Litwit Lounge discussion

Any Austen fans around? Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorites of hers. And wouldn't you know it, the local book group I just joined it has chosen it for next month's discussion. I have read it twice and seen the movie (in various versions) at least half a dozen times. I'd just skip it if it wasn't that I felt so strongly I needed to get out and meet other folks. I really do love the wit & satire in it, a little romance is good, too, I s'pose.

Yes, I'm definitely an Austen fan (although there are still three of her novels I haven't read --but I hope to remedy that later this year)! Pride and Prejudice was the first Austen novel I encountered; I've read it twice, and it's still my favorite. I love the stately prose and delectable irony in Austen's fiction, and the way she adds real substance (characterization, plotting, and serious messages) to the romantic storyline.

IMO, the best dramatic adaptation of Pride and Prejudice ever made is the A & E/BBC miniseries (six cassettes on VHS). They took the time to bring out all the nuances of the novel as far as the film medium can, and I can't imagine it ever being done any better!

Yes indeed ..wot he just said re prose etc especially

The BBC is my favorite as well. Jennifer Ehle's performance is fabulous; she seems to have a twinkle in her eye that fits the part of Lizzie perfectly.

Just thinking of some of the great lines in P&P is enough to make me laugh. We have Lizzie's observations of the society they keep, Mrs Bennet's raptures and Mr Bennet's dry humor. This is one of my favorites:

"Don't keep coughing so, Kitty, for Heaven's sake! Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces."

"Kitty has no discretion in her coughs," said her father; "she times them ill."

"I do not cough for my own amusement," replied Kitty fretfully.

Then there's Mr Collins and Lady Catherine -- so many great characterizations all in one book!

Reggia wrote: "The BBC is my favorite as well. Jennifer Ehle's performance is fabulous; she seems to have a twinkle in her eye that fits the part of Lizzie perfectly.

"
Yes indeed Jennifer Ehle was a great Lizzie. And, just to lower the tone a little, I liked it that she was a fairly buxom girl, and demonstrated how those Empire line 18th Cent dresses must have looked on so many.

I have never read one single Jane Austin....Austen? So please if anyone reads one on a group let me know so I can attempt once again to read one. I did join the group here for the Colorado Springs area and did fully intend to participate but sigh......
I haven't even checked in so should do that I guess.

Reggia, why not do a group read of P and P here too? You might get all sorts of cross- fertilisation. (it's not often you can get cross-fertilised so safely after all )

I'd be happy to be part of a goodreads one, haven't re-read any Austen for ages .

I'm thrilled to hear the interest and suggestion. :D Please consider it accepted and put into action as of now. ;)

Just let me know when you each have a copy. In the meantime, I'll get some discussion ideas and maybe invite a few to join us.

Three of my other Goodreads groups do group common reads regularly --fortunately, they're only done on a voluntary basis, or I'd probably never have time to read anything else! So, if you all decide to do one here regularly, I trust you won't excommunicate me if I don't always take part? :-) But since I've already read Pride and Prejudice twice, I'll be glad to chime in on that discussion! It's a great choice, and this is a good way to induce people to read it.

Reggia wrote: "I'm thrilled to hear the interest and suggestion. :D Please consider it accepted and put into action as of now. ;)

"

Yay Reggia, I'll go and dig mine out this minute !

Barbara wrote: "Reggia, why not do a group read of P and P here too? You might get all sorts of cross- fertilisation. (it's not often you can get cross-fertilised so safely after all )

I'd be happy to be par..."

LOL! have you picked up on this in The Town House yet? I can't wait to get to it...so controversial!

Alice wrote: "I will need time to get a copy....Pride and Prejudice is the one, right?
"
Yes, P and P is right . You could ease yourself in with the BBC series starring Jennifer Ehrle if you can get it on DVD. Library might have it actually

No not texas no way not even remotely close no at all no no indeed not.............

We have actually attempted to watch some on PBS here. Even my husband gripes that there are too many characters and they are too "stilted". (and he loves Hornblower and buys all DVD's and videos he can get his hands on) Thanks for this reminder. I will go into our local library system and request it. I do feel UNeducated not having read even one of them.

My son suggested I take college classes which I would love to do but these days I cannot stand anyone's perfume or fabric softener which is deadly for me so goodreads is providing a GREAT alternative. I have read at least 5 books I would never otherwise have done. Actually more than that as I think about it.

There are actually no current copies of Pride and Prejudice available thru the library but all kinds of DVD's and stuff like that. I generally prefer to read.

Surprised and sorry you can't get a copy: were you able to put one on hold? The BBC movie we mentioned is very close to the book. I like that Hornblower series, too. There's still a few that I haven't seen...

