Thread: Jane Austen

Originally Posted by In His Grip

I'm a huge Jane Austen fan as well! I love each of her books!

I think I might just have guessed that from your avatar! That is one of my very favourite films. It never fails to make me laugh my head off in the middle, but end up crying from the heart.

Another one of my favorites is Elizabeth Gaskell! If you enjoy Austen, I would highly recommend North and South by Gaskell...truly a lovely story!

I also have to put in a plug for my other favourite 19th C author Charlotte M Yonge. I bet no-one here has even heard of her....? but her novels are great, her current oblivion totally undeserved!

Jenny, isn't Charlotte M. Yonge something of a byword among later writers for the deficiencies of Victorianism? Apart from some advice to young writers I haven't read anything of hers, but I know her name has come up in book reviews/essays from around WWI, and I didn't think the references were favorable.

On the Austen/Bronte divide, Heidi had some interesting thoughts which might explain why some find that they like one OR the other, while others find that they like both:

I think this kind of divide is only possible if one is reading as if the story were about oneself: which kind of novel do I want to be the heroine of? But I don't think that is the best way either to read or to write literature. (Perhaps that's sour grapes because the only heroines I've fully identified with are the ones I would not wish to be; but this has freed me to love Austen and various works by the Brontes from childhood.)

Jenny, isn't Charlotte M. Yonge something of a byword among later writers for the deficiencies of Victorianism? Apart from some advice to young writers I haven't read anything of hers, but I know her name has come up in book reviews/essays from around WWI, and I didn't think the references were favorable.

What deficiencies do you mean? She certainly has theological ones, and if a young person was going to read her I would want to spell out exactly where she departs from Biblical teaching. She was a High Church Anglican, but on the other hand it was back in the day....it didn't prevent her from being adamantly opposed to romanism, and a firm adherent of the Thirty-Nine Articles. Overall, I've found that drawback easily outweighed by the good to be got from her books.
If you mean critical deficiencies, that's a different question. I won't bother addressing that one unless I know it's what you mean.

I meant as far as literary merit - writing style, strength of plot, that sort of thing.

Originally Posted by py3ak

I meant as far as literary merit - writing style, strength of plot, that sort of thing.

In that case, I'm here to tell you, they're actually very good!
Experto crede. I've read every one of Charlotte Yonge's non-historical novels that I could get my hands on, the best ones multiple times too.
No, they have weaknesses, of course. I wouldn't quite put her in competition with Jane Austen; but her descent in critical estimation during the 20th C is very easily accounted for, and has not much to do with objective criteria.
How likely after all was an author to stay in fashion, in the 20th century, if her Christian faith was her main motivation, and she made no secret of the fact??
Yonge's great strength is characterisation. I don't think there's a novelist to touch her in that department, not Dickens or the Brontes, and even Jane didn't surpass her. She has enormous casts of characters - typically a family on a scale approaching kvanlaan's, whom you meet first as children but then watch grow up, true to individual personality, with all their complex alliances and family traits and rubs and interactions, utterly believably. There's lots of humour, too, but the deeper business of each novel is always to trace, -behind the outward events and appearances, the good choices and the bad choices,- the characters' spiritual histories, and journeys. That's not to say they are heavy-handedly didactic; they aren't. And the people are all so real, I would find it impossible not to be edified!
Do i sound like an enthusiast....??
I do think Christians (especially those who already have a taste for 19th C fiction) are missing a great deal if they don't know her work.
but wait _ I know an endorsement that may count for more than mine.
Americans are big on Little Women, yes?
do you remember a bit where Jo is curled up in the attic with a bag of apples and a pet rat, crying over a book?
It was The heir of Redclyffe, by Charlotte M Yonge

Not this American! I'll keep my eyes open for her, though.

Originally Posted by py3ak

Not this American! I'll keep my eyes open for her, though.

you wouldn't be sorry. C S Lewis was a fan too, and he was a good judge of literature.
On the other hand, in your case-
maybe you should begin with Little Women...

No, if I have to read Little Women first I'm sure I'll never get there. If I may draw from Bob Vigneault, it would be better to gouge your eyes out with an anthrax-infested pencil than read certain things.

Originally Posted by py3ak

No, if I have to read Little Women first I'm sure I'll never get there. If I may draw from Bob Vigneault, it would be better to gouge your eyes out with an anthrax-infested pencil than read certain things.

Oh, come. That's a bit silly. Louisa Alcott may not be as good (in my view) as Charlotte Yonge, but she's a perfectly respectable writer.

Lewis Carroll is about as much sap as I can stand - Sylvie and Bruno can only be taken in small doses.

Originally Posted by py3ak

No, if I have to read Little Women first I'm sure I'll never get there. If I may draw from Bob Vigneault, it would be better to gouge your eyes out with an anthrax-infested pencil than read certain things.

