Fangirls, prepare yourselves: there’s a new and potentially fascinating interdisciplinary star on the horizon. I was browsing the finance papers today, as one does, and came across this interview in Capital—you know, where we get all our Austen news—with playwright/finance reporter Felipe Ossa regarding his new play Monetizing Emma, recently premiered at the New York Fringe Festival. And now I’m feeling a yen for the stage.
The titular Emma here isn’t, incidentally, our Miss Woodhouse—rather, she’s a high-school student, an investment for a bank hoping to cash in on her future success in this rhythmically Austenian speculative econ drama. Which, just so you know, is totally our new favorite genre. It’s Austen meets Wall Street…FROM THE FUTURE! We approve.
In a refreshing turn of events, Ossa’s take on Austen isn’t about plot or character—this is no monsters-optional, chronologically challenged Pride and Prejudice reboot. Like many playwrights, he’s a words guy, and he’s taking Jane’s prose and holding it up to a whole new light. As noted in the article:
“I had no idea how to mimic Austen until I drove to Montreal in ’06, a seven-hour drive, and I listened to Persuasion on tape, and I think it was Diana Rigg who was narrating. And I completely understood how beautiful Austen’s rhythms are. And I started to hear the monologue in my head. Not the words but the rhythm, the syntax. That was a pivotal point: This stuff is exciting! I was thinking about Janeites who would recite Austen or reenact Austen.”
So clearly, what we have our hands here is a man of discerning tastes. Persuasion and Diana Rigg? Presumably, Anne Eliott fighting crime in go-go boots, with the kind of verbal specificity that’s so satisfying on the stage? I think Ossa is our kind of man. (Perhaps we should ask him about his mutton chops.)
So, readers, check him out—and let the Austenacious Drama Club meetup plans begin.
Lovely Jenn over at Citivolus Sus asked us whether she was the only Austenite who like beer. Well, I hardly think so. She even posted recommendations on which beers go with which books. I am, sadly, allergic to beer, but I do like to eat and drink (and travel), so here are my own recommendations on the right ambiance for each book. I won’t insist on Regency dishes. I won’t even go into the hardback/paperback split, and how the musky odors of old books bring out the woodier notes in certain pinot noirs, changing the whole dynamic. Just imagine Giles twittering on in the background, and making you read your Kindle only on the airplane, eating airplane food.
Northanger Abbey has a hard feeling, and such sharp edges and corners. So I see it as going well with Chinese food. I’m not particular as to the dish. Something spicy hot, perhaps with fermented black beans in it. You should drink lots of jasmine tea and get a really surreal Jane Austen fortune cookie afterward. Try to be in a restaurant that at least has Chinese people in it. No P.F. Chang’s, please. If the people are speaking Mandarin or some other form of Chinese, this is a bonus.
Sense and Sensibility: What a weird book, foodwise. There’s no doubt it can be unsettling to the stomach. I think a nice butternut squash soup. Or maybe Welsh rabbit. Orange food is called for, apparently. Orange juice? Sure. Maybe you should be in Orange County, too, whatthehey. Or in any one of these fine Orange places.
Pride and Prejudice: There is no wrong thing to eat or drink with Pride and Prejudice, right? And no wrong place to read it. For all that I have to say: No junk food. Do not insult Miss Austen with McDonald’s, or I will kill you. There are some things beyond even irony. If you must have a specific setting, I seem to see you in a wonderful Belle Epoque patisserie in Alexandria, sipping your tea and eating French/Egyptian sweets. It’s probably sunset or something, too.
Mansfield Park: Somehow, I see Mansfield Park as going best with Indian food. A good rogan josh and a steaming cup of chai make a nice counterpoint to the sometimes startling flavor of this book. You should be somewhere rainy. By the ocean.
Emma is a summertime book. Think a picnic lunch on the lawn, with strawberry shortcake. Please be nice to Miss Bates. Do try the cheese-and-pickle sandwiches, and make the Assam tea strong, with plenty of cream. As long as you sit in the sun, you may be anywhere you like.