Working my through P & P -- still laughing at all my favorite spots, enjoying it all over again. :)

Tonight we watched part of The Jane Austen Club which I got from the library. Its about a group out in CA who meet to discuss Jane Austen books as they are all big fans. Hubby got bored but I loved it.

I didn't realize that Jane never married? I will have to google her and read more.

SPOILER re - The Jane Austen Club (on DVD)
All their relationships are saved by reading the last book - Persuasion. Very interesting.

Oh, I may have one on the way but apparently they do not have many copies here so having to wait. I had to go out to the library again today due to not looking at my account online yesteday. I am guessing I could probably get a cheap copy at the Book Man and then I wouldn't have to worry about getting it back.

Yikes! your comment made me realize I have 5 books I must return right now.

[headed to the car:]

[but first:]

Becoming Jane is a biographical movie inspired by a book similarly titled Becoming Jane Austen. If you can stand watching more of Anne Hathaway, it's a nice little movie to see.

Never finished reading The Jane Austen Book Club... if I could be reassured that some of those disturbing images wouldn't be repeated, I'd love to try it again.

I'm reading my copy a little slow, and my local discussion group is in two days. Hoping it won't be too hard to 'wing it' from the last 3 times I read it.

Alice, please let us know when you get your copy.

Has anyone else begun it yet? I'm wondering if we should start a new thread with discussion questions...

Just wondering where everyone is with this...

I am still waiting for the library to email me that it is has been carried up the pass for me. It will probably happen while I am gone in vacation at this rate. Please go ahead and start without me. If I can get into it I usually read very fast. Then I can catch up.

Love the BBC version - so close to the book with only the necessary additions to make it work well on screen... (And no annoying period-inappropriate Keira Knightley hair)

But anyway - will love it when ya'll get to discussing it - its my favorite - I wrote my AP English paper on it (actually Emma was my favorite before then - who in their right mind actually falls more in love with a book because of a paper? me I guess! even though I picked it over Emma because there were better sources for the cultural aspects at the time!)

(Also wrote a pathfinder on Regency Period Culture for my reference class project in Library school! So definite Janeite here!)

Pride and Prejudice is also in my top books. I also loved Emma until I read Pride. I loved all the movies made from the book and disregarded the hair. I saw the Jane Austen Book Club and it was very good. I felt badly for Jane because she was in love and he wanted to marry her but she found out that his family was so poor and he would have no way to support his family if he married her but still wanted to marry her. She broke it off so he could take care of his family. Talk about a tragedy. It would have been very hard to live in those times unless you were rich and that's why all the mothers wanted their daughters to "marry well."

How sad! It does show common sense tho.

What are you referring to Carol? Jane Austen herself? People have read a lot between the lines but I don't think we'll ever know the real story about Jane's love life thanks to her family disposing of those letters...

I read the Jane Austen Book Club back when I worked the public library during library school, but I can't remember a thing about it - apparently I wasn't keen enough on it to go see the movie though, so? lol...

I think Mrs. Bennett does get a lot of flak for being so concerned about marrying the daughters off. Yes Mr. Bennett should have thought ahead and saved money accordingly because of the entail, but still - she has more than enough reason to worry...

The wild thing is when we realize that for all their worries, they were still the equivalent of quite a bit richer than any of us EVER will be... Though I think that while the lives of the poor were certainly bad, I think sometimes that because we see it from the perspective of those who are their equivalent wealthier than we are, we get a false view - I'm sure there were a lot of poorer but happy families in admidst the really poor. And look at merchants like the Gardners! Seem fairly happy and financially secure to me, but not a "gentleman"...

It was the movie about Jane Austen.
Yes, it's funny what they thought was poor. They had beautiful country homes and the men seemed to receive so many pounds a year from their inheritance and didn't have to go to a menial job every day.

Becoming Jane? or was there another one I missed? I thought Becoming Jane was quite good for all that its just as likely as any other reading between the lines - I thought I would hate a fictional account of a real person, so I was pleasantly surprised.

I don't know that its any different than what people with lots of money today might consider poor though - I mean its all in perspective.

And no they didn't have to go to a job every day, but I think we sometimes get a fairly false view of what the gentlemen did - they might have managers and servants to take care of the day to day runnings of the estate, but they still had to do their end of the business dealings, and to make sure that those they hired weren't swindling them out of money - so I have the feeling that...say Mr Darcy... probably did a lot more "work" than we'd actually hear about in a novel like P&P - its just more the work of a CEO than the normal person... (I mean think of someone who owns a company today - I'm sure they've got more freedom to take off when they want - but they've got big responsibilities that go along with that freedom)

Very true, Ally, good post.