I love Louisa May Alcott - but I really dislike Little Women. In my opinion, Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom are her best books - much less sentimental.

So I trotted off to my local bookstore and picked up Oxford World's Classics' edition of Northanger Abbey. After 3 chapters I found myself pleasantly smiling throughout. Perhaps it is the long overdue change in literature genre;- from entirely theological books to now a novel, or perhaps it is Ms. Austen's writing itself. One thing's for sure, I had to significantly slow down my reading pace to accommodate the writing.

Looks like I'll have an enjoyable week ahead, and most certainly a wonderful time with Ms. Austen or more befittingly so, Miss Catherine Morland.

Glad you're enjoying it! You must keep us updated on your evolution as an Austenite.

Originally Posted by Montanablue

Glad you're enjoying it! You must keep us updated on your evolution as an Austenite.

What? Sorry I didn't really catch what you were saying because I was too busy READING JANE AUSTEN.

Just kidding.

Great that you're enjoying it! I bet everyone here envies you, reading her for the very first time, and the other novels still all ahead of you -Northanger Abbey isn't even by any means the best one.
Mind and let us know how you get on if you find time to read the rest too!
There's nothing fans love more than seeing someone new tapping into their enthusiasm...

I'm Johnny-come-late, or Janey-come-late, to this thread. I've been a fan of Austen for nearly fifteen years. I read P&P for the first time about a year before the 90s miniseries aired. All of her books are near perfect to read by themselves and with others for the simple fact you can talk about the characters and stories without gossiping. It is almost a near occasion of sin. They seem so real.

Originally Posted by KS_Presby

I'm Johnny-come-late, or Janey-come-late, to this thread. I've been a fan of Austen for nearly fifteen years. I read P&P for the first time about a year before the 90s miniseries aired. All of her books are near perfect to read by themselves and with others for the simple fact you can talk about the characters and stories without gossiping. It is almost a near occasion of sin. They seem so real.

I know. I can get really worked up about how stupid a character is being. In most cases only because I've learned the hard way why the behavior in question is so stupid. But the characters' faults are tremendously believable and consistent with their personality. Jane Austen must have done a lot of people-watching.

Originally Posted by Laura

Originally Posted by KS_Presby

I'm Johnny-come-late, or Janey-come-late, to this thread. I've been a fan of Austen for nearly fifteen years. I read P&P for the first time about a year before the 90s miniseries aired. All of her books are near perfect to read by themselves and with others for the simple fact you can talk about the characters and stories without gossiping. It is almost a near occasion of sin. They seem so real.

I know. I can get really worked up about how stupid a character is being. In most cases only because I've learned the hard way why the behavior in question is so stupid. But the characters' faults are tremendously believable and consistent with their personality. Jane Austen must have done a lot of people-watching.

There you go...that's EXACTLY the pleasure to be got from Charlotte Yonge's novels too! (I won't be able to rest until I've made at least one convert)
And just think...there are AT LEAST TEN OR TWELVE of the best ones. It's a whole world.
If you read them slowly you probably need never run out -- start again at the end, like the Forth Bridge. Bite your nails along with the eldest (orphaned) Underwood siblings while the fascinating artist brother Edgar is teaching little Lance to smoke in the kitchen every night, and also doing his utmost to persuade him into a future as a dodgy jobbing musician. Felix and his sister know better than to try and intervene, they can only pray. no spoilers, but it all turns on whether Lance will hold fast to Ps 137 v 5!

Originally Posted by JennyG

Now, the Austen heroes....ah, that's a different thing, the only problem would be in choosing between them. I love them all, even the deeply unfashionable Edmund Bertram.

:-) The problem with the deeply unpopular Edmund is that he spends the entire book talking to Fanny about another woman, in whose character he is unhappily and avoidably deceived. So he is a bad judge of character, and a generally boring conversationalist. I always think it's nicer for a woman to fall in love with someone who has the good sense to talk about -- if not her -- at least to talk sensibly about the weather. I have never regretted the non-reform of a villain so much as I regretted that of Henry Crawford; and this is my main impression on every re-reading of the novel. It's the only detail that I think ever went awry in Jane Austen's so perfectly competent writing -- in this one book she made the bad people more engaging than the good ones. That is an unpleasant taste for a moral novel (the 'most intensely moral of all her novels', some preface to some edition I read said) to leave. (I actually found it the most morally ambiguous of all her novels -- I kept wondering if Henry Crawford would have reformed if Fanny had met him half way, and the 'heads or tails' dilemma about whether he was internally bad or had just had bad influences would have landed face up: and finally decided that this sort of moral ramification probably didn't concern Jane Austen. I think she was concerned to write about a very bounded world of societal, rather than larger questions of truly spiritual, morality. Edmund's little weakness of character re: Miss Crawford and the play is more respectable than Henry Crawford's; thus we must rejoice that Fanny held steadfastly to, and gained, her first love and did not turn aside to save anyone from less acceptable sins. As Ruben said when I asked him what he thought about this, perhaps the real take home lesson of Jane Austen is that society is less gracious than God :-)

I think C. S. Lewis says something about the 'exquisite' families of Charlotte Yonge in his autobiography? On both your recommendations, I will check something out of the library.

