what degree is Emma’s studied lack of complexity the key to her ultimate appeal?
So, all you torrent heathens (and legitimate Brits), what do you think? Who’s the best Emma of them all, is Jonny Lee Miller have Knightley’s dreamy-yet-stern thing down, and is this adaptation simply finely shaded, or is “subtle” a grand euphemism for “dead boring”?
Just remember, kids: Knowing is half the battle.
