Jane Austen and the Vicar of Dibley

Thanks to Netflix, my houseguests and I are watching the Vicar of Dibley and savoring each episode, for we are viewing the last season, in which (be still my beating heart) Richard Armitage plays Geraldine’s swain Harry, and Jane Austen’s novels become a point of discussion. Dawn French as Geraldine is at the top of her comedic game in this series, which was woefully short and had too few episodes to please this Dibley addict.

In the The Handsome Stranger, Harry and Geraldine discuss a scene in Sense and Sensibility. (Click on image.)

Richard Armitage and Dawn French in the Vicar of Dibley

If you have a Netflix account or can watch the videos streaming somewhere, I highly recommend this funny, warm-hearted series. The fact that the Vicar is a Jane Austen fan put more icing on the cake for me.

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Sense and Sensibility The Musical Costumes Designed by ESosa

Inquiring Readers: This post combines two of my passions: Jane Austen and the Regency Era and Project Runway. Emilio Sosa’s (Esosa’s) beautiful fashions earned him the runner up position in Project Runway Season 7. Two of his sketches  for the costumes of Sense and Sensibility the Musical are included below.

CASTING ANNOUNCED FOR

WORLD PREMIERE OF

“SENSE & SENSIBILITY THE MUSICAL”

Image used with permission, @Carla Befera & Co.

 

The Denver Center Theatre Company’s (DCTC) world premiere production of SENSE & SENSIBILITY THE MUSICAL,with book and lyrics by Jeffrey Haddow and music by Neal Hampton, will receive its world premiere production April 5 – May 26, 2013 in The Stage Theatre at the Denver Center for Performing Arts at 14^th and Champa.

Starring in the pivotal Dashwood sister roles will be Stephanie Rothenberg as Elinor and Mary Michael Patterson as Marianne. Ms. Rothenberg made her Broadway debut last season as Rosemary opposite Nick Jonas in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and then starred as Princess Anne in the Guthrie Theater’s world premiere musical, Roman Holiday. Ms. Patterson had her Broadway debut in the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Tony-winning revival of Anything Goes.

The sisters’ romantic entanglements will be portrayed by three of Broadway’s leading men. Nick Verina, seen as Young Ben in the recent Broadway revival of Follies with Bernadette Peters, will take on the role of Edward; Jeremiah James, who starred as Billy Bigelow in the West End revival of Carousel and as Curly in the first national tour of Oklahoma!, will portray Willoughby; and Robert Petkoff, Broadway’s recent Lord Evelyn Oakleigh opposite Sutton Foster in Anything Goes, will be the upstanding Colonel Brandon.

Additional Broadway talent joining the cast includes Ed Dixon (Anything Goes, Sunday in the Park with George, Mary Poppins, How the Grinch Stole Christmas) as Sir John; Ruth Gottschall (Mary Poppins, The Music Man, Funny Thing…Forum) as Mrs. Jennings, and Joanna Glushak (Sunday in the Park with George, Urinetown, Les Misérables) as Mrs. Dashwood/Mrs. Ferrars.

Logo used with permission, courtesy @Carla Befera & Co.

The production boasts a formidable production team, including Set Designer Allen Moyer, Tony nominee for Grey Gardens; Costume Designer ESosa,2012 Tony nominee for The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and “Project Runway” finalist; acclaimed Lighting Designer James F. Ingalls; Sound Design byCraig Breitenbach (world premiere of The Laramie Project); Music Supervisor David Loud, whose recent Broadway productions include The Gershwin’sPorgy and Bess and The Scottsboro Boys; Music Director and Conductor Paul Masse, whose Broadway credits include The Scottsboro Boys, as well asCurtains, Chicago, Avenue Q, 42nd Street, and Gypsy, and Orchestrations are by Kim Scharnberg and Neal Hampton.

Producing Artistic Director Kent Thompson selected SENSE & SENSIBILITY THE MUSICAL after it became a runaway hit at the 2012 Colorado New Play Summit.

Esosa was one of the contestants in Project Runway 7, and won runner up. Image Credit: Lifetime Television

About ESosa, the Costume Designer

ESosa, costume designer for Sense & Sensibility The Musical, based on Jane Austen’s much loved first novel, moves effortlessly between the fashion world and the theatre world. This rising fashion star, better known as Emilio to his Project Runway fans, is also widely admired for finishing second in Season 7 as well as in the most recent Project Runway All-Stars. Yet ESosa has supported himself for much of his career by designing costumes for more than 75 productions regionally and on Broadway.

Today he sees himself as a fashion designer first: “I’ve had a wonderful career in theatre and I’m very blessed, but when I look in the mirror, I always see a fashion designer first and a theatre designer second. I use elements of both, because my fashion informs my theatre and my theatre informs my fashion. They go hand in hand.”

So when conceiving the costumes for Sense & Sensibility, he approached it as a time-travelling fashion designer working in 1810: “I start by designing clothing, and then I worry about theatricalizing the garments later.”  The Regency period of Austen’s novels, recognized most of all for the signature Empire waistline of the ladies’ dresses, provided an abundance of elements to work with: stripes which allow for the creation of chevrons and diamonds, but also florals, polka dots, brocades, lace, jewelry, chiffon. “What was big in this period was transparency. It was a very sexy period for women and men. Bosoms were big, and bosoms don’t go out of style.”

And of course color. On Project Runway ESosa became known for his bold use of color. Will any of that be on display?

“Oh yes, we’ll be playing with bolder colors. You have some characters that call for it, like Lucy. She’s more of a free spirit. For me color is an indication of personality.” The two Dashwood sisters will be dressed in blues (Elinor) and pinks (Marianne). One can only imagine the color palette he’ll come up with for Mrs. [Jennings], the boisterous and comic busybody.

How will this production differ from fastidiously researched film and TV versions of Austen’s oeuvre that periodically come to us from across the pond?

“We’re going to be true to the period,” says ESosa, “but we’re going to experiment with color and pattern and make it visually exciting.” Marcia Milgrom Dodge, director of the musical, wanted to bring his “fearless fashion sensibility” to the refined, stately Regency fashions. “The world of Jane Austen is often depicted in film and television with slavish authenticity,” she explains. “I wanted someone who would honor the period but also be bold and find modern gestures that will illuminate character and help the audience identify with them in a very immediate way.  With his keen fabric choices, witty accessories and smart use of color, ESosa is exactly that designer to bring these beloved characters to vivid life.”

As far as the men are concerned, the designer says he’ll be staying very true to the period’s silhouette—tailcoats and top hats—again taking some liberties with color and fabric selections: “Where I have my freedom is in the color combinations, the details that we add, the shaping. We will tweak it a little. My goal is always to make my actors feel and look good and able to tell the story.”

Oddly enough, ESosa says he is more often recognized as a former Project Runway contestant by theatre people than by people from the fashion industry. Perhaps more theatre people watch the show than those who do fashion for a living? But the show has helped raise his profile in both worlds. He believes a series like Project Runway can do a lot of good: “It’s a great platform for American fashion, and I’m a great proponent of Made in America. I think as a country we need to support our homegrown artists, especially in fashion.”