Persuasion: This is also a book that makes me want to feel cozy and warm. It has, yes, autumnal overtones. A traditional Irish dinner followed by a really good whiskey, and some chocolate cake, maybe? Please curl up on the couch and enjoy a roaring fire while you read.
Lady Susan and The Watsons: You really should be absolutely drunk to read these, and possibly high on opium as well.* I don’t mean this in a bad way! Absinthe, I think, is the way to go. If you want to smoke a hookah and be in Istanbul as well, just to get the feel right, we’re down with that.
Sanditon: With its emphasis on health fads, I do see Sanditon as a breakfast book. You can do the straightforward hippie thing with yogurt and granola, or go all ironic with croissants and coffee. I seem to see you doing this in Paris, I don’t know why. Can you even get granola in Paris?
As a final note, I feel that all Jane Austen is most properly accompanied by chocolate. Dark, rich, delicious chocolate. Any other suggestions are optional. Readers, what do you think?
*Austenacious does not endorse the use of illegal drugs, even if they are picturesque. Note that absinthe is not illegal in the U.S. anymore. Yay!
Photo credit: ©Ed Yourdon. Used under Creative Commons licensing.
So recently, the director of Aisha, the new Bollywood remake of Emma, said that her movie isn’t women-centric.
With all due respect: Yes, it is. If it’s a faithful adaptation of Emma, it’s primarily from the female perspective. It’s about a woman who mostly sticks her nose into other women’s lives. Those women respond, or don’t. Women! Women everywhere! Definitely lady-centric.
….Your point?
Listen. I get it. I know that men don’t generally go to “women’s” movies, though nobody seems to mind taking my lady-dollars when I go see Vin Diesel do his thing. I know that, from a marketing perspective, you and your studio might prefer to step away from the looming Chick Flick label—after all, it’s not like “chicks” have any money, or like to spend time at the theater, or eat concessions, or bring their friends (who, remember, also have no money) along.
But denying the prevalence of women in your film isn’t helping. It’s one thing to emphasize the ways in which Aisha, or Emma, might appeal universally—to say that women aren’t the only ones who find themselves wrong, and that women aren’t the only ones who fall in love, and that the experiences of a fictional woman might still be of interest to those who aren’t women, just as the experiences of a fictional men can certainly be of interest to those who aren’t men. But to say “this movie isn’t about women, so you should come and see it” plays into the exact logical loophole you’re trying to avoid. I think what you want to say is, “This movie is about a woman, and it has characters and a plot, just like man movies!” Or, “This movie is about a woman, but you don’t have to show your Girl Card at the door!” Or maybe just, “This movie is about a woman. Come on in.”
Whether you call it literary breaking and entering or the greatest publishing scheme of the new millennium, surely the Austen mash-up trend rates some thought from the Austen community, right? And yet. Love it or hate it, readers, this market isn’t living up to its potential. In fact, we at Austenacious have come up with a new technique by which publishers could amuse/alienate twice as many readers with each attempt! Not all mashups need involve Jay-Z, the walking dead, or anything trendy at all, really: by mashing Austen novels up with other classic literature, we see the rationalizing force of Jane on some decidedly harebrained stories, as well as some extra adventure for the ladies and gentlemen of the Austen canon. What could possibly go wrong?
A few examples:
Detective Sherlock Holmes investigates a murder in Grace Church Street, Cheapside, London: a sweet-tempered newlywed from the country has offed her uppity sister-in-law, a fact he deduces from traces of poisoned wedding cake (a double wedding!) and the fact that neither the guilty party nor her equally nice husband can lie worth a darn. The murderer’s smarter but less-pretty sister may have aided and abetted.
On one of her many walks, Marianne Dashwood falls down a mysterious hole, drinks potion left by a stranger, shrinks (which is what happens when we drink potions left by strangers), and ends up in a magical and dangerous fantasy land. There’s bird-head croquet with Lady Middleton and tea with Johnny Depp. Eventually, she finds it was all a dream and that she has learned precisely nothing about controlling her emotions or anything else remotely useful in life.
The Bennet girls encounter four Civil War-era sisters from a Transcendentalist family in Massachusetts; a good time is had by all, including many picnics, though the youngest from each family duke it out for the attention of all eleven (combined) relatives. The eldest sisters atone for all wrongs by sheer force of their goodness, as the third-oldest play a duet on the piano.
Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth visit a lighthouse either near Lyme or the Isle of Skye, an experience colored by an unreliable narrator and the problems of memory and perception. Nothing else happens, but it’s significant. Later, the author walks into a river with stones in her pockets.
Haters Gonna Hate Edition, Parts I and II:
Catherine Earnshaw wanders the moors until a chance encounter with the post-Northanger Abbey Catherine Morland persuades her to give up the obsession with Gothic bad boys. Heathcliff gives up. The sun comes out, and everybody realizes things weren’t so bad after all.
In a fit of pique, Emma Woodhouse runs off and finds adventure on the river and/or in caves (possibly around Box Hill), and teaches generations of American high school students about racism and the dangers of picnics.
Emily Bronte and Mark Twain, née Samuel Clemens, each die a second death of embarrassment and rage. Jane, in an impressive show of self-control, manages not to laugh in public. A new literary sub-genre is born.
Readers?
So, how can I put this? Let’s see. Okay, so. Sometimes, it seems to me that Austen adaptations are…shall we say, remiss in failing to offer a satisfying ending? Failing to seal the deal, if you know what I mean? Sure, Lizzy and Darcy end up in the Carriage of Loooove at the end of the 1995 adaptation, but what’s with the little peck as they’re driving off (frozen for effect, even—what, BBC, do you think we didn’t see what you did there, you dirty cheaters)? And, really, nothing for Jane and Bingley? They’re going to get a complex, people. Even Emma Thompson’s Elinor promptly explodes with emotion when Edward turns out not to be married—but does she sweep him off his feet and carry him away, complete with soaring music and distracting crane-shot camera work? Spoiler alert: she does not. And oh, sure, maybe it’s not in the book, exactly, but then neither is a thirty-six-year-old Elinor, a Jane Bennet that looks vaguely like a Greek statue, or that awesome cake on a pedestal (with ribbons!) at the end of Sense and Sensibility. I stand by what I say: more kissing, please! Jane won’t mind.
Thankfully, there are some recent Austen adaptations that seek to remedy the situation, and I think this sort of thing requires some, uh, research. Or, more specifically, a poll. Here are seven ending scenes from relatively recent Austen adaptations, all of them containing some sort of kissy-kissy true-love moment. Inquiring minds want to know: Austenacious readers, which is your favorite, and why? If there’s one that isn’t listed here, what is it (and why couldn’t we find it)?
Hit it.
Pride and Prejudice 1995
Mansfield Park 1999
Pride and Prejudice 2005
Persuasion 2007
Northanger Abbey 2007
Mansfield Park 2007
Emma 2010
Mrs. Fitzpatrick's own mother!
Dear Mother,
On this special day, I’d like to thank you for introducing me to many fine authors throughout my childhood, all of them sarcastic, most of them British, and one of them Jane Austen!
I’d also like to thank you for not being a Jane Austen mother. I’d like to thank you for not giving me away in childhood, like Fanny Price’s mother (and thank goodness you didn’t have to). I’d like to thank you for not sitting on the sofa playing with your pug dog while my evil aunt ruined my childhood, ala Lady Bertram. And I’m certainly glad you didn’t die in my formative years like Mrs. Woodhouse and Lady Elliot. Though, if you had been like Lady Susan, I might have wanted you to! Most of all, I’m glad you didn’t try to force me into marrying my own cousin, because he may be cute like Mr. Darcy or ugly like Mr. Collins, but either way, EWW! You haven’t even been explaining all about my love life to anyone who would listen, like the amiable Mrs. Bennet. Geez, Mom, how do you expect me to get a husband, anyway?!
That’s right, you didn’t ever pressure me one way or another. Like Mrs. Dashwood, you were always supportive but discreet, respecting my privacy. It’s just lucky Mr. Fitzpatrick didn’t turn out to be the Willoughby type. (For the record, gentle readers, Mom’s reaction to my announcement that I was getting married was, “Do I know him?” Sarcastic through and through, that’s my aged relative!)