Originally Posted by a mere housewife

Originally Posted by JennyG

Now, the Austen heroes....ah, that's a different thing, the only problem would be in choosing between them. I love them all, even the deeply unfashionable Edmund Bertram.

:-) The problem with the deeply unpopular Edmund is that he spends the entire book talking to Fanny about another woman, in whose character he is unhappily and avoidably deceived.

I think that's a little unkind, - no way the whole book ...only after he falls for her and because of long-established habit of confiding in Fanny

So he is a bad judge of character, and a generally boring conversationalist.

certainly the first is true. I'd go so far as to say the whole plot turns on his defective judgment. Without it, no story! In fact it's all about misjudgment now I come to think... Sir Thomas's especially. Fanny is the only one who always judges rightly and does rightly, -and it's such a great touch when even she (being human) is trembling on the verge of joining in the acting, and only saved by her uncle's return in the nick of time!

I always think it's nicer for a woman to fall in love with someone who has the good sense to talk about -- if not her -- at least to talk sensibly about the weather.

I suppose you have to assume that. It happens off-camera. We are given to understand that he and Fanny have had endless literary and other discussions and he has virtually been her education. Plus he clea`rly has something, or a girl like Mary wouldn't have gone for him. I'm most unwilling to give up on the character and decide Jane A just failed with him....becasuse I think then I'd be more or less giving up on the book as a whole

I have never regretted the non-reform of a villain so much as I regretted that of Henry Crawford; and this is my main impression on every re-reading of the novel. It's the only detail that I think ever went awry in Jane Austen's so perfectly competent writing -- in this one book she made the bad people more engaging than the good ones.

Sure, he's really nice, and I've fought this out with my daughter more times than I can count!! She loves Henry. But really, J A was right about him. See her own analysis in the last chapter. He had no notion of giving up even the smallest pleasure for the sake of doing right. (Don't you love the comment re Sir Thomas "...he wished [Mr Crawford] to prove a model of constancy, and fancied the best means of effecting it would be by not trying him too long"?)

That is an unpleasant taste for a moral novel (the 'most intensely moral of all her novels', some preface to some edition I read said) to leave.

I would certainly say that it's the most morally uncompromising,- and also the most implacably at variance with modern sensibilities

(I actually found it the most morally ambiguous of all her novels -- I kept wondering if Henry Crawford would have reformed if Fanny had met him half way,

He might well have, but.but but - would it have been more than on the surface?

...and the 'heads or tails' dilemma about whether he was internally bad or had just had bad influences would have landed face up: and finally decided that this sort of moral ramification probably didn't concern Jane Austen. I think she was concerned to write about a very bounded world of societal, rather than larger questions of truly spiritual, morality. Edmund's little weakness of character re: Miss Crawford and the play is more respectable than Henry Crawford's; thus we must rejoice that Fanny held steadfastly to, and gained, her first love and did not turn aside to save anyone from less acceptable sins. As Ruben said when I asked him what he thought about this, perhaps the real take home lesson of Jane Austen is that society is less gracious than God :-)

I see it more as the testing out in the furnace of morality, with utter disregard for any othe considerations (especially likeableness) ONLY Fanny passes, and she only by the skin of her teeth, (and of course with the aid of being secretly in love - psychological truth to life) Though Edmund claws back in the end. So it's the only proper ending, to have them happy together!

I think C. S. Lewis says something about the 'exquisite' families of Charlotte Yonge in his autobiography? On both your recommendations, I will check something out of the library.

Yes, he did. I can't quite say "I'm sure you'll like her" in fact now I'm getting cold feet in case you really, really don't!!! She's VERY English, and that's what you might stick on, perhaps.
Tell me what you find, and I'll tell you if it sounds like a good one to start with!
Only I'd so love to share them with believers. I belong to the CMY Fellowship, but despite their deep appreciation, no-one else there seems to read her for the same things as I do.

I am listening intently to this thread (listening with my eyes I guess) and my former disdain for all things Austenesque is slowly thawing.

If there is a good audiobook version I am willing to listen all the way through for a good dose of either sense or sensibility.





It won't raise my estrogen levels, will it?

Originally Posted by Pergamum

I am listening intently to this thread (listening with my eyes I guess) and my former disdain for all things Austenesque is slowly thawing.

If there is a good audiobook version I am willing to listen all the way through for a good dose of either sense or sensibility.