Born in the Dominican Republic and brought to the United States at age 3, ESosa was raised in Fort Apache, a tough area of the South Bronx. His interest in art and fashion eventually took him out of the Bronx, first to Manhattan’s High School of Art and Design and then to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. One of his early professional jobs was as a personal dresser for Judith Jameson and as an apprentice costume-maker for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre.

The story about how he landed his first Broadway production, Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog, shows the moxie underlying ESosa’s low-key demeanor. Running into Public Theater artistic director George C. Wolfe in the streets of New York, he summoned his courage and went up to him, announcing “Mr. Wolfe, I’m the best costume designer you’ve never worked with.”

“George likes that kind of bravado,” the designer explained. “He was interested. …They brought me in and I had a great, great meeting with him.” Needless to say he got the job and even went on to design Suzan Lori Park’s wedding dress.

ESosa’s two-track career continues full steam ahead. The fashion designer recently launched his own clothing line and has shown collections in New York, Miami and Paris. The costume designer won a Lucile Lortel award for Lynn Nottage’s By the Way, Meet Vera Stark and was nominated for a Tony Award for his work on Porgy and Bess. He feels that his burgeoning fashion fame will not pull him away from the theatre: “I will always have a presence in the theatre. It’s just a matter of finding the balance. It’s part of my life. It’s part of my DNA.”

More About ESosa

More About Sense & Sensibility The Musical

April 5 – May 26 • Stage Theatre
Producing Partners: The Anschutz Foundation, Joy S. Burns, Daniel L. Ritchie, June Travis
Sponsored by The Ritz-Carlton, Denver and U.S. Bank
Signed & Audio Described • May 19, 1:30pm

SENSE & SENSIBILITY THE MUSICAL is based on the novel by Jane Austen. Book and lyrics by Jeffrey Haddow, Music by Neal Hampton. Directed and choreographed by Marcia Milgrom Dodge. 

 

Performance Schedule

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday performances at 6:30pm

Friday and Saturday evening performances at 7:30pm

Saturday and Sunday matinees at 1:30pm

No children under four admitted.

 

Tickets and Subscriptions

Tickets ($55 – $65) are available now by calling 303.893.4100 or 800.641.1222 (TTY 303.893.9582). Subscribers enjoy free ticket exchanges, payment plans, priority offers to Broadway shows, discounted extra tickets, a dedicated VIP hotline, free events including talkbacks and receptions, and the best seats at the best prices, guaranteed.

SENSE & SENSIBILITY THE MUSICAL is presented by special arrangement with Betty Ann Besch Solinger and Alice Chebba Walsh. This production of SENSE & SENSIBILITY THE MUSICAL, generously sponsored by U.S. Bank and The Ritz-Carlton, is part of the Denver Center Theatre Companyand Denver Center Attractions (DCA) 2012/13 seasons. SENSE & SENSIBILITY THE MUSICAL Producing Partners: The Anschutz Foundation, Joy S. Burns, Daniel L. Ritchie, June Travis. DCTC is generously supported by Larimer Square, The Steinberg Charitable Trust and Wells Fargo Advisors. DCA is generously supported by United Airlines and Vectra Bank. Media sponsors are The Denver Post and CBS4.  The Denver Center for the Performing Arts is supported in part by the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District.  Please visit our website at www.denvercenter.org

**Please be advised that The Denver Center for the Performing Arts – denvercenter.org – is the ONLY authorized online seller of tickets for Denver Center Attractions (the Broadway touring productions) and the Denver Center Theatre Company (the resident theatre company productions). Currently there are scalpers, also known as ‘second party vendors,’ selling tickets online at a rate more than double the standard price – and up. Tickets bought through these vendors MAY NOT BE VALID. You could not only be refused admission, but also lose your entire investment.

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Jane Austen’s Nephew Edward Learns she is an Author

Lady writing at her desk, 1813, Ackermann fashion plate, morning dress.

It is a truth universally known that during her lifetime, Jane Austen published her novels as “a lady.”  While some in the family knew about her writing success – her brother Henry and sister Cassandra swiftly come to mind – many did not, including the cousins. When a genteel woman like Jane was described as being at “work”, the phrase meant needlework and sewing clothes for the poor basket. A lady simply did not sully her hands by toiling at a trade. Jane did not want it bandied about that she was the author of Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility, but her proud siblings, Henry in particular, couldn’t restrain themselves and bragged about their talented sister.  The word got out and the least well-kept secret was the name of the lady who wrote those delightful novels.

James Edward Austen, the son of Jane’s eldest brother James, and a favorite nephew of hers, discovered at school in 1813 that his favorite aunt was the author of two novels he had enjoyed immensely. The 11-12 year-old was so delighted with the news that he penned an enthusiastic poem about his discovery and sent it to her:

To Miss J. Austen

No words can express, my dear Aunt, my surprise
Or make you conceive how I opened my eyes,
Like a pig Butcher Pile has just struck with his knife,
When I heard for the very first time in my life
That I had the honour to have a relation
Whose works were dispersed throughout the whole of the nation.

I assure you, however, I’m terribly glad;
Oh dear! just to think (and the thought drives me mad)
That you made the Middletons, Dashwoods, and all,
And that you (not young Ferrars) found out that a ball
May be given in cottages never so small.
And though Mr. Collins, so grateful for all,
Will Lady de Bourgh his dear Patroness call,
‘Tis to your ingenuity he really owed
His living, his wife, and his humble abode.

James Edward Austen as a young man.

When Edward Austen-Leigh, as he became later known in life, was 72, he penned his now famous Memoirs of Jane Austen,  leaving a legacy of the memories that he and his cousins retained a half century after her death. Had Edward not embarked on this quest, his memories (he was 16 when Jane died), and those of Caroline Austen and Fanny Knatchbull, might not have been captured in print. While his book preserved those fading memories, they also “sanitized” his aunt Jane’s reputation, erasing much of her sharp tongue and wit and replacing it with sweetness of character:

The grave closed over my aunt fifty-two years ago; and during that long period no idea of writing her life had been entertained by any of her family. Her nearest relatives, far from making provision for such a purpose, had actually destroyed many of the letters and papers by which it might have been facilitated. They were influenced, I believe, partly by an extreme dislike to publishing private details, and partly by never having assumed that the world would take so strong and abiding an interest in her works as to claim her name as public property. It was therefore necessary for me to draw upon recollections rather than on written documents for my materials; while the subject itself supplied me with nothing striking or prominent with which to arrest the attention of the reader…

Edward Austen-Leigh at the time he wrote Memoirs of Jane Austen

The motive which at last induced me to make the attempt [to write this memoir] is exactly expressed in the passage prefixed to these pages. I thought that I saw something to be done: knew of no one who could do it but myself, and so was driven to the enterprise. I am glad that I have been able to finish my work. As a family record it can scarcely fail to be interesting to those relatives who must ever set a high value on their connection with Jane Austen, and to them I especially dedicate it; but as I have been asked to do so, I also submit it to the censure of the public, with all its faults both of deficiency and redundancy. I know that its value in their eyes must depend, not on any merits of its own, but on the degree of estimation in which my aunt’s works may still be held; and indeed I shall esteem it one of the strongest testimonies ever borne to her talents, if for her sake an interest can be taken in so poor a sketch as I have been able to draw.

