All Things Pride and Prejudice

The Significance of Chapter 18 in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

2011-02-26T11:20:00.000-08:00

At the start of chapter 18, it is made clear that Elizabeth is attracted to Mr. Wickham. The first paragraph says that “she had dressed with more than usual care” in order to appear more pleasing to Wickham. Her attraction to him blinds her from the truth. She already has a “likeness” of Darcy in her mind and because she is so proud of her ability to judge the character of people swiftly, she refuses to acknowledge that she is wrong. When Wickham tells her his story, she believes it to be true because it matches with her own opinion of Darcy. Her pride is the leading cause for her downfall later in the novel.
When she arrives, her thoughts are solely on Wickham and the pleasure she expects to gain shortly from his company during the private ball. However, she is soon told by “Mr Denny…that Wickham had been obliged to go to town on business the day before,” and that the business would not have been as important, “if he had not wished to avoid a certain gentleman”. This is the second sign of Wickham’s deceitful character and hypocrisy. During his first acquaintance with Elizabeth he had stressed to her that Darcy would not drive him away and that Darcy would be the one to avoid their meeting. The first sign he demonstrated was in his telling Elizabeth that he did not wish to “defy or expose him”, and then proceeding to abuse Darcy with false words. Wickham uses his agreeable personality and the general prejudice Elizabeth has, against Darcy to his advantage. He tries to convince everybody into believing his story before Darcy has chance to relate his side of the story.
Upon hearing about Wickham’s business in London and absence from the ball, Miss Elizabeth wilfully chooses to ignore the hypocrisy in his actions. She overlooks the fact that Wickham has intentionally avoided the ball; instead she chooses to be angry with Mr Darcy. She is confident that “Darcy was not less answerable for Wickham’s absence…every feeling against the former was…sharpened by immediate disappointment.” Darcy has not faulted in attending this ball; on the contrary he has overcome his dislike of such events and followed decorum in attending; it would have been discourteous if he had not attended. However, Elizabeth holds his presence against Darcy like some sort of crime, yet again demonstrating her now, extreme prejudice against him.
Darcy who is gradually coming to terms with his love for Elizabeth, asks her to dance. Elizabeth is flabbergasted by his “application for her hand”; the request flusters her so greatly that she is unable to think of an excuse in order to avoid dancing with him, “she accept[s] him”. Charlotte whispers to Elizabeth not to “allow her fancy for Wickham to make her appear unpleasant in the eyes of a man ten times his consequence.” This demonstrates how ill disguised Elizabeth’s attraction to Wickham is. In addition, it tells us, which later becomes important, that Charlotte is more concerned about money and security from a husband than Elizabeth is. This is the first hint we receive that Charlotte might be prepared to marry for money rather than love.

Original here

Emma (2009) - Behind the Scenes - BBC

2010-10-26T12:46:00.000-07:00

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Emma (2009)

2010-10-26T12:41:00.001-07:00

Episode 1

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New Books

2010-09-26T01:26:00.000-07:00

A Companion to Jane Austen Studies

Robert Thomas Lambdin, Laura Lambdin

“[A] Companion to Jane Austen Studies, edited by Laura Cooper Lambdin and Robert Thomas Lambdin, distinguishes itself from other such collections through its detailed attention to Austen's critical reception(there are seperate essays for each of the novels, as well as the juvenilia and unfinished work)as well as to such Austeniana as the poems, charades, and prayers.”–Studies in English Literature.

Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice

(Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations)
Harold Bloom

This is a useful basic guide to studying Pride and Prejudice. It includes a biography of Jane Austen; a summary and analysis of the story; list of characters; bibliographies of her works, and works about her; information about contributors and an index.

Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels

Derdre Le Faye

This book contains rarely seen archive material and special photography of locations still in existence today.

With a wealth of fascinating details about Jane Austen's life and times, this book brings to life the world of her novels which have given rise to a spate of films and television dramas: the film,Sense and Sensibility, was a major Oscar winner in 1998; Emma, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, was a huge box office success in 1996; most recently Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightley was released.

Austen scholar Deirdre Le Faye first gives a meticulously researched overview of the period, from foreign affairs to social ranks, from fashion to sanitation. She goes on to consider each novel individually, explaining in detail its action, its setting, the reaction of public and critics and Jane's own feeling about it. The lavish illustrations, many never seen before, allow the reader to visualize the places and people of the novels. This book is essential reading for students of literature and of social history, and for all Jane Austen enthusiasts who want to gain a new insight into her work.