It won't raise my estrogen levels, will it?

There you go again. Didn't I see another thread where a lot of guys were getting angsty about losing man-points if they read Austen...?
Don't worry!!
The only points you are in danger of losing are uncultured philistine points

(and just so that we're perfectly clear..... that's a good thing)

Originally Posted by Pergamum

I am listening intently to this thread (listening with my eyes I guess) and my former disdain for all things Austenesque is slowly thawing.

If there is a good audiobook version I am willing to listen all the way through for a good dose of either sense or sensibility.





It won't raise my estrogen levels, will it?

Pergy here is a free audio book of Sense and Sensibility. The narrator has an English accent and she does an excellent job narrating. You can probably find all of Austen works there for free. Librivox.org.

And, no, I don't think it will affect your estrogen levels but it might affect your sense and sensibility.

LibriVox Sense and Sensibility (version 03) by Jane Austen

Jenny, my library has nine books of hers -- but none available for request through the website (very mysterious); so I will have to go in and ask a librarian about it. I'm eager to read her :-).

The problem with what happens 'offscreen' is that having no experience of it, we can't register more than mental assent in our responsiveness. I think, unless Austen meant to subtly write the sort of 'true to life' book where the bad people are engaging and bold, and the good people mistaken but too timidly upright to do aught but wind up together, she did not hit the mark with Edmund -- it does seem uncharitable to ascribe failure to her as a novelist in any sense: but it seems more uncharitable to me to think she succeeded here. Austen's main strength as a moralist lies in making the inevitable splendid & I just don't think she pulled it off here.

I think that the real divides in JA's world are along the lines of decency and propriety. Happily, she wrote of a society that reflected generations of Christian values -- selflessness, patience, rectitude and other spiritual virtues are valued: but they are valued in a way that is limited by the external considerations. For instance, it is fine for a gentleman to marry a gentleman's daughter, however impoverished: but to countenance the idea of matrimony between truly unequal social ranks -- as becomes axiomatic in even the correct attitudes in Emma -- would be to upset the ordered universe, and here terminates the horizon of decent unselfishness.

I think this is why the situation with Henry Crawford becomes so confusing; and why ultimately his weaknesses -- even his impatience -- being 'worse form' than the weaknesses of Edmund counts for more than whether or not he is truly bad inside or reformable. His rehabilitation would not be to the purpose in Austen's instructive world of manners. I think she chose to write about a confined world where the morality is -- though deep enough to be significant and worthy of emulation in many respects -- not deep enough to be consistent, unless you accept it onlimited terms.

:-) I hope your daughter escapes whole-hearted from the danger of loving Henry Crawfords too much. I don't actually find that I love him: I just think he is made more wonderful than Edmund and regret that Fanny did not emerge from her trials to be rewarded with wonderfulness. (Actually, the only hero of Austen's I have 'fallen in love with' is Henry Tilney.)

If I do procure anything of Yonge's and have any thoughts that withstand proofreading I will try to send them to you :-).

Originally Posted by JennyG

Originally Posted by Pergamum

I am listening intently to this thread (listening with my eyes I guess) and my former disdain for all things Austenesque is slowly thawing.

If there is a good audiobook version I am willing to listen all the way through for a good dose of either sense or sensibility.





It won't raise my estrogen levels, will it?

There you go again. Didn't I see another thread where a lot of guys were getting angsty about losing man-points if they read Austen...?
Don't worry!!
The only points you are in danger of losing are uncultured philistine points

(and just so that we're perfectly clear..... that's a good thing)

Okay, my uncultured philistine count is preparing to drop!

I recently watched Ang Lee's version of Sense and Sensibility. I guess I liked the technical aspect of the film but gosh the story is so--ugh.

Originally Posted by a mere housewife

Jenny, my library has nine books of hers -- but none available for request through the website (very mysterious); so I will have to go in and ask a librarian about it. I'm eager to read her :-).

I really appreciate that....though I'm gradually becoming more and more sure you'll probably hate her!!! Oh well if you did, at least I would finally know it's a pleasure I just have to indulge solitarily, even though as was said about JA, her characters are just MADE to be gossiped about

The problem with what happens 'offscreen' is that having no experience of it, we can't register more than mental assent in our responsiveness.

True, but some of it is there if you look for it- I mean the easy and non-boring engagement between Edmund and Fanny. Think of all those hooks she throws out about Cowper (ye fallen avenues...) and stargazing and so on, - obviously well-trodden topics between them, but what we see at that point is him failing to follow them up because at present he can't see past Miss Crawford

I think, unless Austen meant to subtly write the sort of 'true to life' book where the bad people are engaging and bold, and the good people mistaken but too timidly upright to do aught but wind up together, she did not hit the mark with Edmund --

One of the things she shows is how under surface timidity, Fanny has the moral courage of a lion! (if lions have moral courage)- sufficient to put the whole family back on course after their varied failures in judgment and integrity

it does seem uncharitable to ascribe failure to her as a novelist in any sense: but it seems more uncharitable to me to think she succeeded here. Austen's main strength as a moralist lies in making the inevitable splendid & I just don't think she pulled it off here.

perhaps we aren't called to show charity to novelists where their art is concerned! you may well be right..