Bray Vicarage:
Sept. 7, 1869.

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All Roads Lead to Austen: Book Giveaway and Q&A with Author Amy Elizabeth Smith

Inquiring Readers: All Roads Lead to Austen: A Yearlong Journey with Jane Austen by Amy Elizabeth Smith is now available through Sourcebooks. I will be reviewing this fabulous, intelligently written book later this week. Meanwhile, enjoy my interview with Ms. Smith about her Latin American adventure as she discusses Jane Austen’s novels en Español with Latin American book groups. All readers of this blog from any country can enter a contest to win a copy of this charming book. Please click on this link and leave your comment. Make sure to leave a way I can reach you. Contest is now closed!

Amy, I love that Jane Austen, a spinster who didn’t travel far or frequently in her lifetime, is so beloved the world wide over. Which country surprised you most in terms of her popularity there and why?

I found translations of Austen left and right in bookstores in Argentina. I met plenty of people there who’d read Austen and liked her or who’d seen film adaptations of her novels and enjoyed them. And the Jane Austen Society of Buenos Aires was the first Austen society in South America. But sometimes it’s hard not to be influenced by stereotypes about people — I’d heard that Chileans were “the English of South America,” so somehow I thought Austen would be popular in Chile. But when I was living in Santiago, the capital (which I absolutely loved), a number of people told me Austen’s not very well known in Chile.

As for Argentineans, I’d heard over and over from people in Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, and other places that Argentineans are, well, pretty arrogant. Other latinos kept passing on jokes like, “When Argentineans see lightening, what do they think is happening? They think it’s God, taking their picture!” So, I guess I got the idea that Argentineans might think Austen was stuffy or old fashioned or some such thing. But she’s popular, at least in Buenos Aires, according to my experiences.

What aspects of that particular culture do you think Jane would have enjoyed the most?

Bookstores, bookstores, bookstores. I had great experiences in bookstores all over Latin America, but Argentina — and Buenos Aires specifically — really is the bookstore capital of South America. It’s so easy for us now to take for granted that we can get our hands on just about any book we want, any time. We’ve got access to bookstores, next-day delivery with websites, and good public libraries. And electronic readers have made it easier than ever — just order whatever book you want, wherever you are on the planet! But imagine what it must have been like for an imaginative, inquisitive reader like Austen — how often did she ever set foot in a bookstore? How often could she afford to pay for books from a circulating library? How many books did her family or friends or neighbors actually own? I think Austen would have fainted from sheer pleasure at the sight of bookstore after bookstore on Avenida Corrientes in Buenos Aires.

Librerias Libertador: One of my favorite bookstores on Corrientes, in Buenos Aires

Jane Austen fans cross all religious boundaries. Can you identify any characteristics that Janeites share across the world, besides their obvious love for Jane Austen’s novels?

I honestly can’t speak for many places beyond Latin America (although I might try a next project in some other interesting countries!). But I suspect that there’s a kind of optimism that people — especially women — love about Austen. Her leading ladies find love, not in spite of being strong and intelligent, but because of it. That’s a pretty appealing idea in a world were, in many places, women are still told they’d better not appear too smart, or they’ll scare men off.

What were some of your most memorable experiences in writing this book?

I actually started the book while I was still traveling, although I didn’t finish it until after my trip was done. I wrote the first portion on Guatemala while I was living in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I was living well away from the tourist area, renting a partially-finished house that had glass in only one or two windows, so it was pretty noisy — street vendors would cruise by with loudspeakers, selling ice cream, vegetables, you name it. The people across the street had a huge bird caged outside their house that shrieked and chattered like a demon. And animals would wander in at will — there was one very persistent cat that kept making me jump out of my skin by appearing under my writing table with no warning.

There were animals all over the place in that neighborhood — no leash laws for dogs, and some of the neighbors had roosters and other farm animals. When I wanted a break from writing, I’d wander out to buy groceries or take my clothes to the laundromat. I always carried them in a plastic bag, and there was this goat a few houses down from me that was only tied up about half of the time. When it was loose, it usually ignored me, but when I had that plastic bag with laundry, it would come bolting after me — maybe its food came in a plastic bag, and it thought I had something good to eat? Or maybe it knew I had laundry and really wanted to eat my socks. Who knows. Sometimes I actually miss that goat — laundry day’s not the same without it.

A friendly neighborhood rooster from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Thank you, Amy, for your wonderful insights and good luck with your book. (I just love the cover!) Is there anything else you would like my readers to know about All Roads Lead to Austen?

Amy Elizabeth Smith

I had two main sources of inspiration for this book — Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran, and my own Jane Austen students at the University of the Pacific, in California. Readers can enjoy All Roads as a fun opportunity to sit back and be an armchair traveler, but I’d also love it if the book inspired some other international journey I could sit back and read about. Austen in China? Turkey? Belgium? Bora Bora? I’d love to see somebody else take on a journey like this with Jane. Even if they don’t want to write a whole book about it — I’d love to have people share reading-on-the-road stories on my website (http://allroadsleadtoausten.com/). Consider that an official invitation! And thanks so much for letting me visit here at Jane Austen’s World!

To Enter the Contest: Please make sure to leave your comment on Jane Austen Today at this link. The first two comments left on this post will be included in the random number generator drawing at midnight EST USA time on June 11. Please leave all other comments on Jane Austen Today. Make sure to leave a way I can reach you. 

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Capote Bonnet: a 19th century hat

In Sense and Sensibility 1996, Kate Winslet as Marianne wears a charming straw sun bonnet as she recuperates from her illness. When I ran across the fashion plate of a morning dress from The Gallery of Fashion, 1794-1798, I was immediately struck by the similarity, although the brim in the fashion plate is more elaborate.

Detail of a morning gown and balloon bonnet, Heideloff, The Gallery of Fashion

The magazine described the head wear as a “balloon bonnet of wicker, trimmed with broad lace. The front hair is in curls, the hind hair is turned up.”  I suspect that Lydia Bennet would have wrapped ribbons around her capote much as in the above image.

Kate Winslet’s capote is simpler, but equally charming. Capotes, or scoop-shaped bonnets, were popular in the early Regency and first made their appearance in the 1790s. The hats accommodated the modish hair styles of that era, which were short or piled on top of the head.

Bonnet, 1805-1810. Image@The Victoria & Albert Museum

Generally made to be worn outdoors, capotes were also worn as evening headwear early in the 19th century. This evening capote is elaborately trimmed.

