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?
Well, Charlotte, you’ve won.
The Brits—who, of course, invented romance, what with all that sweeping around the moors, plus Charles/Diana and the classy trysts we see in Hello! magazine—have voted Jane Eyre‘s Mr. Rochester the most romantic man in literature, bumping our Mr. Darcy down to number-three status. In an impressive display of gracious victory, Andrew McCarthy of the Bronte Parsonage Museum at Haworth called Darcy (and everybody else in Jane’s world, which is a nice touch) “irritating.” We love you, too, Bronteites!
They’re not wrong, of course. As a romantic hero—and especially as a Romantic hero—Rochester’s brooding and breathy ways wipe the floor with Darcy, who is only awkward and devoted and does not lie about keeping a crazy wife locked in the attic. Rochester, after all, has the choice of wealthy and accomplished ladies, and turns his back on all of them to marry the plain and earnest governess—and acts as if she’s everything he’s ever wanted, singlehandedly turning her from dreary and dutiful orphan to love-story heroine. Darcy comes around eventually, but the grand gesture and love for the sake of love (flying in the face of social convention) isn’t what he’s about—and I’d propose that Jane (Austen, not Eyre; this is getting confusing) wouldn’t have him any other way, not being one for the Brontes’ brand of gushiness in the first place. In any case, does Lizzy hear Darcy’s supernatural voice echoing through the Lake Country, calling her back to her true love when she’s homeless and sleeping under a bush? No. No, she does not. So case closed, really.
Incidentally, Jane Austen’s contemporary Lord Byron comes up a lot in these conversations, which I suppose is all well and good if you want a “mad, bad, and dangerous-to-know” Sixth Baron poking about in your love life. Personally, I’m on the fence about this.
What I’m not sure about is whether they should be asking us about romance at all—if this list is any indication, we sure know how to pick ‘em. Clearly, we like the bad boys, and not without—let’s just say it—a bit of a masochistic bent. Rhett Butler? Heathcliff? I’m almost surprised Darcy’s ranked so highly–the good guys, the ones you’d eventually take home to meet your parents, are most definitely towards the bottom of the list (this, of course, being the crux of the issue—if they’d do okay at brunch with Mom and Dad, to paraphrase Harry Burns, perhaps “humpin’ and pumpin’ is not [their] strong suit”). What do we think about this, readers? Does romance generally equal a certain sense of choosing to be dominated? Is our love of exotic literary men our safe way of indulging the desire for a romantic (but not particularly kind or respectful) hero in our lives? Do we really think Heathcliff is that hot?
In any case, Bronte fans, congratulations—truly. But if we catch you outside our windows, moaning our names in the night, we’re taking the trophy back. You’ve been warned.