I think that the real divides in JA's world are along the lines of decency and propriety. Happily, she wrote of a society that reflected generations of Christian values -- selflessness, patience, rectitude and other spiritual virtues are valued: but they are valued in a way that is limited by the external considerations. For instance, it is fine for a gentleman to marry a gentleman's daughter, however impoverished: but to countenance the idea of matrimony between truly unequal social ranks -- as becomes axiomatic in even the correct attitudes in Emma -- would be to upset the ordered universe, and here terminates the horizon of decent unselfishness.

absolutely, of course that's a very important point. I suppose you just have to decide when reading a novelist of a previous age, whether to suspend disbelief and mentally enter into the moral landscape of the time ....or to read it through the spectacles of modern thinking, in which case you will be judging not the characters within their (fictional) situation, but the whole societal set-up of the time, and maybe the moral intelligence of the author.
I prefer the suspended disbelief method any day -- judge JA'S society when you're judging societies - but judge her characters by the standards of that society, since they don't have the ability to step out side of it to separate the essential from the time-related..
I have a low anachronism-threshold and I could never read a victorian novel thinking "duh - why didn't she just marry the gardener's boy?" (in a modern "historical" novel she'd be quite likely to do exactly that, thereby destroying the illusion instantly) If you take on the expectations and assumptions of the time, you're likely to get more out of it in my view, at least as an imaginative experience.
But if you stand back, and judge the characters from the vantage point of the present day, I think it will tend to make hay of the work's internal coherence. Edmund and Fanny had no such opportunity. (Plus as CS Lewis pointed out, it's really no safer to steer by the assured moral assumptions of our own day, -the ones, as he said, which we are so certain of that we don't even know we hold them, but about which future generations will say "but how COULD they have thought that?!")
I'm labouring this because I very much fear it may be necessary to read Charlotte Yonge on her own terms and without subjecting all her petty proprieties to the microscope as you go...to get the brilliant best out of her!

I think this is why the situation with Henry Crawford becomes so confusing; and why ultimately his weaknesses -- even his impatience -- being 'worse form' than the weaknesses of Edmund counts for more than whether or not he is truly bad inside or reformable. His rehabilitation would not be to the purpose in Austen's instructive world of manners. I think she chose to write about a confined world where the morality is -- though deep enough to be significant and worthy of emulation in many respects -- not deep enough to be consistent, unless you accept it onlimited terms.

I think you're right, but I also think it's worth accepting it on those terms!
for eg, if JA says it was wrong to act, then it was wrong...

:-) I hope your daughter escapes whole-hearted from the danger of loving Henry Crawfords too much. I don't actually find that I love him: I just think he is made more wonderful than Edmund and regret that Fanny did not emerge from her trials to be rewarded with wonderfulness. (Actually, the only hero of Austen's I have 'fallen in love with' is Henry Tilney.)

I think she'll survive I'm fascinated you like the other Henry best! Don't you find him a bit inconsistently drawn? All that deadpan wit over the fabrics at Mrs Allen's expense at the beginning - where does it go? (I like him too)

If I do procure anything of Yonge's and have any thoughts that withstand proofreading I will try to send them to you :-).

Thanks, and I really hope you like her

By the way, Jessi (if you're still looking at this thread...)
I know you're a big-time Jane Eyre fan, and I wondered if you ever read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier?
In case you don't know it - it's a rip-off of the book, but quite an accomplished rip-off.
If you have read it, I'd be interested to know what you think of it!

Jenny, yes; I agree that we should try to read and judge an author's universe on their own terms; this was my point as well: in order to do so it's necessary to understand what their terms are. Surely clarity is also necessary for transposing what is valuable into 'real life'. If I mistake Jane Austen's lessons in manners for something they do not pretend to -- for encompassing my whole moral nature -- I could learn the wrong things from her (redemption from real depravity and forgiveness for indecency do not characterise her universe any more than truly selfless humbling of the exalted to rescue the lowly: salvation is mostly a correction of outward or inward circumstances -- such as poverty, or socially forgivable errors in thought or feeling -- and is the reward of the fundamentally innocent and good). We approach what the author is saying on his/her own terms, but we measure the value and extent of what is said against God's. Jane Austen's work is very valuable not only for artistic merit, but because courtesy, patience, self restraint, etc., are worth learning. She teaches us to meet pain not just stoically but graciously, and to rise to the forms and ceremonies of being considerate even when our hearts are breaking; and we know that in Christ, virtue does inevitably triumph, and is splendidly rewarded.