Infant bonnet, 1820. Image @Metropolitan Museum of Art

The charming bonnet was made for an infant.  Click here to read the description. The image below shows a modern interpretation of a Regency era capote bonnet. (Living With Jane)

Image @Living With Jane

The shape of the Capote bonnet changed as hairdos changed, and the hat crown shifted to accommodate the increased height of swept up hair. The poke, or brim, also became larger over time. This definition describes the Victorian capote: Close fitting bonnet with rigid brim, either of straw or boned into shape. Soft, shirred crown , ribbon bows tied under the chin, Victorian 19 c. with deep ruffle in back. Also poke bonnet, fanchon, scuttle bonnet, sun bonnet. - Glossary of hats, Village Hat Shop.

View images of the Victorian capote here http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/80044650 and here http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/80044657. You can see the vast difference between the two styles, yet they are still capotes.

This link leads to instructions for making a Capote Beguin, or Edwardian Era bonnet.

Make Your Own Regency Bonnet

• Purchase supplies:http://www.hatsupply.com/bonnets.htm
• Leko’s Regency Bonnets: http://regencysa.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=sundries&action=print&thread=805

More on the topic:

• Hats from History
• 18th Century Women’s Bonnets
• Living with Jane
• Candice Hern

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From Prada to Nada is Nada Good: A Belated Review

From Prada to Nada made $3.3 million at the box office, both foreign and domestic. I’m surprised to read that it was that much. I happened to watch the film on Netflix this past weekend when I had nothing better to do than wash clothes.

The notion of a remake of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and plucking Marianne and Elinor Dashwood from Barton Cottage and landing them in 21st Century L.A. intrigued me, for Emma Woodhouse’s move from tranquil Highbury to a Beverly Hills high school in Clueless was a resounding success with both critics and viewers. I also liked the idea of switching up cultures, for hadn’t Ang Lee’s hit, Eat Drink Man Woman, been successfully transformed into the delightful Tortilla Soup with its Mexican-American family substituting for the Japanese chef and his daughters? But I quickly came to the conclusion that  From Prada to Nada is to Jane Austen what a black velvet painting is to the Mona Lisa.

Here then is the story:

Mary, Papa, and Nora before his fatal heart attack

Once upon a time in Beverley Hills there lived two very pretty girls in a house called Bonita Casita. They had a Papa but no Mama.

Mary (Alexa Vega) on Rodeo Drive.

One was short and ditzy, liked to shop, and wore party dresses morning, noon, and night. Her name was Mary Dominguez (MD = Marianne Dashwood).

Nora turned norange at Papa's funeral.

The other was a tall, practical, intellectual, wannabee lawyer named Nora (Elinor Dashwood).  While exotically beautiful, she suffered from a fatal Hollywood condition called orange skin. This viewer suspects it was to make her look more cliched Mexican, but should I really be so cynical? Mary had this condition to a lesser extent, and both girls swung from looking tanned to grossly ill, depending on lighting conditions.

I am happy to report that Nora (Camilla Belle) fully recovered from her skin malady shortly after filming.

Neither girl spoke Spanish, a fact that was mentioned often until it was pounded into the viewers’ brains.

While celebrating his birthday with his daughters, Papa falls flat on his face and dies, leaving the two bewildered girls penniless, for everything he seemingly owned belonged to the banks. The girls must move from their cozy environment in 90210 to a tacky neighborhood in East L.A., which is like asking a Swiss palace guard to work in a Columbian prison on short notice.

Casa Bonita in Beverly Hills

Before that indignity, they meet their half-brother, Gabriel, a  surprise from their papa’s past, who arrives for the funeral with his cheesy avaricious girlfriend, Olivia. It seems that bro and his tootsie want to renovate Papa’s mansion and sell it for a profit. In other words, bro flips houses for a living. Real class.

Q'eulle surprise! Half-brother Gabriel (Pablo Cruz) arrives at the funeral with his Tootsie, Olivia (April Bolwby), and she's mean, while he's a wuss

Without a living breathing mother to guide them, as Jane Austen had intended, Maria and Nora have nowhere to go but to their good-hearted aunt’s house all the way over to a neighborhood filled with barrios, gangstahs, and, worse, taco joints. There the girls encounter Bruno (Colonel Brandon) a handsome darkly Latino who obviously did not attend Beverly Hills High.

Bruno (Wilmer Valerrama) and Mary.

He’s friendly, but Mary snubs him, for she begins to suspect that he works for a living and that she  must share a bedroom with her sister. (Not that the two facts have anything to do with each other, but my sentence is no crazier than the plot of the film.)

New house, new neighborhood

In rapid succession From Prada to Nada  throws at least one cliche per minute at the viewer, including a small sweat shop in Auntie’s living room, bad girls in the neighborhood, and clothes and interiors that could have been created by Agador (Armand and Albert’s gay Cuban houseboy in The Birdcage). How could this movie stand a chance with intelligent viewers when charactes are named Bad Guy #s 1-3, Comrade, Fiesta guest, and Chola (urban dictionary definition: the girl my brother gets pregnant)?

I imagine that people living in East L.A. were horrified to see Jane Austen’s fine tale mangled and twisted beyond recognition.

Sewing in Auntie's living room and prepared to hide the evidence at a moment's notice in case of an immigration raid.

The movie stumbles towards its inevitable cliched ending. Edward Ferris falls instantly for Nora and gives her a splendid job in his law firm. They part and then they come together for no reason that I can fathom, except that he is always coming around the house with a truck filled with big items.

Rodrigo (Kuno Becker) meets the aunties

Mary falls head over heels (instead of twisting her heel in the English countryside) for a tutor named Rodgrigo Fuentes, Willoughby’s stand in. He eventually visits Mexico then dumps her and purchases Papa’s hideously renovated mansion from her flipper bro.

Bruno's amazing studio in his tiny house

Flipper bro turns out to be a nice guy, as does Bruno, who happens to be an immensely talented artist living in the body of a mechanic. For some reason, after her car accident Mary totally flips for the ever patient, long-suffering Bruno, who was able to see past her materialistic ways the moment he met her.

Bruno in his barrio uniform.

After I finished watching this movie, I realized I should have stayed in the basement with my laundry and read a good book as I waited for my washer and dryer to finish spinning. The producers of this clunker forgot one extremely important asset that no self respecting movie can do without: a well-written, intelligent script.

Not all the good intentions in the world of Latinizing Jane Austen, and thus making her more available to those who might otherwise be turned off by her English characters, can save a film so completely devoid of entertainment, originality and wit.

No Tex-Mex film is complete without a fiesta.

I imagine that Lady Catherine de Bourgh would have said of this film: “I take no leave of it. I send it no compliments. It deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased.” Amen to that.

Edward Ferris (Nicolas d'Agosto), the prince charming, comes bearing gifts, sweeping Nora off her feet.

