Lost in Austen - Episode 1

You can watch the first episode here. I wonder why they say it’s going to be hilarious. It’s not so far. But I also found the Behind the Scenes video and it’s funnier.

 

I liked their Mrs. Bennet though. Yes, she’s out of character, but at least I like her and can sympathise with her. She’s also the only character that made me laugh (once!).

 

I disliked the scenes with Amanda knocking on the door to her apartment. They’re so designed on sucking our sympathy for the poor Amanda locked in the Regency world by the naughty Lizzy! Of course we’d hate her if the situation was opposite and it were Lizzy begging to be let in, while Amanda kept her out.

 

It makes no sense either. Lizzy wouldn’t behave like that, not to mention that she’d return if she heard that Jane had troubles. Also, there’s no reason for Lizzy to keep Amanda locked in. She might still remain in the modern world if Amanda returned, and Lizzy isn’t a person to freely dispose of the life of others for her own amusement. Come on! Last time I behaved like that I was 10. Their Lizzy proves to be sillier than Lydia.

 

They said that Amanda would change the events, but otherwise they’d be faithful to the book and its characters. They failed on both accounts. Some events – Bingley’s meeting the girls before the Meryton Assembly or the Netherfield party’s presence in Hertfordshire on the preceding Sunday are the producers’ changes and have nothing to do with either Amanda’s presence or Austen’s book. The characters are out of character, and it only shows that Andrews didn’t read the book carefully enough. If you write fanfiction, do it intelligently.

 

I’m afraid that I don’t like Amanda. She’s not a girl I’d befriend in RL. Even today there are women who have more subtlety, are intelligent and eloquent. She lacks it all. Let’s face it: How silly one must be to identify with Amanda? And why on earth did she run to Netherfield? She read the book, so she knows Jane’s going to be fine.

 

As my friend noticed, Amanda seems pretty dumb like for such an Austen lover. She reads the novel daily, and yet she hasn’t learnt that one doesn’t address Miss Bingley ‘Caroline’ or her brother ‘Charles’.

 

I might like a parody of P&P, if, say, Rowan Atkinson played Mr. Darcy, but Lost in Austen is a poor melodrama.

 

 

My favourite lines from other blogs and reviews:

 

All we know of Elizabeth is that she is in modern Hammersmith and doesn’t seem keen to come back. I half expect she will eventually turn up 3 months pregnant and high on drugs.

Very Lost in Austen by Pete

 

It is a truth universally acknowledged that ITV commissioning editors are absolutely desperate to get a big ratings hit, so they must have been as giddy as a Regency spinster approaching 30 when they first saw Lost in Austen galloping over the horizon.

 

Last Night’s TV: Lost In Austen, ITV1 by Thomas Sutcliffe

 

What was utterly unconvincing was Amanda hurling her last cigarette away after just two puffs when she’s stuck in the 18th century and unlikely to get her paws on another packet for another 100 years or so.

Totally Lost in Austen by Lucy Rouse

Modern-day female gets transported back in time to become the heroine of a Jane Austen novel? Isn’t that what we used to call “an Andrew Davies adaptation”?

A comment to First Night: Lost in Austen by MickGJ

 

Jane Austen Nude

This article by the art historian, Alan Saxe-Popette is an obvious spoof, but it’s hilarious!

In private, moreover, Chapman was notoriously prudish.  He is reported to have confessed to his great friend Kathleen Tillotson (herself a well-known scholar of English fiction) that “I just don’t want to go to my grave thinking that I’ve looked upon dear Miss Austen’s pubic hair.”

Jane Austen Nude

To M

Another short Pride and Prejudice fanfiction of mine posted in A Snifter of P&P.

 

To M

Darcy looked at her, hopelessly.

“I really do not know what went wrong. Could you talk to me?”

She stood still, facing the window. Her shoulders shivered.

He took a step towards her, cautiously, as if not to scare her by breaking the icy air that hung between them. read more…

Chevening Park = Rosings Park

I came across an old article in Persuasions where John Halperin argues that Chevening Park was a model for Rosings.

Rosings is described in Pride and Prejudice as being “well situated on rising ground” and “a handsome modern building,” which fits the account of Chevening Park given in Paterson’s Roads (1826); in Jane Austen’s day it would have been about 165 years old, but it had just undergone extensive renovation.

I googled it and found some old pictures.

