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.
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.
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?
Gracechurch Street, London
Miss Hale asks: What is with the ____shire business in Austen novels? When they redacted the name?
Mrs. Fitzpatrick answers: Miss Hale, there’s not very much, if any, solid information on this point, though plenty of idle speculation. A similar question about Jane Eyre on Askville came up with the ideas that it was done to protect people’s privacy, or to protect the author from looking silly by people saying “There’s no Blankshire Street in Fayetteville!”, which you know they would. One Wessex resident posited that her island was so small that people would know where any town or factory was or wasn’t. Actually, I think that’s more likely a problem today with Ye Olde Worlde Wide Webbe than it was in days when people didn’t get about so much.
Cliff Notes (yes, yes) speculates that by using blank spaces, Jane Austen’s readers could add whatever names they wanted for a personalized story, but apart from the very un-Austen-like quality of this idea, a quick flip through the Austen novels shows that Jane was actually pretty specific about her places. She gives real counties where her action takes place, and uses real cities and towns like London, Exeter, and Bath. She’ll even say things like “the village was 16 miles from London,” and the street the Gardiners live on in Pride and Prejudice, Gracechurch Street, is a real street. (See above.) I’ve always assumed the villages themselves where her heroines live are made up, and a quick search on Google Maps doesn’t give any likely results.
The only names she blanked, as far as I can tell—feel free to correct me, alert readers!—were the names of towns where people changed horses on journeys and the names of regiments in the army. I can see blanking the names of pit stops as an I-don’t-know-and-I-don’t-care measure. (Quick! If you’re traveling by bus from Washington, DC, to San Francisco, where are your stopovers? No Internet allowed!) As for the names of regiments, that was likely to make sure she wasn’t accusing the fine gentlemen of any particular regiment of misconduct. But it’s also a historic and still-used way of referring to British regiments. In this context I would just like to point out that if you want to design a website for the Blankshires, here is your assignment. (Fans of Blackadder will especially appreciate this link, and I think it’s for real.) These days Blankshire seems to be a common way to refer to a generic county, similar to “Main Street, USA.”
So, Miss Hale, there you have it. Miss Austen didn’t do nearly as much blanking as other people did back then, though she did make stuff up. There’s even one real name I’ve always been amused that she used, and that’s Churchill. In Emma she describes Frank Churchill as coming from “a great Yorkshire family.” I wonder if she knew about the Churchills of Blenheim Palace, who were important in her day, though they didn’t come from Yorkshire. She couldn’t have known about Sir Winston Churchill, of course, and I like to speculate that he’s a descendant of Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax. You never know.
Photo credit:
Last night was the second episode of BBC 1′s new version of Emma. Reviews have been mixed. As Allison Pearson at the Daily Mail noted, the producers have been patting themselves on the back for taking the stuffiness out of Jane Austen’s characters and relationships to make them more palatable for a modern audience. (Whatever!) Apparently Romola Garai talks like a flapper and Jonny Lee Miller just isn’t man enough for the job of Mr. Knightley. So at least we Americans can rest easy being spared all this. (Ha! As if we wouldn’t love to pass judgment on our own viewing!)
You know, though, Emma is kind of stuffy. She’s an interfering know-it-all who, as Jane Austen famously remarked, “no one will much like but myself.” And a lot of people don’t—Austenacious’s own Miss Osborne, for a start. And people get vicious about her, just vicious, like John Preston at the Telegraph: “You will want to kick her downstairs.” I identify with Emma. Sure, her life may be easy in a lot of ways, but she gets stuff wrong. All the time. In her, I hear myself giving friends advice on who did and who didn’t love them—and what the hell did I know about it? Some readers just can’t seem to forgive her for trying to improve Harriet Smith’s life, but you never hear a peep out of them about Mr. Darcy doing the same thing to Mr. Bingley and Jane. (Is this because we don’t see Bingley’s grief, or even Jane’s grief, as plainly as Harriet’s?) Why isn’t he branded an interfering know-it-all too?
Emma’s not your typical heroine—that’s Jane Fairfax, the lovely orphan destined for governesshood who miraculously marries a wealthy and devoted man. Emma gets to watch her heroinizing all over the place from the sidelines, and she’s human enough to admit she can’t stand her, for reasons that sound petty when written 200 years ago, but authentic when you think about people you don’t like.
And her little flirtation with Frank Churchill? Oh lord, let’s not even go there! I’m sure we’ve all had that experience in one form or another.
Emma’s a poor little rich girl, who has everything she wants, and never gets anything about anybody right. Maybe that’s why lots of people hate her, but we interfering know-it-alls, the ones who make snide, witty cracks without thinking and are deeply sorry afterward, who sometimes don’t say what we mean or mean what we say, but wish we could do both, and who, most of all, wish we had a clue about what was going on around us, we love our Miss Woodhouse. She is good peoples.