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Mr. Palmer Discusses His Fellow Minor Characters

Gentle Readers, This month I have joined the Sense and Sensibility Bicentenary Celebration on Maria Grazia’s My Jane Austen Book Club blog. Click on the banner on the sidebar to read the other articles posted each month in celebration of Jane Austen’s first published book. The first half of my post about Mr. Palmer’s observations of his fellow minor characters in the book sits here. The rest of the article sits on My Jane Austen Book Club.

I, Thomas Palmer, Esq., have been charged to analyze and discuss the traits of my fellow minor characters in Sense and Sensibility, the first of six novels by Jane Austen. I shall endeavor to do JUSTICE to that estimable author’s first published effort, which made its way to the public some 200 years ago and has never failed to be in print since.

I must first cast my thoughts upon Fanny and John Dashwood, whose miserliness oblidged the Dashwood women to leave their comfortable home at Norland to establish themselves in Barton Cottage and live a FRUGAL life in Devonshire amongst strangers. Miss Austen was a mere 20 years of age when she first conceived of this novel in epistolary form, first naming it Elinor and Marianne. That such a young author, whose knowledge of the world was CONFINED largely to books and the experiences of others, could create two such memorable characters as Fanny and John Dashwood portended her genius.

Fanny in particular is a character like no other in literature. Her manipulation of her weak husband in persuading him to abandon his PLEDGE to his father on that man’s deathbed is breathtaking in its audacity and avarice. The sequence of her skewed logic and her husband’s reaction to her CONTRIVANCE to preserve every pence of her darling son’s inheritance is matchless. Even I could not have conceived of a more cynical, darkly humorous dialog than young Miss Austen presented through these two minor characters, thereby setting the novel’s direction and tone. “People always live for ever when there is an annuity to be paid them.” One simply cannot add or take away a word to improve this utterance by Mrs. Dashwood.

The John Dashwoods represent, like so many minor characters, a FOIL – brilliantly conceived foils, to be sure – that are meant to contrast with other characters. Take my rather vulgar brother-in-law, Sir John Middleton, who is renowned for his generous impulses. Whilst the Dashwood ladies were figuratively shoved out of Norland by the John Dashwoods, Sir John, a distant relation, emerges from nowhere to offer them a hearth and home. The CONTRAST twixt the two Johns – one so weak and tight-fisted that he willing to break his vow to his dying father, the other so generous that he is forever inviting the entire neighborhood to sample the contents of his larder – cannot be ignored.

I next turn my gaze upon the Steele sisters, Lucy and Anne. Anne is a flat minor character who is doomed to learn nothing from life’s experiences, but who interjects a running COMIC gag over her obsession with Dr. Davies (he will never offer his hand in marriage). Her main purpose in the novel is to REVEAL the engagement of Lucy to Edward at a most awkward moment.

Her sister Lucy, a smarter, prettier version of Anne, is as mean, cunning and scheming a creature as I have ever come across. I had her measure from the start, I assure you. Lucy’s sole ambition is to ingratiate herself with her betters in order to take her place in SOCIETY. Knowing of Edward Ferrars’ attraction to Miss Dashwood, she makes a preemptive strike by CONFIDING her secrets to Elinor, forcing our hapless heroine to LISTEN to matters that, while they pain her deeply, she must keep to herself. Many minor characters play the role of confidante to a novel’s protagonist, but Lucy Steele turned the table on Elinor, forcing her to listen to matters that were most distasteful and hurtful. Our scheming Lucy more than turned the table on Edward, eloping with his younger brother Robert when it becomes apparent that the latter will INHERIT the Ferrars fortune of £1,000 per year. One can only cheer knowing that this feckless couple will always be dissatisfied with each other, always wanting more possessions.

To read the rest of the article, click here to enter My Jane Austen Book Club

Click here to read the other articles in this year long series:

1. January          Jennifer Becton    

Men, Marriage and Money in Sense and Sensibility

2. February      Alexa Adams         

Sense and Sensibility on Film

3. March            C. Allyn Pierson

Property and Inheritance Law in S &S 

4. April               Beth Pattillo

Lost in Sense and Sensibility

5. May                Jane Odiwe

Willoughby: a rogue on trial

6. June               Deb @JASNA Vermont

Secrets in Sense and Sensibility

7. July                Laurie Viera Rigler

Interview with Lucy Steele

8. August           Regina Jeffers       

Settling for the Compromise Marriage

9. September    Lynn Shepherd

The origins of S&S: Richardson, Jane Austen, Elinore & Marianne                                        

10. October       Meredith @Austenesque Reviews

Sense and Sensibility Fan Fiction

11. November   Vic @Jane Austen’s World  

Mr. Palmer Discusses His Fellow Minor characters in Sense and Sensibility

12. December    Laurel Ann @Austenprose

Marianne Dashwood: A passion for dead Leaves and other Sensibilities                 

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Steventon and Barton Cottage

Gentle Readers, With this article we once again benefit from Tony Grant’s expertise as a tour guide in England. He has written a lovely post about Steventon Rectory and its influence on Jane Austen’s description of Barton Cottage in Sense and Sensibility.

Does Barton Cottage, the cottage that Mrs Dashwood, Elinor and Marianne in Sense and Sensibility, retreat to and which is located in Devon, just north of Exeter, owe much to Steventon in Hampshire, Jane’s first home?

Elinor ( Emma Thompson) and Mrs. Dashwood (Gemma Jones) in front of Barton Cottage. Sense and Sensibility, 1995

I recently went to Steventon again, the birthplace of Jane Austen and where she spent her formative years until the age of twenty six. Steventon was where she thought she would spend the rest of her life. As soon as she was born she was sent to live with a family in the village. The mother of the household she was sent to became Jane’s wet nurse. Mrs Austen had nothing to do with her children as babies. This might provide an explanation for Jane’s aversion towards her mother as she grew older but it also explains that her attachment to Steventon was not just through her own family and the rectory but it was linked to the wider community and she had very close ties to some of the villagers.

Row of cottages in Steventon. Image @Tony Grant

Steventon is set in a small Hampshire valley about five miles south west of Basingstoke, the nearest large town. When you visit Steventon today there are a few cottages and houses, not dissimilar in number to Jane’s days and a cross roads that has a cluster of old cottages, some of them terraced, set in a beautiful verdant landscape of fields and trees and gently rising downland.

The Dashwood women see Barton Cottage for the first time. Sense and Sensibility, 2008.

“a view of Barton Valley as they entered it gave them cheerfulness. It was a pleasant fertile spot, well wooded and rich in pasture.”

The site of the Rectory at Steventon. You can see the fence that surrounds the pump in back of the tree. Image @Tony Grant

Take the fork at the cross roads along the valley and within a few hundred yards you come to a lane that branches off to the right, almost hidden by bushes and trees. If you can stop at this corner and look into the field on the right, there are two or three tall mature trees , sycamore and ash, and next to one tree is a rustic wooden fenced area with an old water pump in the centre. This is the site of Steventon Rectory, Jane’s old home. The pump is presumed to be the pump the Austens had in their back yard. This rectory had become derelict, and was demolished by Edward Austen Knight when his son, William Knight, took over as vicar of Steventon.  When George Austen retired, he moved Jane, Cassandra and their mother to Bath. James Austen became the new vicar until his death in 1819, when Henry Austen stepped into the position.