I have to disagree about Fanny's boldness as a lion. Certainly considering her weakness she manages at times a significant amount of courage but she would have involved herself in the play had her uncle not returned; and she would have married Henry Crawford if he had persisted, and Edmund not been free. On the terms of Austen's universe, she is saved from moral taint in the knick of time by the same susceptibility to external forces that exposes her to them -- as is Edmund. Which is why the novel leaves itself open to being interpreted as a statement about the drab inevitability of moral steadfastness in the timidly upright. When the book opens she is more of a jelly with a conscience than a 'form': in this regard it makes sense that Edmund has 'formed' her -- they are both more or less ineffectual (accounting for some part of her 'selflessness'). She emerges into a true shape far more in her interactions with Henry Crawford. All of this is very ably true to life of Jane Austen, but not very wonderful in her characters.

Henry Tilney's delight with feminine irrelevance and ridiculousness remains throughout the book, as the flip side of his more serious concern over its tendency: it is of all of a piece with his attraction to and protectiveness of silly little Catherine. He is incredibly well drawn.


Just a note that I will probably leave the discussion alone for the weekend (and probably longer); but it's been very enjoyable; thank you sincerely :-).

I think I read and replied too fast the last time, I do see what you're saying (and mostly agree)
Yes it's been fun, thank you! but I too have a busy time ahead so I'm equally happy to stop there.

Kudos to dear old Fanny and Edmund. I have a soft spot a mile wide for both of them.
It could be partly because I was set the book for A Level,*and most of my class-mates disdained them. Reverse psychology, like Kathleen with Mr Rochester. Plus I was a shy child and had a fellow-feeling for poor Fanny - how could I help loving the big boy who stuck up for her??
...I just have to add that as JA points out, sure Fanny would have married Henry - but not in a passive line-of-least-resistance way, more because once Edmund was married, her strong principles would have started fighting on the other side!

Originally Posted by JennyG

By the way, Jessi (if you're still looking at this thread...)
I know you're a big-time Jane Eyre fan, and I wondered if you ever read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier?
In case you don't know it - it's a rip-off of the book, but quite an accomplished rip-off.
If you have read it, I'd be interested to know what you think of it!

Well, I just got the DVD of this (Masterpiece Theatre, I believe) from Netflix, but haven't watched it yet (nor have I read it). My husband and I wanted movies of books that we are on the fence about reading, and at your suggestion, I would have read it, but I have no self-control when the movie is waiting to be played : ) The idea is, though, that if we like it (or I or he), we'll read it afterward. Less than ideal...

Originally Posted by a mere housewife

Originally Posted by JennyG

Now, the Austen heroes....ah, that's a different thing, the only problem would be in choosing between them. I love them all, even the deeply unfashionable Edmund Bertram.

:-) The problem with the deeply unpopular Edmund is that he spends the entire book talking to Fanny about another woman, in whose character he is unhappily and avoidably deceived. So he is a bad judge of character, and a generally boring conversationalist. I always think it's nicer for a woman to fall in love with someone who has the good sense to talk about -- if not her -- at least to talk sensibly about the weather. I have never regretted the non-reform of a villain so much as I regretted that of Henry Crawford; and this is my main impression on every re-reading of the novel. It's the only detail that I think ever went awry in Jane Austen's so perfectly competent writing -- in this one book she made the bad people more engaging than the good ones. That is an unpleasant taste for a moral novel (the 'most intensely moral of all her novels', some preface to some edition I read said) to leave. (I actually found it the most morally ambiguous of all her novels -- I kept wondering if Henry Crawford would have reformed if Fanny had met him half way, and the 'heads or tails' dilemma about whether he was internally bad or had just had bad influences would have landed face up: and finally decided that this sort of moral ramification probably didn't concern Jane Austen. I think she was concerned to write about a very bounded world of societal, rather than larger questions of truly spiritual, morality. Edmund's little weakness of character re: Miss Crawford and the play is more respectable than Henry Crawford's; thus we must rejoice that Fanny held steadfastly to, and gained, her first love and did not turn aside to save anyone from less acceptable sins. As Ruben said when I asked him what he thought about this, perhaps the real take home lesson of Jane Austen is that society is less gracious than God :-)

I think C. S. Lewis says something about the 'exquisite' families of Charlotte Yonge in his autobiography? On both your recommendations, I will check something out of the library.

Very interesting conversation about Mansfield Park. It makes me really want to read the book, b/c we just watched this movie (NOT BBC, and totally trashy in some parts!) and I was already curious as to what was a modern addition and what came from the book.