To the other mothers out there: take a moment to reflect on your behavior. Have you emulated any of Jane Austen’s mothers? If so, which ones? Because if you’ve taught your daughters to read Jane Austen (and I hope you have), they’ll know how to deal with you!
Likewise, daughters, thank your mothers for any non-cousin-marrying behavior. It’s hard to be a mother, so they tell me, and Jane Austen certainly showed us how low the bar could go.
So, Mom, happy Mother’s Day! I hope you enjoy our traditional out-loud reading of “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” by Mark Twain. We can certainly follow it up with some P. G. Wodehouse or Jane Austen if you want!
Your loving daughter,
Mrs. Fitzpatrick
Photo credit: ©2009 Heather Dever. All rights reserved.
To anybody who’s ever said to an English major, “Do you want fries with that?” and then laughed like you made it up on the spot, we at Austenacious have a message for you. Have you not seen the Jane Austen Fight Club? Sure, we may actually be working in fast-food restaurants, but social scientists, in particular, should know: we are lit nerds, and we are coming for you.
You see, professor Michael Chwe of UCLA is presenting his paper “Jane Austen and the Prehistory of Game Theory” this Friday, April 23. Apparently Jane, as the supergenius we all know her to have been, exemplified the ins and outs of Game Theory in her novels—nearly 150 years before Game Theory was even invented.
REPRESENT.
Get this: “Austen’s novels do not simply provide interesting “case material” for the game theorist to analyze, but are themselves very ambitious and wide-ranging theoretically, providing insights not yet superseded by modern social science.” Jane, it seems, acts like a rational choice theorist, prioritizing social strategy and beneficial partnerships while simultaneously acknowledging the volatility of social relations: essentially, the heroines of the Austen canon strive to make wise choices, in the academic, social-scientific sense of the word, all while navigating the changeable social seas of rural Regency England.
Excellent, minions! What discipline shall we invade next? Shall we begin with “Theories of Meteorology in Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility” or with “Precursors to the Martha Graham Dance Company as Seen in Jane Austen’s Emma“? “Athleticism and the Great American Pastime in Persuasion,” or “Jane Austen: General Patton in a Dress”? The opportunities for academic evangelism/imperialism are endless! Regency gowns for all!
Ah, Jane. Changing the world, one free lunchtime lecture at a time.
With the return of Glee to the weekly TV schedule—finally—I think we’ve all been reminded of a new truth universally acknowledged: everything would be better, Austen novels included, if everybody had at least the option of bursting into a well-chosen pop song from time to time. You know, revealing their places in the collective consciousness, choreography optional (but encouraged). Lizzy belts out a girl-power ballad—ill practiced, of course—at the height of her emotional turmoil? Knightley takes the edge off with a few bars of air guitar and a phantom drum solo? I’m telling you: Jane Austen might roll in her grave, but Jane Lynch would make a fine Lady Catherine.
Am I right?
Here are a few Austen characters and their likely anthems:
Captain Wentworth: “I’m on a Boat” – The Lonely Island
Anne Elliot: “I Will Always Love You“* – Dolly Parton
*The original version with the sad monologue in the middle, because that speech is exactly the gracious and heartbroken speech Anne would make to Wentworth—complete with poignant pauses every few words—and nobody can convince me otherwise.
Mr. Bingley: “Mr. Brightside” – The Killers
Mr. Collins: “Hell No” – Sondre Lerche & Regina Spektor
Charlotte Lucas: “The Sound of Settling” – Death Cab for Cutie
Mary Bennet: “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out” – Cat Stevens
Catherine Morland: “Miss Teen Wordpower” – The New Pornographers
Isabella Thorpe: “We Used to Be Friends” – The Dandy Warhols
Marianne Dashwood: “I Feel It All” – Feist
John Willoughby: “It’s Raining Men” – The Weather Girls
Readers, who are we missing?
Come one, come all, to the Jane Austen Fight Club, where the very best from Jane’s world and the very best from the non-Austen world (sometimes) match wits and fists for all to see! The prizes: pride, honor, and the adoration of Jane fans everywhere, or a “The first rule of fight club is, we don’t talk about Mr. Darcy” t-shirt and some quality Regency-era medical care for all your combat-induced wound-care needs!