The pump. Relic at Steventon Rectory. Illustration by Ellen G. Hill, 1923.

Edward had the new rectory built in the valley in fields on the opposite side of the road.  It still stands today, a fine white house on the sunny side of the valley facing south east.

Steventon House, built by Jane's brother Edward c. 1820-22. Image @Jane Austen Today

Behind the site of the original rectory where Jane lived there is a grassy meadow sloping steeply upwards for a quarter of mile to where her father’s church, St Nicholas, is situated next to a large house where the Digweeds lived. Jane, Cassandra and her brothers often scrambled up the hill behind their rectory to play with the Digweed children.They were some of their childhood friends. There are cultivated fields, meadows and woody areas all around, especially on the top of the hill near the Digweeds home behind the rectory site.

Site of the Steventon Rectory today. The fenced in pump is at left.

“The situation of the house was good. High hills rose immediately behind, and at no great distance on each side; some of which were open downs, the other cultivated and woody.”

The rectory Jane lived in would have been quite spacious because at least seven children lived there, five of her six brothers, herself and her sister Cassandra as well as her mother and father, a couple of servants and for much of the year, sons of some of the local gentry who sent their boys to the Reverend Austen for education and entry to Oxford or Cambridge. Oxford had been the Reverend Austen’s university. Her brother George did not live with the family however because of his disabilities. He was virtually adopted by another family who cared for him. Whether it was for financial gain I am not sure. So the rectory must have been spacious.

“Barton Cottage, though small, was comfortable and compact; but as a cottage it was defective, for the building was regular, the roof was tiled, the window shutters were not painted green, nor were the walls covered with honeysuckles. A narrow passage led directly through the house into the garden behind. On each side of the entrance was a sitting room about sixteen feet square; and beyond them were the offices and the stairs. Four bedrooms and two garrets formed the rest of the house.”

Cottage of local stone. Image @Tony Grant

Barton cottage doesn’t resemble the rectory from this description but Jane must have used her knowledge of cottages in the area of Steventon. Jane is very precise about the size of the two sitting rooms, sixteen feet square. The cottage is used in a special way within the novel. She describes it as being , “defective.” This is symbolic of the situation Elinor, Marianne and their mother are in. They are experiencing fractured times and are out of place financially, socially and the cottage they have come to, places them in a different strata of society than they are accustomed to. From the exact dimensions of the sitting rooms Jane Austen gives us, aren’t those rooms too small to socialise in the manner they are used to? It is a,”defective,” place on many levels and it’s not like other cottages.

Cottage without honeysuckle. Image @Tony Grant

Jane would have been very familiar with the traditional country cottage but she makes Barton Cottage different, almost an eye sore, bare of climbing honeysuckle and green painted windows. Mrs Dashwood has plans for it, to change it and develop it. But can these come to fruition? Can the cottage be developed and grow? Can the Dashwood sisters adapt, develop and grow ? Does Barton owe much to Steventon? I would say so. Steventon formed Jane’s knowledge and experience of cottages and she used that knowledge of how cottages are and the meaning in social class and wealth different cottages might portray to incorporate the cottage at Barton into the fabric and meaning of Sense and Sensibility.

Cottage. Image @Tony Grant

Hampshire cottages:
If you ever visit Hampshire and pass through the countryside you will see a variety of types and styles of cottage. Cottages have always been built with local materials readily at hand.

Clay tile roofs. Image @Tony Grant

In the Cotswolds you will find most villages made from Cotswold stone and roofed with tiles sliced from the same stone. This is a creamy yellow colour. Climbing roses, wisteria, lichen and mosses have had plenty of time to insinuate themselves into and on these mellow warm coloured buildings.

Roses round the door. Image @Tony Grant

Hampshire, with its oak, elm and ash forests has many timber frame cottages. Great beams of wood cut from massive oaks have been merely incorporated into the frame and the spaces between the oak beamed framework filled with wattle and daub.

Cottage with wattle and daub. Image @Tony Grant

Wattle and daub being made from woven ash fencing and plastered with a mixture of cow dung, lime and straw. (Click here for a video.)

The oldest building in Winchester is made with wattle and daub. Image @Tony Grant

The roofs are thatched with reeds or wheat stalks. Some have clay tiles where local clay deposits provide the raw material and Hampshire brick works do the work of firing the tiles.

Thatched cottages. Image @Tony Grant

Many buildings are made of flint. Hampshire has large areas of chalk downland. Within the chalk are found nodules of flint.

Winchester College Shield erected on a wall made with flint building material. Click on photo for a larger image. Image @Tony Grant

Nobody is quite sure how flint is formed in the chalk but it is a very hard crystalline rock, glassy in substance. It has been one of the most versatile materials ever.

More thatched cottages. Image @Tony Grant

Stone age man used it for axes, arrow heads, scrapers and knives. It has been used and is still used to build strong walls. Flint lock muskets used tiny bits of flint fixed into their firing mechanism to create a spark which ignited the gunpowder to propel the musket ball down the barrel. Flint can be struck against flint or metal to create a spark to light a fire.

Chawton Cottage. Image @Tony Grant

More on the topic:

• Jane Austen’s House, Tony Grant
• Snow at Chawton and Chawton Cottage
• The Saga of Steventon Parsonage, Jane Austen in Vermont
• Gilbert White, the Naturalist at Selborne
• Georgian Era Houses are Haute, Jane Austen Today

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The Jane Austen Character I Most Identify With

Gentle Readers, Laurel Anne from Austenprose and I were chatting the other day about this, that, and the other, for we are both a bit Jane Austen nutty (if you haven’t noticed.) As you continue reading, you will need to know only one thing:  we are just a wee bit longer in the tooth than Jane’s young heroines:

LA: Vic and I were chatting on the phone today. Over the course of our three plus year Austen-inspired friendship we have mostly emailed, so this was a treat. She has the most infectious laugh which made me laugh too. Of course we were talking about our favorite author and she remarked that Austen excelled at humor and the amazing secondary characters she developed. Somehow it just popped out and I boldly asked her what Jane Austen character she most identified with. Without hesitation she replied, Lady Russell from Persuasion. “Lady Russell?” I replied in surprise! “Well, yes.”

Jane Rus.., er, Mrs. Russell

She then revealed that she is often wrong about the advice she gives people. At work she gathers the young-uns around her and freely offers opinions, whether they are solicited or not. When she gives wrong counsel – which she admits is more often than not – she torpedos herself in a most spectacular fashion. “The error of my ways does not go unnoticed by this unforgiving crowd. Unlike Lady Russell, I will own up to a misteak, er, mistake or two, and apologize for having interfered, but I hold the line at groveling.”

