DO NOT, in whatever circumstances you find yourself, DO NOT WATCH NORTHANGER ABBEY circa 1987. Unless you want a good laugh. This is the WORST Austen adaptation I have ever in my life encountered. How this possibly came to the screen - let alone was reproduced in video and DVD - is a bafflement to me. The actors were unattractively coiffed and hilariously melodramatic, the music befuddling (sexy saxophone? scary heavy breathing? new agey moaning?), and the script hatched and cobbled. What a farce! My husband slept, while I laughed in amazement, and my kids were, like, "What?" "Why is he saying that?" "What's happening now?" Who knew a Jane Austen movie might cause nightmares?
I should have been alerted to the travesty by the eyeshadow Catherine is wearing on the cover.
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On the other hand, I finally saw Austenland, a movie I thought was going to be silly and disappointing, but I found it silly and hilarious in an entertaining way. The concept is that a young woman, down on her luck in love, decides to treat herself to a vacation at Austenland, a resort in the form of a Regency manor, offering an immersion experience replete with actors, costumes, and entertainments from the early 1800s, where Janeites can pretend to live in one of her novels for a week. A romance is guaranteed! The movie is charming and lighthearted, and while it pokes some gentle goodnatured fun at Jane Austen's obsessive fans, it does so in a way that acknowledges why people love Austen so much. I would MUCH rather go to Austenland than Disney!
| Jane lies in Winchester—blessed be her shade! Praise the Lord for making her, and her for all she made! And while the stones of Winchester, or Milsom Street, remain, Glory, love, and honour unto England’s Jane! |
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And if you are tired of Jane Austen, DO read Willa Cather over and over again. I love Willa Cather. If I do ever have a daughter again, I am determined to name her Willa Jane. If I don't, maybe I will get a female dog and name her this just to say this name daily. I am currently reading Song of the Lark again after many, many years. It is beautiful and heartbreaking. I am reading a library copy, but I am tempted to buy my own.
This novel doesn't replace My Antonia, O Pioneers, or Death Comes for the Archbishop, as my favorite Cather novels, but reading Cather is an "immersive experience" in itself. I can understand why she doesn't have the broad appeal of Austen. Her landscapes seem to be the main characters at times. Her heroine is hard and could be considered selfish or at least self-absorbed. The plot plods along with little action. Thea Kronberg is not particularly likeable, but Cather creates such memorable characters and invokes such admiration for the strength and perseverance that built the west and found beauty in hard places. Perhaps it is her understanding of human desires that transcend sexuality, and of the capacity of the human soul for both nobility and disgrace, that makes her both brilliant and an outsider. Cather's world is full of color and light contrasting with dark crevices, like the canyons and sand hills that nurture Thea's talent. I haven't quite finished the book; it doesn't read quickly, but each time I dip into it, it takes me a few minutes to return, sometimes reluctantly, to the present after closing the cover.
1 comment:
A great post! I had to laugh just looking at the cover photo of that Austen DVD, and reading your review was a pleasure.
(Sigh)I feel the same way about Cather, though I have only read My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop more than once. As you say, truly immersive. My Antonia is one of my all-time favorites, and perhaps the only book that my husband and I read aloud together more than once.
May 2016 be a year full of book delights!
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