Today’s contestants:
Captain Frederick “I’m on a boat” Wentworth, naval hero and longtime piner after one Anne Elliot, and Mr. George “Yes, I am awesome, why do you ask?” Knightley! Both do right by their respective lady loves; both live somewhat in the shadow of Fitzwilliam Darcy; only one will walk away from this match with his face and his reputation intact!
In their corners:
Captain Wentworth is, well, on a boat. Actually, he’s in charge of the boat. He probably has a sword, possibly a gun, and for all we know, he’s thick as thieves with some tentacled beast/kraken/JAWS that he calls up from the deep in moments of stress. He’s also fiercely loyal, extraordinarily patient, and—we have it on good authority—the kind of guy who turns heads but doesn’t really own a mirror, if you know what we mean. Basically, he’s a kindly, romantic pirate. Best of all possible worlds!
Mr. Knightley likes moonlit strolls on warm evenings, doesn’t mind going out of his way to see his lady love, and has a fine air and—ahem—way of walking. He’s honest, affectionate, and filled with integrity, and he handles his slightly overbearing future father-in-law without breaking a sweat. He’s the kind of guy you’d want on your arm at all those neighborhood balls, for sure.
Handicaps:
Wentworth is, well, actually sort of a pirate. A legalized pirate, but a pirate. And if the Jack Sparrow lifestyle doesn’t read as a deterrent, exactly, try this: he was too proud to come back to Anne well beyond the Charlotte York “half as long as the relationship” rule, and then he “admitted the attentions of two young ladies at once”! Just imagine!
Knightley is rather disposed to being right. Constantly, obnoxiously right. Sigh.
Decision:
Captain Wentworth in a close but ultimately not-that-close competition. Knightley’s a contender, but seriously? VIRTUOUS PIRATE! Adventurer/keeper of flame wins every time! Nice try, George. Why don’t you, like, go take a walk or something?
I know I’m no fun, but I think we’ve established that Jane Austen prequels, sequels, mash-ups, and other literary Photoshoppings make my heart sink and my blood pressure rise. It’s not that I don’t appreciate fandom (heaven knows I appreciate fandom), or that I don’t have a sense of humor about Jane—I do, and anything else would miss the point. This isn’t even a Jane Austen Hates You post; it’s just that, well, I don’t want the Darcys’ sex life play-by-play, and I don’t want to see the Bennet sisters fight monsters (sea, nocturnal blood-sucking, or otherwise), and I don’t want to hear about Jane coping as a swingin’ modern-day vampire looking for love in the big city.
So you’d think my old-lady fists would be shaking full-force over Jane via Bollywood, in the form of Gurinder Chadha’s 2004 remake Bride and Prejudice and the upcoming Emma remake, Aisha.
To which I say, who doesn’t love a good bhangra number?
For me, it’s all a question of basic (if implied) intent. Austen sequels, mash-ups, and the like so often come across as attempts either to paint Jane in a hipper, funnier light—as if she needs the help—or to add to the canon she left behind. The implication is that Jane’s work has no place in contemporary culture if we don’t see it through the familiar lenses of bodice-rippers/Sex and the City/debilitating irony; even straight-up sequels set in Austen’s universe, which are clearly labors of love on the parts of the authors, tend to imply that Jane’s work deserves some kind of follow-up (and, with a brand of guts that I personally could never muster, that they are the one to provide it!). On the other hand, Bollywood Jane is—so far—a work of pure appreciation. In Bride and Prejudice, nobody ever implies that Austen needs changing or supplementing, or that the Indian audience wouldn’t relate to a straight re-telling. There’s no sense that the original novel would be better with a modern-day Indian setting; if anything, it’s the other way around. In fact, the change of scenery and style occurs almost separately from the story, and function as a tribute to the universality of Austen’s themes—as the setting changes, the narrative and key themes remain surprisingly the same.
Besides, Bollywood Jane gives a whole new meaning to the term “choreographed group dance.” I love a ball, indeed:
If Aisha can offer the same thoughtful, affectionate take on Emma, well, bring on the dhol.