Pride and Prejudice BBC Radio Drama

2010-04-11T13:56:00.000-07:00

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Lidia, the girl with no inhibitions

2010-04-09T10:39:00.000-07:00

So Lidia has come out on top as the least inhibited character in Pride and Prejudice. Well, truth be told I was thinking of Mr. Hurst when I put up this survey but it has to be admitted in many ways Lidia probably does score higher on the cool/punk scale than Mr. Hurst.
Essentially Mr. Hurst is a most ordinary drunk and also a conformist after all there's little in his behavior that goes against the established canons apart from getting wasted and sleeping on the couch every now and again.
Lidia, on the other hand, is a fountain of unstoppable sexual energy that cares little about social conventions. Nor does she care about what great lengths others may be forced to go to in order to preserve at least the appearance of those social conventions she seems to be so blissfully unaware of. She elopes with Wickham without a second thought even though she knows her sister Lizzy may have a thing for him. Then they're staying at this dubious place in London, when she spots Darcy from the window. Then when Wickham is basically bribed to marry her, she's on cloud nine, happy as a lark.

In fact it got me thinking that perhaps the reason behind Lidia's uninhibitedness is that she knows so little and cares so little. As the old saying goes, ignorance is bliss and so is stupidity. Happy people are not very smart people usually. This reminds me of an episode from Woody Allen's classic Annie Hall in which he's vox-popping people on the street, asking them whether they're happy and if so what the secret to their happiness is, he finally runs into this couple who tell him they're perfectly happy and that their secret is that they're pretty dumb and don't really care about things. It looks like some of us are too smart for our own good, as in not smart enough to make something of ourselves but smart enough to realize what hopeless losers we are.
So if you're like that perhaps you may learn a thing or two from Lidia and the likes of her. She is very emotional and very happy because she doesn't really care what other people might think or feel or say. True, the downside is that those around her often end up having to sort out the messes she leaves behind but it doesn't affect her in the least.
So Lidia you are the best, with not a care in the world and your eternal infatuation with uniforms.

Bride & Prejudice (2004)

2010-03-27T02:56:00.001-07:00

Pride & Prejudice 2005 Trailers

2010-03-26T01:49:00.000-07:00

Life - no heroes in this business

2010-03-11T12:14:00.000-08:00

At least part of the fascination of Pride and Prejudice lies in its being so true to life in how it portrays people. The book parades a host of characters but none of them could possibly be described as a hero in the pulp fiction sense. Every single one of them has some sort of weakness and they all do stupid things from time to time.
Perhaps Jane is closest to being a heroine but then again she's just much too naive for that. Heroes are shrewd they look right through people, and someone who just takes everyone at face value and in every ambiguous situation gives them the benefit of the doubt, well, they're a saint or a victim or both rolled into one, a martyr.
This lack of true pulp heroes is probably one of the key things that make Pride and Prejudice so believable and the fact that the characters lie, both to each other and even to themselves about their own feelings. Part of being human is saying things you don't really mean. That's the burden of being a social animal, keeping up appearances is important, especially in a society as regulated and obsessed with protocol.
And of course, nobody is perfect, and everybody has several sides, some of which are dark. Perhaps only Jane is all white and puffy like an angel, but therein lies her worst weakness, after all our weaknesses are but extensions of our strengths. And in Jane's case that weakness is readiness to humbly resign to her fate whatever it may be. Lizzy does persuade her to go to London to try and talk with Mr. Bingley. Had it not been for Lizzy, Jane never would have done that. On her own, as soon as she learns of Mr Bingley's unexpected departure she starts telling herself how she must forget about him. So angelic and saintly though Jane may be, she's no perfect human being either.
And I imagine I don't even have to say anything about the other characters. But, it's these imperfections that make Pride and Prejudice such an enthralling read, it's like a glimpse of somebody else's real life rather than a fantasy about how things should be in a perfect world.
There are no heroes in life but it's no worse for that.

1995 again

2010-03-03T13:00:00.000-08:00

I swear it wasn't on purpose I had nothing to do with it; once again in a vote on which portrayal of a P&P character is the best, the 1995 version from BBC comes out on top. This time it was Mr. Wickham and Adrian Lukis won with 53% of the votes.

