A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Ya'll know I love a good Jane Austen adaptation.  So when I spotted a trailer for a new, previously unadapted novella by Austen, you know I had to see it.   Love & Friendship is the film adaptation of the novella Lady Susan written by Jane Austen around 1794; however, it was not published for nearly seven decades.  Kate Beckinsale, perhaps the best known actor in the film (at least to American audiences), plays Lady Susan Vernon. Love & Friendship has a fast-paced plot and quick, smart dialogue.  At times because everything and everyone, it seems, is moving so quickly it can be hard to follow just what machinations are going on or how events are transpiring.  And the characters' connections serve up some confusion right off the top of the movie, but more on that later. Lady Susan Vernon is a conniving, manipulative widow whose social reputation is in tatters at the outset of the film due to a romantic liaison with the (married) master of Langhor...

Eligible: A modern re-telling of Pride and Prejudice is Curtis Sittenfeld's fifth novel; however, it is the first Sittenfeld novel that I've read.   Eligible is part of a series of modern re-tellings of Jane Austen's works; previously Emma , Sense and Sensibility , and Northanger Abbey have all been updated and re-told by such well known authors as Alexander McCall Smith and Val McDermid.  I haven't read any of the other modern re-tellings--but I may give them a try.  Of all the Jane Austen adaptations, Pride and Prejudice is the one I love best and with which I'm most familiar.  By now you all know of my fondness for Jane Austen adaptations and British period dramas. For various reasons from the first chapter I was not sure whether I would finish this novel or not.  But at some point a switch flipped, and I was all in with the story.  It's a fast read due to short (sometimes very short) chapters.  The story has been transplanted from the Englis...

I saw Celebrating Pride and Prejudice: 200 Years of Jane Austen's Masterpiece by Susannah Fullerton on the New Titles list in the online catalog.  And by now you all should know: I love all things British period drama and Jane Austen.  And Pride and Prejudice , above all others, warms my little British period drama loving heart.  So you really shouldn't be surprised that I had to read this book when I saw it on the New Titles list. Fullerton covers the writing of Austen's masterpiece and by far her most popular book as well as contemporary reactions to the novel in the first couple chapters.  Subsequent chapters offer analysis of the novel's famous first sentence and its characters.  Later chapters also offer notes on the myriad translations of Austen's novel as well as its many adaptations in English and other languages. Overall I enjoyed reading this book.  The parts I enjoyed most were the analyses of the characters that populate Pride and Prejudice...

Longbourn  is the fifth novel by Jo Baker; however, I think it's one of only two that are available in the U.S.  I started this book back in May and only recently finished it (finally, I know, right) because I got waylaid by classes.  There were about three weeks during the second class that I only had time for work work and school work because that professor crammed 95% of the work into the first three weeks of class. You guys, I loved this book, and you have to read it if you haven't already!  Depending on how long or how regularly you've been reading this blog, you may or may not know of my affinity for English period dramas and Jane Austen adaptations in particular (okay, it might be more accurately characterized as an obsession, but who cares?).   Longbourn is in the vein of Pride and Prejudice fiction--there are numerous sequels to and re-imaginings of the famous Jane Austen novel in the form of more novels and short stories.   Longbourn is neit...

All Roads Lead to Austen: A Year-long Journey With Jane is Amy Elizabeth Smith's first book.  Smith is a tenured university professor in California who teaches literature; she specializes in Jane Austen novels (and is an Austen enthusiast), and she teaches a course in Austen novels.  The premise of this book was to travel to six different Central and South American countries to meet with both formal and informal reading groups to discuss various Jane Austen novels.  The groups read Austen in Spanish translation, and Smith wanted to find out if these readers connected with and reacted to Austen's novels in the same way that her students back home did.  Smith also wanted to find out if Spanish language readers thought Austen's themes were universal enough to translate across time and cultures. Ya'll know I'm a sucker for an English period drama.  I've seen all of Austen's novels in film adaptation form (but sadly have never any of her novels).  So when t...

I must confess there was a period of time a couple years ago where I was watching a lot of British period dramas that included film and/or mini series adaptations of every one of Jane Austen's novels (for some novels, I've seen two different adaptations; it was an obsession at the time, what can I say) and adaptations of some of Elizabeth Gaskell's novels (hello, North & South ), and I still like a good British drama, period or otherwise.  I've never read any of the novels for which I've seen adaptations.  I know, I'm bad.  Don't judge.  In the introduction to this anthology the editor, Marsha Altman, calls the collection Pride & Prejudice fanfiction.  I must confess (again) that I literally couldn't put this book down.  I said, DON'T JUDGE, didn't I? At some point there was mention of a theme for the collection that was since abandoned, and I don't think there was a particular theme for the stories, although a few took the idea ...