The article is worth reading anyway. Although I have no opinion on Austen’s own personality, the author makes some good points about P&P. Read more here.

Silent Water

I added first excerpt of one of my longer stories to the P&P on Rocks page.

 

Silent Water

I have not seen him since he gave me his letter in Kent.

Much has changed since then. My former opinions about him were now but a lingering sense of shame. Ever since I heard that he would come to Jane’s wedding I have hoped and dreaded the encounter.

I did not know what his thoughts about me were now. His feelings, if any. All I knew was that I owed him apology. My character demanded it.

This morning I walked the path to Netherfield in the hope of meeting him. I saw him from afar. He stopped his horse. A slight nod as an acknowledgement of our acquaintance.

“Mr. Darcy,” I began anxiously, “I would like to tell you how sorry I am for the things I said back then. I did not realise I could not be more mistaken.”

He looked at me, hesitantly, and I wondered if he was curious to hear me at all, or only conscious of the discomfort that my revisiting the past had to bring to the both of us.

“Please, do not make yourself uneasy about that. It is all forgotten.”

I nodded and watched him go away. What did I think he would say? One cannot come twice to the same water.

(read the entire story on 50 Miles of Good Road)

Anne de Bourgh and Georgiana Darcy

I’ve been wondering whether Anne and Georgiana might have more in common than it seems. We see both of them mostly through Lizzy’s eyes and all of our other sources are as biased. Lizzy finds Anne rude, and Georgiana shy. Is it possible that if she could look at Anne without prejudice, or with a favourable bias like in Georgiana’s case, she’d find her shy as well?

Anne de Bourgh - P&P 2005

Both Lady Catherine and Darcy are rather overbearing parental figures. While I think that Darcy is much more normal than Lady Catherine there might have been difficult moments when Georgiana would have to face his anger i.e. in the case of her attempted elopement.

Lizzy thinks of Anne “her features, though not plain, were insignificant” while of Georgiana “less handsome than her brother”, which might mean they’re both similarly pretty.

The obvious differences are that Anne is small and thin, while Georgiana is tall and her figure well built. Georgiana is accomplished, while Anne is not, and we might assume that Georgiana isn’t sick. But they both speak very little, and each of them needs their companion’s guidance. I have a feeling that it’s not so much that Anne is so dumb and Georgiana so sensible, as that Darcy hired a better lady companion than Lady Catherine did.

Will the Bond Girl Become Darcy’s Girl? Lost in Austen Spoiler

Recently I wrote that Amanda Price (Jemima Rooper) is likely to refuse Darcy’s (Elliot Cowan) proposal in the ITV mini series Lost in Austen. Was I wrong!

Gemma Arterton as Elizabeth Bennet

According to the producers’ press release Amanda falls as hard for Darcy as he does for her. She is overjoyed with his proposal, and her doubts about his belonging to one Elizabeth Bennet (Gemma Arterton - the Bond’s girl) are quickly quelled by the man himself, who says that he doesn’t care one bit for our Lizzy. Amanda accepts and her head is full of plans for their happy union when Caroline Bingley tells Darcy to enquire after Amanda’s past. When Darcy learns about her many flings, he breaks the engagement. He can’t marry a non-virgin. Darcy proposes to Caroline Bingley, and Amanda feels bereft.

In the meantime all of the havoc Amanda caused to other characters hits the roof, and Mr. Bennet is deadly wound in a duel with Bingley. Amanda finds her way back to the future and is desperate to find Elizabeth. Darcy, who can’t overcome his feelings for her, follows her and declares his undying love again. Amanda finds Lizzy, who is working as a nanny (the producers say that it means that she fared in the future very well! really!) and is enamoured with internet. While at Amanda’s flat Lizzy shows Darcy all of the P&P sites she had found, but it seems he’s still only after Amanda. When he fights with Amanda’s ex over her, Amanda takes him and Lizzy back to Regency.