Another reason why she identifies with this character is her independence. Lady Russell is a widow with a healthy income and she has no intention of remarrying and being subjugated by a man. “I am a divorced woman who has discovered the joys of living singly on my own terms and by my own schedule. Ah, what total, selfish bliss!”

Vic further admitted that at a party, or when she lets her hair loose, she starts to resemble Mrs. Jennings. You know the type: a bit vulgar, out for a good time, giggling at precisely the wrong moments, and making those with a more composed nature feel uncomfortable with crass jokes and loud language. “Like Mrs. Jennings, I have a good heart. But I can be out there and in your face too. I might seem unseemly to a quieter person like Elinor, and be totally disliked by the likes of a Marianne, but my friends and family get me, and that’s what counts.”

Oh Vic! You are such a card. Lady Russell and Mrs. Jennings? She then turned the tables on me. “Now, who do you identify with in Jane’s novels? Are you like me, a bossy and interfering carouser? Or are your a bit more sedate and ladylike?”

Harriet Smith (Tony Collette) patiently poses for Emma

Vic: “Sedate. A total Harriet Smith,” LA replied. Many years ago a dear Janeite friend tagged her as a Harriet to her Emma. “It seemed appropriate since I was often asking for advice and was very mailable to change.” In her view, Harriet was a bit of a ditz and gullible which she has been accused of too. The thing she liked about being a Harriet is that Austen gave her such a great ending. She is resilient, and after being tossed about in love no less than three times in a year, Harriet gets the man she wanted in the first place and proves Emma, with her self-important airs, was totally clueless about the human heart. “I like having the last laugh, and being right.” ;-)

Sir John Middleton (Robert Hardy) and Mrs. Jennings (Elizabeth Spriggs)

Lately LA thinks she has evolved into Sir John Middleton from Sense and Sensibility. He was the Dashwood’s cousin and landlord of Barton Cottage. He is very gracious and likes to pop in and make sure his tenants are comfortable and entertained. He is a bit of a bore and talks too much about things that are not of interest to his young companions, but he likes dogs, has a good heart and loves to laugh. “As an enthusiastic bookseller, I like to inform customers of their choices and make suggestions. I am also a bit of an organizer and enjoy planning events on my blog, and orchestrating the 23 authors in my anthology. It is like herding cats, but I like being the boss of my own world!”

One man’s ways may be as good as another’s, but we all like our own best. Persuasion, Ch 13

Now our question. Which Jane Austen character do you, estimable viewer, most identify with, or which character are you afraid of becoming? Feel free to leave your comments!

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Dirt Lane or Picturesque Scene? Sense and Sensibility

“Now, Edward,” said [Marianne], calling his attention to the prospect, “here is Barton valley. Look up it, and be tranquil if you can. Look at those hills! Did you ever see their equals? To the left is Barton park, amongst those woods and plantations. You may see one end of the house. And there, beneath that farthest hill, which rises with such grandeur, is our cottage.”

“It is a beautiful country,” he replied; “but these bottoms must be dirty in winter.”

“How can you think of dirt, with such objects before you?”

“Because,” replied he, smiling, “among the rest of the objects before me, I see a very dirty lane.”

“How strange!” said Marianne to herself as she walked on.

“Have you an agreeable neighbourhood here? Are the Middletons pleasant people?”

“No, not at all,” answered Marianne, “we could not be more unfortunately situated.”

Country lane, Barry Lyndon

I had the leisure of viewing Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon the other day, I say leisure, for the film is over three hours long and I took the opportunity to pull images. These two stills of country roads reminded me forcibly of the difference between Marianne’s histrionic behavior in Sense and Sensibility and Edward’s reactions during a time when both characters are experiencing extreme disappointment in their love lives.

Marianne has completely given over to her emotions after Willoughby departs, and Edward struggles to hold up his chin, knowing he is in love with Elinor but is bound by his engagement to Lucy Steele. His view of the landscape is utilitarian. He sees none of the sweep of grandeur and only the practical aspects of the scene below and can only imagine it in the winter, when roads are rutted and muddy. Throughout Sense and Sensibility, Marianne expresses picturesque point of views. In this scene in particular, she also demonstrates her youth and immaturity, giving Edward a churlish answer about their new neighbors, which, while perhaps  true, the sensible Elinor would never admit.

William Gilpin was instrumental in promoting the Romantic picturesque movement, which defines an aesthetic sensibility of a charming or quaint scene. Marianne Dashwood, whose personality tends towards the melodramatic, embraces the fashion for the picturesque ideal, whereas both Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars represent a more practical viewpoint which depends less on the sublime and relies more on what their experiences and restrained personalities tell them to feel.

Gilpin's watercolor shows how best to achieve a picturesque effect through the clumping of trees.*

The following quote about William Gilpin’s influence on this new aesthetic movement is from the aptly titled, Penny cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Volumes 11-12, Charles Knight, London, 1838, p. 222:

But Mr Gilpin was a person of a remarkably refined taste, as is evinced by writings of his, of a class entirely distinct from those we have enumerated. These are his volumes in which he has illustrated, both by his pencil and his pen, the picturesque beauty of some parts of England, and generally the principles of beauty in landscape. The first of these works was published in 1790 in two volumes 8 vo; it was entitled Observations relative chiefly to Picturesque Beauty, made in the year 76 in several parts of Great Britain, particularly the Highlands of Scotland. This was followed by two other volumes of the same character, the greater part of them relating to the lake country of Cumberland and Westmoreland. Two volumes more on Forest Scenery succeeded. Besides these there are his Essays on Picturesque Beauty, Picturesque Travels, and the Art of Sketching Landscapes; Observations on the River Wye; and Picturesque Remarks on the Western parts of England. These form a body of works which were well received by the public at the times of their appearance, and which are now gathered into the libraries of the tasteful and the curious, so that copies rarely present themselves for public sale.”

The picturesque ideal expressed itself in literature, poetry, and paintings, and its influence could still be felt in the romantic paintings that depicted the natural beauty of America’s vast landscapes, such as the Hudson River School of painting.

Excellent posts about the topic are found in the following blogs:

• Four posts on Austen and the Picturesque on Grey Pony
• Enamoured of the Picturesque at a Very Early Age: William Gilpin and Jane Austen, Austenonly

*William Gilpin, How to Clump Trees, Bodlein Library

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The Jane Austen Signs of Middle Age

Jane Austen fans tend to read her books repeatedly throughout their lives.  In an article in the Guardian UK, Charlotte Higgins describes how her identity with a Jane Austen character changes with age. Here are some of her thoughts:

If you read Jane Austen more or less annually, as I have done since my late teens, you end up marking yourself against the characters. Oh reader, when I first read Pride and Prejudice I was Lydia’s age. I am about to become older than the delightful Mrs Croft in Persuasion. I still hang on to Anne Elliot, though. A tender 27 she may be, but in modern money I reckon you can give her another 10 years.