It's hard to imagine though, the freedom (or means) being able to spend weeks or months visiting and/or having visitors.

Oh I'll agree to that!

I just think we tend to imagine (And I'm as guilty of that as any) that they did absolutely nothing, when in reality - Mr. Darcy probably had servants riding back and forth all the time to keep him updated on what was happening on the estate - they just were able to delegate a lot more of their duties to their servants...

A huge estate like that was a lot to keep track of.. I've wondered also about investing, and how much time had to put toward that end.

A reference resource (that your local libraries may or may not have) that covers the social/cultural background of Austen's novels is All Things Austen: An Encyclopedia of Austen's World by Kirsten Olsen (Greenwood Press, 2005). Since it's a 2-volume, alphabetically-organized encyclopedia, it's not the kind of thing you'd usually sit down and read cover-to-cover --though you might; the articles cover broad areas like "Agriculture" and "Etiquette," and seem to be quite fascinating! :-) They don't have an article specifically on estate management, though.

I haven't seen that one yet Werner I'll have to look for it (too new to have been in my pathfinder - which was written in fall 2004!) Sounds wonderful though...

Good freebie website for background information is http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/jan... not your typical website by any stretch of the imagination...

But my favorite reference book (to pick one out of a 33 page pathfinder I wrote for class on "Culture and Society in Regency England as Seen in the Novels of Jane Austen" lol) is

Le Faye, Deidre. Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2002.

I haven't looked at it recently (though it is one of the few I actually did purchase for my own collection), but to quote myself: "Extremely well done, it starts with an overview of Jane Austen’s life. But, more importantly then focuses on the time period in general, then discusses the backgrounds of each book focusing on the settings, contemporary reaction and Jane Austen’s own view of her work. It has detail, yet is extremely readable."

I've also recently picked up another book about the background of Jane Austen's novels that I haven't had a chance to read yet (it was on the bargain books at Barnes and Nobles and I didn't remember looking at it for the pathfinder assignment so I picked it up as cheap as it was, lol).

Ally, I just got a chance to visit the website; it's an excellent electronic source for Austen and her work. Thanks for sharing the link! I'm going to pass it on to the electronic resources librarian at the library where I work.

Has anyone in this group read any of Stephanie Barron's mystery novels, that cast Austen as a sleuth? So far, I haven't, but they were recommended to me a few years ago by one of the college's English teachers. He says Barron does a good job of dovetailing the plots with the known circumstances and chronology of Austen's life.

Yes, I've read at least the first two of Barron's "Jane as sleuth" works. It's been awhile but I remember enjoying them.

Thanks, Werner, now I can add them to my READ list. :)

Another resource on the times (albeit a lighter read) is What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew From Fox Hunting to Whist - the Facts of Daily Life in 19th-Century England. I haven't yet ready my copy -- seems like the kind of book to flip through and read at whim.


What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew From Fox Hunting to Whist - the Facts of Daily Life in 19th-Century England

Just a warning Reggia - its fairly known for combining time periods badly (i.e. Regency England doesn't really have that much in common with Victorian England) - but it definately is a lot lighter read =)

(I personally thought it was amusing, and not nearly as bad as the reviews I read of it made it out to be - I mean its not intended to be an academic tome so I'm not sure why some of the reviewers expected as much out of it as they did!)

I appreciate that, Ally, and will keep it in mind as I peruse this curious book. :)

Everytime I get this on the neverending quiz (lots) I have to laugh!

True or False: Mark Twain loved the writings of Jane Austen.

:)

An enduring Classic for a reason, "Pride and Prejudice" is a book I have read only once, but seen the movie multiple times. The film version with Colin Firth is extremely well done, and stays quite true to the book.

"Every time I read ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone." ~Mark Twain on Jane Austen

Then why did he keep reading her works?

LOL, I just noticed the earlier comment #36... I figured there had to be something more to this quote from Twain.

"The person, be it a gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." Mr. Tinley, Northanger Abby Jane Austin.

Nina wrote: ""The person, be it a gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." Mr. Tinley, Northanger Abby Jane Austin."

Nina, out of all the many quotations highlighted on Goodreads, that's one of the very few that I've officially liked! :-)

Me too, Werner and I have a book mark with those words written on it.

Nina wrote: "Me too, Werner and I have a book mark with those words written on it."

Cool!

I've seen that... a great quote with which I completely agree. :-)

Any thoughts on Twain's words on Austen. I wonder if he secretly liked her... after all, why did he keep rereading her books?

This article has a lot of 'thoughts' on this question: https://www.vqronline.org/essay/barke...

Li, that article is very insightful; thanks for sharing it!

Here's another online article that addresses the same question: https://www.buzzbookstore.com/blog/20... .