As I've already revealed elsewhere in this blog my personal favorite Mr. Wickham is the one from Lost in Austen. Imho they gave this otherwise nasty character a very nice twist, making him into a rather nice chap quite deserving of our love and sympathy. And even though in so doing they naturally took a considerable detour from Jane Austen's original storyline, I think they've still managed to preserve the spirit of the original text. The Mr. Wickham in Lost in Austen gets mistreated, but he don't breath a word to no one because a lady's honor is at stake, the lady being Mr. Darcy's sister; a bit more pride.

But, alas, it's still a departure from the original masterpiece, even though it kind of gets lost against the backdrop of the rest of the series, after all Amanda Price is no Elizabeth Bennett. Nonetheless, perhaps the inclusion of Tom Riley in this poll was a mild attempt at humor on my part and it has to be admitted as far as serious adaptations are concerned that Adrian Lukis' interpretation of Mr. Wickham is perhaps the closest to the image one might picture reading the book. He's fairly handsome, especially in uniform and you can see how a young girl can fall for him, but there's still something rotten in his smile and in the way he looks at you, nice to look at but as soon as you scratch the surface you're overcome by the putrid stench of excrements.
Well done Adrian, congrats.

P.S.
I guess I should probably try and find the emails of all the actors that were voted number 1 in our polls and send them congratulatory emails or something.

Lizzy's pride and Darcy's prejudice

2010-02-22T02:52:00.000-08:00

The view about Pride and Prejudice I've often heard expressed by some aficionados of the book is that Lizzy represents prejudice because she's prejudiced against Mr. Darcy at the beginning, while Darcy represents pride, as initially he is too proud to confess his love to Lizzy.
However, after watching the 1995 BBC TV series a second time recently I had an unexpected epiphany. In actuality it's the other way around. Lizzy is the proud one while Mr. Darcy is the prejudiced one.
Think about Mr. Darcy and his motives, why does he do everything in his power to prevent his friend Mr. Bingley from marrying Jane? Obviously he makes some assumptions about Jane based on his knowledge of the social background of the Bennet family and his observations of their behavior in public. And what is prejudice if not assumptions made about an individual person based on the general ideas about the group they belong to? Then again he reveals his prejudice as he confesses his love to Lizzy, even at such an intimate moment he talks about the vastly different social background of their families and about the improper behavior of Lizzy's mother and sisters in public. Those things mean such an awful lot to him.
By contrast Lizzy doesn't really jump to conclusions about people, she may detest Mr. Collins and at first is appalled by the news of Charlotte's acceptance of his marriage proposal but she still remains friends with Charlotte. At the same time when she turns down Mr. Darcy she displays a great deal of that don't-take-crap-from-nobody attitude , which can only be identified as pride. She's proud as hell, and though she may be sexually drawn to Mr. Darcy, she can't possibly accept his proposal after his spiel about the improprieties and low social background of her family. She won't be condescended to. Then later on in an even more spectacular display of verbal flipping of the proverbial bird, Lizzy essentially tells the revered lady Cathrine De Burg to stuff it. Lizzy doesn't take it lightly when either she or her family are called trash and unworthy of the likes of Mr. Darcy. In fact I suspect that on some level Lizzy's motive behind eventually marrying Darcy is to piss of lady Cathrine de Burg and her cousin Mr. Collins with her.
Thus pride is Lizzy and prejudice is Mr. Darcy

True Love

2010-02-09T02:21:00.000-08:00

No doubt Pride and Prejudice can be counted among the most sublime love stories ever written, but it's also one of the most true to life love stories ever written in that it illustrates perfectly the difference between the priorities that men and women seek in life.

Men are all about sex. In the 1995 adaptation, in the episode where Elizabeth comes to Netherfield to visit her sick sister, the director told Colin Firth to imagine he gets an erection when he sees Elizabeth. Colin Firth never revealed whether he had to imagine it or whether he managed to get an actual erection at the sight of Jeniffer Ehle, but that's beside the point here, the point being that men are essentially carnal. In other episodes we find Darcy contemplating the joy one (man) can derive from looking at a woman's eyes. When Darcy confesses his love to Elizabeth and tells her how he adores her, the male audience can see right through the web of euphemisms he's forced to weave by social norms all the way to the true meaning betrayed by the look in his eyes, which are saying, 'I want to rip off your clothes and do you right here on the floor'. That's men for you and Darcy is no different when stripped to his bare essentials. His desire for Elizabeth is so strong and so overpowering that he's even willing to forsake the social norms he professes to value so much and he's even prepared to tolerate Elizabeth's mother and younger sisters, whom he finds totally obnoxious; everything on the altar of sex.