Jessi, I saw some previews for that version. It looked entirely like the sort of thing that would make Jane Austen turn over in her grave (as with the Keira Knightly version of P&P :-)

I found this over the weekend in Zacharias Ursinus' Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism and couldn't help thinking of this discussion and smiling broadly as it seems to sum up what Laura was saying about the value of Jane Austen:

'The fifth [purpose or reason] is the preservation of society in the human race, which, again, is subordinate to the manifestation of God ; for if men did not exist, God could not have those to whom he might reveal himself. . . .
'The sixth, is a mutual participation in the duties, kindness, and benefits which we owe to each other ; which, again, contributes to the preservation of society ; for it is necessary to the continuance of the human race, that peace and mutual intercourse exist among men.'

(Jenny re: attachment to the imaginary people who comfort us as children, I understand. And re: likeness to Fanny, yes, though in her failings -- I am very like her; and I know this is why I find it more difficult to make excuses for her. I was wondering if the gap between Fanny & Edmund's lack of badness and their lack of really splendid goodness is due to the areas of divergence between good manners and truly spiritual morality, esp. with regard to being pliable -- I recall John Bunyan's assessment of this 'virtue' -- which was perhaps bound to catch Austen out somewhere. I think she does better with pliability and obstinance in Persuasion.)

I stopped looking at this thread for a while and missed some posts.
Jessi, I'll be very interested to know what you think of Rebecca if you do give it a go. I'm not exactly recommending it...I think it's well-written and quite involving, but in a way it's like Jane Eyre with all the classiest elements removed! (leaving the heaving melodrama) The old Laurence Olivier film is quite a classic in its own right of course.
Re the Mansfield Park movie... I haven't actually watched it (my children said, don't! don't! you'll hate it!!! and I suspected they wre right) but I've got a fair idea of some of the outrages it wreaks on Austen. It's rated 15 for a start which tells me everything I need to know, really!
But on the other hand I don't know if a decent film of it even exists. We own a decades-old BBC serialised version, pretty laboured, and with a badly miscast Fanny. We watch it every now and then because the story still comes through, plus we can enjoy the awfulness of the production...
Mansefield Park and Northanger Abbey seem to be the great un-filmables though. There are near-perfect versions of all the others. Except maybe for the last scene of the lovely BBC Persuasion.
As for Wuthering heights and Jane Eyre...directors' graveyards both!!

-----Added 11/14/2009 at 05:17:30 EST-----

...Heidi, your analysis of the issues with Mansfield park is very interesting, and I suspect you're the one really going to the root, and mine a much more superficial reading!
I must think more about it.
(I stand convicted too by your observations on being harder on Fanny because you were like her...)
When I gave up English as an academic subject all those years ago I adored being able to read without the obligation to analyse. Now I'm thinking it may be time to switch the function back on, only relating it much more to the real issues of ethics and belief (which wasn't at all what an Eng. Lit. department would have been interested in of course) Not that I do read without applying a Biblical filter, but I could obviously do so more systematically and rigorously

This has been a very interesting thread. I'm encouraged to see a few men get interested in Austen from it. Some of the studliest men I know are avid fans of Jane Austen. There have been few writers in history who have been such excellent judges of character as Austen. She is not my absolutely favorite writer (that honor goes to Dickens). But any library that does not have her works is woefully inadequate (contra Twain). I hunt deer and pheasant, and read Jane Austen, and don't feel the slightest bit schizophrenic about that. Of course, one needn't if one remembers that Austen's men also hunt!

Originally Posted by JennyG

Except maybe for the last scene of the lovely BBC Persuasion.
As for Wuthering heights and Jane Eyre...directors' graveyards both!!

I totally agree about the BBC Persuasion! I love that movie except for that silly circus part. I can't stand that part except for their finding each other.

I like the 1983 BBC Jane Eyre with Timothy Dalton. They use some of the book dialogue word for word. I don't particulary like Zelah Clarke as Jane Eyre though because I really liked Charlotte Gainsborrough who was Jane in the American version. She really struck me as the perfect Jane.

I found the BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice boring should I try an audiobook? I enjoyed the bbc miniseries of Jane Eyre. Same for the 1990's color David Copperfield. What of all these old English novels, which are the most biblical base? Are the Barchester Chronicles good in audiobook?

Originally Posted by Augusta

Originally Posted by JennyG

Except maybe for the last scene of the lovely BBC Persuasion.
As for Wuthering heights and Jane Eyre...directors' graveyards both!!

I totally agree about the BBC Persuasion! I love that movie except for that silly circus part. I can't stand that part except for their finding each other.

Was the BBC version the 2008 version with Sally Hawkins, Alice Krige, Rupert Penry-Jones, and Anthony Head??

I really love the story of Persuasion...in fact, I think it was Jane Austen's best work, IMHO! But, I was a bit dissappointed in the 2008 movie adaption of the story. It was very hard to follow and I didn't really think the relationship between the two main characters was developed very well. I'm wondering if anyone else felt that way about the 2008 version??