And here we are. With Darcy engaged to Caroline, in love with Amanda, and not caring one bit for our Lizzy , while Amanda is as in love with him as ever, and afraid that he might now fall for Lizzy once he had met her. Are we supposed to feel sorry for Amanda? Hmm…

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about possible outcomes to this macabre. Here they are:

Zizek About Austen

Slavoj Zizek in The Sublime Object of Ideology included this subchapter about Jane Austen:

Hegel with Austen

Austen, not Austin: it is Jane Austen who is perhaps the only counterpart to Hegel in literature: Pride and Prejudice is the literary Phenomenology of Spirit; Mansfield Park the Science of Logic and Emma the Encyclopaedia… No wonder, then, that we find in Pride and Prejudice the perfect case of this dialectic of truth arising from misrecognition. Although they belong to different social classes – he is from an extremely rich aristocratic family, she from the impoverished middle classes – Elizabeth and Darcy feel a strong mutual attraction. Because of his pride, his love appears to Darcy as something unworthy; when he asks for Elizabeth’s hand he confesses openly his contempt for the world to which she belongs and expects her to accept his proposition as an unheard-of honour. But because of her prejudice, Elizabeth sees him as ostentatious, arrogant, and vain: his condescending proposal humiliates her, and she refuses him.

Darcy is about to give his letter to Lizzy.

This double failure, this mutual misrecognition, possesses a structure of a double movement of communication where each subject receives from the other its own message in the inverse form: Elizabeth wants to present herself to Darcy as a young cultivated woman, full of wit, and she gets from him the message ‘you are nothing but a poor empty-minded creature, full of false finesse’; Darcy wants to present himself to her as a proud gentleman, and he gets from her the message ‘your pride is nothing but contemptible arrogance’. After the break in their relationship each discovers, through a series of accidents, the true nature of the other – she the sensitive and tender nature of Darcy, he her real dignity and wit – and the novel ends as it should, with their marriage.

You Know That You Created Mary Sue When…

Jemima Rooper as Amanda Price

Everyone who has ever read fanfiction must be acquainted with the concept of Mary Sue. Why fan fiction and not fiction? Because professional authors don’t have this problem! It’s something that happens to 13 years old home writers of Harry Potter’s mysterious encounters with Draco Malfoy.

Or so I thought before I looked through the iTV press release for their new mini series. It seems that one doesn’t have to be 13 years old to be a freshman and find themselves Lost in Austen!

The authors’ original idea about coming with an original idea by marrying original ideas of others (Austen’s DNA in conjugal bliss with Life on Mars) is already discussed by John Sutherland in the Guardian. I, however, would like to focus on their prime achievement: their ORIGINAL CHARACTER Amanda Price is a superior human being.

Don’t read further if you don’t want to have the Lost in Austen tv series spoilt for you. What follows is a list, the list, I should say, of characteristics that make Mary Sues all over the world blush in their inferiority.

The Habits of Gentlemen

I uploaded one of my very short Pride and Prejudice fanfiction stories to the A Snifter of P&P  page:

The Habits of Gentlemen

Darcy watched her pale countenance with concern. Her angelic smile had disappeared and the tender expression in her eyes was replaced with a gloominess he had never seen on that beautiful face before. She caught his gaze and cast her eyes down.

“Is there anything troubling you?”

She shook her blond curls in answer. read more…

Ballroom Etiquette

I thought that I might write down the things I know about balls and the ballroom etiquette, since they might be helpful in understanding Austen’s books.

There were three kinds of dancing opportunities:

1.) A public assembly,
2.) A private ball,
3.) An impromptu dance at someone’s house.

London society at Almack's

General rules about dancing:

Every set of dances consisted of two dances and took up from half an hour to an hour or even longer. A man could ask a woman twice, which means that they would dance two sets and spend an hour or even two together during one evening. Asking a woman twice always meant a special attention, however, the meaning of the attention would depend on the kind of the ball. If there were many ladies of the man’s acquaintance he could ask one lady twice only if she was his fiancée or wife. If he knew only a few ladies it would mean that he preferred the one above the others, and if he knew only one or two ladies present it’d mean nothing.

Darcy’s Pride

This post was written in an answer about the nature of Darcy’s pride. Someone asked how was it possible that Darcy received such a good opinion from his housekeeper, and yet still needed to give excuses for his pride after his second proposal.

The Hunsford Proposal

It’s significant to remember that there are two kinds of pride. One is positive - it’s good and natural to be proud of one’s just deeds, or of our loved ones. The other is the worst of the seven deadly sins out of which all of the others arise. It’s this kind of pride that is paralyzing and leads us to cruelty. People who are too proud to act according to their conscience and do what is right, because it would be seen as their weakness, are guilty of this kind of pride. The remedy to it is humbleness, and Darcy later says that he was properly humbled by Lizzy. Of course Darcy always knew the difference between the two kinds of pride, but he thought he was proud only in the positive way. Lizzy proved him wrong.