Now women are different. Sex is just part of a much bigger picture for them. And this bigger picture includes, inter alia, money, respect, social status and probably lots of other things and they're always out to get a bargain, always willing to give up something in order to get something else, which they perceive as being better than what they're giving up. So when proposed to by Darcy the first time, Elizabeth turns him down, sexually attractive though she may have found him from the very start, there's still other considerations that make her say no. She doesn't want condescension, she wants respect. Simply being provided for financially in return for sex, which she might even enjoy, simply doesn't cut it for her.

Now, when does her attitude to Darcy change? Of course Darcy's defense of his actions in the Wickham affair plays its part, but then there's his detestable treatment of Elizabeth's sister, which Darcy doesn't even regret in his letter, so obviously Elizabeth still has plenty to have a grudge against him about. But then her aunt takes her to see Pemberley and the moment her eyes first fall on the magnificent mansion it's love at first sight. Lizzy finally finds her bargain, plus at this stage she already knows she has leverage over Darcy, him having confessed his "adoration" for her. Once shown around the house at Pemberley, she says, 'to think I could have been the mistress of all this", with a dreamy expression on her face. Sure Darcy is an ass, but he's an ass desperate to have sex with her, so ideas are coming, sex is power, she can improve him, she can get him to do things he might not have otherwise even thought of doing. The Pemberley estate is what convinces Lizzy Darcy's not such a bad choice after all, considering he's not a complete idiot like Mr. Collins. She says as much to Jane later on.
There's an old joke that goes, men love women, women love children, children love hamsters and hamsters don't love anybody. In reality only the first statement in this joke is true, men love women (sexually), women are more interested in the kind of life men can give them. Note that it's not necessarily always about money, it can be peace of mind or something similar, less tangible than cash, but women falling for men for sex's sake is a phenomenon that happens once in a blue moon, maybe. Usually it's other things.

And thus in Pride and Prejudice, Love trumps all, Darcy's love for Elizabeth's eyes and body, in other words his desire to have sex with her, trumps his pride and Elizabeth's love for Darcy's magnificent estate at Pemberley trumps her prejudice against him. In the end lover conquers all, it's just that it's different kinds of lover for men and women

Pride and Prejudice 1940

2010-02-07T11:34:00.000-08:00

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Pride and Prejudice From Page To Screen

2010-02-04T07:29:00.001-08:00

The creators and actors behind the adaptation of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE talk on location, and P.D. James assesses the success of this version.

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Jeniffer Ehle's the best Elizabeth

2010-02-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

The poll for who is the best Elizabeth Bennet just ended and Jeniffer Ehle came out on top with 60% of the votes. Keira Knightley is second with a very modest 32%. Turns out Jeniffer Ehle's Elizabeth is almost twice as popular as her closest contender.

Obviously the result of this poll is one more proof that this far in the history of Pride and Prejudice screen adaptations the 1995 BBC series remains the best. And with Jeniffer Ehle it's probably love by association. She did a most decent job playing Elizabeth, no doubt about that. One may argue that Keira Knightley was disadvantaged by having to play in a shorter version with fewer lines to say but Elizabeth Garvie in the 1979 BBC adaptation had at least as many lines as Jeniffer Ehle, or perhaps even more. So it's not just about how many lines you've got it's also about how you say them. Elizabeth Garvie recited her role, Keira Knightley mostly posed and Jeniffer Ehle lived it. Well done and a most deserved victory in our poll.

I've yet to see the 1938 version so I can't say much about it. As for the 1940 adaptation, after a lot of on-line searching I was finally able to get my hands on it and puzzlement is the word that describes my reaction to it based. Sure all the characters have the same names as in the book and even the plot is somewhat similar but with all due respect to Sir Lawrence Olivie and the other members of the cast, it's not Pride and Prejudice, it's a vaudeville loosely based off Jane Austen's book. If considered in separation from the book, it's not a bad movie but as an adaptation it totally sucks ass. So perhaps I shouldn't even have included Greer Garson in this poll, while the character she played may be called Elizabeth Bennet her portrayal is probably the furthest departure from the original I've seen so far. And as for Lawrence Olivie, his Mr. Darcy is anything but Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy.