Originally Posted by In His Grip

Originally Posted by Augusta

Originally Posted by JennyG

Except maybe for the last scene of the lovely BBC Persuasion.
As for Wuthering heights and Jane Eyre...directors' graveyards both!!

I totally agree about the BBC Persuasion! I love that movie except for that silly circus part. I can't stand that part except for their finding each other.

Was the BBC version the 2008 version with Sally Hawkins, Alice Krige, Rupert Penry-Jones, and Anthony Head??

I really love the story of Persuasion...in fact, I think it was Jane Austen's best work, IMHO!

I think so too, on the whole

But, I was a bit dissappointed in the 2008 movie adaption of the story. It was very hard to follow and I didn't really think the relationship between the two main characters was developed very well. I'm wondering if anyone else felt that way about the 2008 version??

I don't think I ever saw that one. The BBC Persuasion I was thinking of might have been made as long ago as the nineties, and it's so good it prevented my feeling the need of ever watching another! It has Amanda Root as Anne, and she's just about perfect in the role. The gradual recovery of her "bloom" is beautifully done, and by the end is also finding expression in such surpassingly gorgeous outfits! (gentlemen please ignore that frivolous observation)
And at the end a circus goes by, to symbolise the riot of joy in their hearts. Actually I've got used to the circus, though it annoyed me very much at first, and I think now I could swallow that, but the scene immediately following is the one that finishes me. It's very weird indeed. i take comfort in the fact that even JA herself had trouble wrapping up that novel, and in fact left an alternate ending extant (but minus the circus)

Originally Posted by JennyG

I don't think I ever saw that one. The BBC Persuasion I was thinking of might have been made as long ago as the nineties, and it's so good it prevented my feeling the need of ever watching another! It has Amanda Root as Anne, and she's just about perfect in the role. The gradual recovery of her "bloom" is beautifully done, and by the end is also finding expression in such surpassingly gorgeous outfits! (gentlemen please ignore that frivolous observation)
And at the end a circus goes by, to symbolise the riot of joy in their hearts. Actually I've got used to the circus, though it annoyed me very much at first, and I think now I could swallow that, but the scene immediately following is the one that finishes me. It's very weird indeed. i take comfort in the fact that even JA herself had trouble wrapping up that novel, and in fact left an alternate ending extant (but minus the circus)

That's interesting, I'll have to look for the BBC version then! I just love that story and would love to see a good screen adaptation of it!

Originally Posted by In His Grip

Originally Posted by JennyG

I don't think I ever saw that one. The BBC Persuasion I was thinking of might have been made as long ago as the nineties, and it's so good it prevented my feeling the need of ever watching another! It has Amanda Root as Anne, and she's just about perfect in the role. The gradual recovery of her "bloom" is beautifully done, and by the end is also finding expression in such surpassingly gorgeous outfits! (gentlemen please ignore that frivolous observation)
And at the end a circus goes by, to symbolise the riot of joy in their hearts. Actually I've got used to the circus, though it annoyed me very much at first, and I think now I could swallow that, but the scene immediately following is the one that finishes me. It's very weird indeed. i take comfort in the fact that even JA herself had trouble wrapping up that novel, and in fact left an alternate ending extant (but minus the circus)

That's interesting, I'll have to look for the BBC version then! I just love that story and would love to see a good screen adaptation of it!

I think you might like that one -not that it's without faults...
Ciaran Hynd is Capt. Wentworth (I may have spelt him wrong) There's a beautiful background score with lots of Romantic piano music which gives it the same kind of heart-tugging elegiac feel as S & S.
I sometimes wonder how it came about that all those good Austen versions were made, at that point in history, and with the film/TV industry in general being what it is. The best of them (I'm thinking the BBC P&P, Emma Thompson's S&S, Gwyneth Paltrow's Emma and this Persuasion) are mostly faithful to the books and most important of all, faithfully reproduce her moral landscape. I don't feel it could have been predicted. The Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park horrors were more what could have been expected!
Andrew:

I found the BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice boring should I try an audiobook? I enjoyed the bbc miniseries of Jane Eyre. Same for the 1990's color David Copperfield. What of all these old English novels, which are the most biblical base? Are the Barchester Chronicles good in audiobook?

You could always try an audio book, I honestly don't know whether it would be more enjoyable or not though.
I always found Trollope harder going and less rewarding (his moral outlook more worldly too) than Austen, but it's probably a personal thing!
The BBC screened some of his too, ages ago, and they were hugely popular in this country - with a superb cast that really brought out the humour in them. Reading them might be more dry, at least I found it so.
For a Christian wanting God-honouring (and also entertaining) reading, I think Austen will always be one of the tops!