This is so true. I am starting to identify more with Mrs. Croft and Lady Russell than Anne Elliot. Charlotte Higgins goes on to say:

Persuasion is a very middle-aged novel, with its melancholic flavour and its acknowledgement that yes, you can make a grotesque mess of your life (the romance part I find much less satisfactory than the bleakly comic first three quarters of the book, essentially before one reaches Bath). It is true, however, that you can tell you are middle-aged when you start to empathise with P&P’s Mrs Bennet: with what Sir Walter Elliot would call “the rapid increase of the crow’s foot” comes a sense of sympathy with this character, written off as absurd in one’s heedless youth. At least she is trying to save her daughters from a future of poverty. And she’s certainly not getting any help from that husband of hers.

So true again. Only in recent years have I become impatient with Mr. Bennet and more sympathetic with his silly wife. I have also become more observant of Mrs. Jennings in Sense and Sensibility, of how hospitable she is, how she tries to become a matchmaker to all the unmarried ladies, and how her house is open to guest seemingly all the time. Yes, she is a silly and irritating woman, traits I could not stand when I was young (thus I could not appreciate her other than as a comic relief character), but now I rather like her positive qualities, as I do Mrs. Palmer’s. Elinor Dashwood is aware of Mrs. Palmer’s good nature and would tolerate her better if she weren’t such an unflaggingly cheerful airhead all the time.

Mrs. Jennings and Mrs. Palmer, Sense and Sensibility

As I get older I see that Lady Catherine de Bourgh is all bluster, and that her authority over Elizabeth Bennet is precisely zero. Young Lizzie is smart enough to know that, but as a 19 year-old reader, I was in awe of Lizzie’s stubborn attitude towards that lady when she stormed to Longbourn to demand Lizzie promise never to marry Mr. Darcy.

Mr. Bennet reading. Image from Jim and Ellen Moody

There are other ways that my attitude towards Jane Austen’s novels is changing. I notice how few happy marriages are portrayed. Right off the bat I can think of only the Crofts, the Gardiners, the John Knightleys, and the Musgroves. These days, I am more on the side of a pragmatic Charlotte Lucas, who has learned long ago not to look at the world through rose colored glasses, than Elizabeth, who waits for love. To be sure, she snagged her Mr. Darcy, but would Charlotte have had such an opportunity? I think not. I also see that Fanny Price’s strength of character and resolve in the face of so much bullying is a trait to admire; and that Mr. Bennet’s extensive library and unwillingness to compromise a cushy lifestyle were acquired at the expense of his family’s future financial security.

As the years roll by, my tastes and preferences for Jane’s novels are changing. Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice are running neck and neck in my favorite category. P&P used to have the field all to itself. While I loathed Mansfield Park the first time I read it, I don’t mind it so much now, and I find Emma less and less interesting and much too long . Perhaps I should lay the book aside for a few years.

Are your tastes and preferences changing towards Jane Austen’s books and characters as time goes on? How? Curious minds want to know.

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The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine: A Review

The Three Weissmanns of Westport: A Novel by Cathleen Schine is reviewed by Lady Anne, Vic’s close friend and fellow Janeite.

As a devoted Janeite, I am also known to indulge in the occasional novel based on our Jane’s tidy output. I have engaged in several discussions, some more cheerful than others, about these attempts at updating and revising. Generally, I find them wanting – in voice, or understanding, or grace in writing. And while I understand that the zombies and sea monsters have their fans, I do not count among them.

That being said, I was intrigued by a New York Times review of the Three Weissmanns of Westport. Cathleen Schine, the author, writes in that somewhat undervalued category known as the domestic comedy. She is a graceful, elegant writer, very much of New York. And, said the review, she based this latest book on Sense and Sensibility. Further, the review stated, she did it well.

And I would agree. First of all, this is definitely a 21st Century take. Betty Weissmann is a 75 year old whose husband of close to 50 years is divorcing her for ‘irreconcilable differences.’ That difference is named Felicity and she works in his firm. She is as eager to have the domicile – a wonderful Upper West Side apartment – as Mrs. John Dashwood ever was, and that scene of breathtaking greed plays out just as sparklingly satiric as our Jane’s ever did:

“Naturally I’ll give her the apartment,” Joe said. It seems only right….She’s put so much work into it. It’s her baby.”

Felicity had seen the apartment. In a magazine. It sparkled and gleamed with a comforting Old World charm. Or so the magazine said. To Felicity, it just looked big and luscious…She would like to live in such an apartment…

“It really is a burden, that big old place,” Felicity said. “Poor Betty. I don’t envy her. At her age.”

“She ought to downsize,” Joe said. “We should sell the place, and she can take her share and buy something a little more realistic.”

“Joe, you really are a generous man,” Felicity said. “And self-sacrificing, too.”

He looked at her blankly. He knew he was generous and self-sacrificing, but just for a moment he could not quite make out how this act of taking half the proceeds rather than none fit that description. Then Felicity said, with some alarm, “But what about the taxes? There will be hardly anything left from the sale after taxes. Poor Betty. It will really be a burden on her, much more than on you…At her age,” Felicity murmured again.

And so it was decided. Joe would be generous and keep the apartment.
The Weissmann women – Betty and her daughters: Annie, a librarian and divorced mother of two boys now young men and longer at home; and Miranda, a literary agent who never married, and whose business collapsed in an Oprah-inspired scandal of created memories, leave the City and move into a little beach cottage in Westport, Connecticut, that an old friend and connection makes available to them. The entire collection of characters from Sense and Sensibility appears, each with a new and very contemporary sensibility. This version of Willoughby is a younger man, an aspiring actor who leaves for the Coast with more speed than is flattering when a chance of a TV role comes his way. However, his ex-wife and son play important roles in Miranda’s story. Annie, the sensible librarian has been interested in Felicity’s brother, Frederick, but he cools off, and appears to have been involved with his house sitter, one of a pair of sisters definitely looking for the Big Score. Frederick’s problem is not lack of money like Edward Ferrars, but lack of inner conviction.

The final disposition of the characters is different from Jane’s version, which serves to keep the book fresh. Schine takes the framework of two devoted sisters and their charming, if somewhat flighty mother – neither Betty nor Miranda understands the first thing about money matters including the bankruptcy of Miranda’s business, and Annie handles far more than her fair share of the family burdens. But she does end up with the lovely man at the end – even if he seemed throughout the book to be Col. Brandon. And since I liked him better than I liked Frederick, I was glad. Annie had, just like Elinor did, a lot to put up with, given family, mother, and sister, and she deserves a happy ending.

Much better written than most modern versions of Jane’s books I have read, The Three Weissmanns is an excellent update: not trying to force Jane into modern times, but seeing how the modern times would modify a Jane plot. It works well.

Which is what we would expect.

Gentle readers: Lady Anne is my well-shod and well-clad friend and co-founder of The Janites on the James, a group of opinionated Austenites. We are passionate about Jane Austen, and have agreed to disagree about our interpretation of her novels. Our discussions are lively and laced with drinks from her era: Port, syllabub, fine wine, and, yes, beer. Anything to stave off dysentery and typhoid fever.

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