Becoming Jane

2010-01-27T02:05:00.001-08:00

Becoming Jane expands on events from Jane Austen's life that may have shaped her fiction. In 1795, 20-year-old Jane is an aspiring author. Her parents married for love, and money is tight. They hope to see their youngest daughter make a more lucrative match, and there's a besotted local, Mr. Wisley , who would be happy to oblige. Unfortunately, Jane isn't interested. Then, she meets brash law student Tom, while he's staying with relatives in rural Hampshire. As in many Austen novels, it isn't love at first sight--but rather irritation. Just as affection begins to bloom, Tom has to return to London, and Wisley, whose financial prospects are superior, proposes. To complicate matters, Tom's uncle disapproves of the outspoken young lady just as much as Wisley's aunt. Had Austen penned the script, Tom and Wisley would be combined into one person, but life doesn't work that way--and nor does Becoming Jane.

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Lost In Austen

2010-01-21T01:14:00.000-08:00

Episode 1

One fateful evening, after a difficult day at work and a lacklustre marriage proposal from her boyfriend Michael (Daniel Percival), Amanda (Jemima Rooper) discovers Elizabeth Bennet (Gemma Arterton) in her bathroom. There is a door behind the bath that has been boarded up for years, which Elizabeth says leads through to her family home, Longbourn.

Episode 2

Amanda (Jemima Rooper) arrives at Netherfield to discover that Jane (Morven Christie) has caught a serious fever and is taken to bed. By Jane, 's bedside, Bingley (Tom Mison) tells Amanda that he is infatuated with her. At her wits, ' end, Amanda tells Bingley that she is a lesbian and that nothing can ever happen between them - hopefully that will put an end to it.

Episode 3

Having left Longbourn with nowhere else to go, Amanda (Jemima Rooper) is forced to turn to her chief adversary, Wickham (Tom Riley). He buys her a new dress and instructs her in matters of etiquette and bearing, before re-introducing her into society. He suggests that what Amanda needs to do is marry a rich man. However Amanda has other plans.

Episode 4

Darcy (Elliot Cowan) announces his engagement to Caroline Bingley (Christina Cole), leaving Amanda (Jemima Rooper) feeling utterly bereft. This is coupled with the news that Bingley (Tom Mison) has run off with Lydia (Perdita Weeks). This is all wrong - in the book Lydia runs away with Wickham.

Nice take on Wickham

2010-01-18T14:41:00.000-08:00

In the classic text of Jane Austen George Wickham is first portrayed as a victim of Darcy's viciousness but then as the plot unfolds and new facts about him come to light in Darcy's letter to Elizabeth, Wickham is revealed as a lying bastard, womanizer and devil incarnate. Although the latter is perhaps too harsh a label, after all when offered a decent sum of money he does marry Lydia so who is this Mr. Wickham really and what do the other apocryphal texts and films in the Pride and Prejudice universe have to say about him?
Speaking of Pride and Prejudice based texts and films, there is one that deserves special notice in my opinion, in terms of how it handles George Wickham. It's a film, or rather a TV mini-series - Lost in Austen. Traditionally Wickham is cast as a standard black hat baddie, thus when Lost in Austen's main character, Amanda, finds herself in the world of Pride and Prejudice she is naturally, well, prejudiced against George Wickham, because she knows his dark little secret, or so she thinks. However, the authors of Lost in Austen once again successfully prove that there is much more to Pride and Prejudice than meets the eye. And it's a nice twist indeed, the George Wickham of Lost in Austen is as far from being an inglorious basterd as can be; to Amanda Price's astonishment it turns out that it was Darcy's sister that chased George Wickham and not vice versa and when push came to shove George, being the honorable man that he is, chose to keep his mouth shut about the whole affair, while Georgiana told Darcy all sorts of nasty things about him. So all of a sudden dear George Wickham goes from a baddie to a knight in white garments.
Thus almost two hundred years after its first publication Pride and Prejudice is still full of surprises, some of which are quite nice actually.

Pride and Prejudice Illustrations by C. E. Brock

2010-01-15T03:54:00.000-08:00

Charles Edmund Brock (1870 – 1938) was a widely published English line artist and book illustrator, who signed his work C. E. Brock. He was born in Holloway, London; the family later settled in Cambridge. Charles studied art briefly under sculptor Henry Wiles.

He got his first book commission at the age of 20. He became a very successful illustrator of books authors such as Jonathan Swift, William Thackeray, Jane Austen, and George Eliot. He is best known for his line work, initially working in the tradition of Hugh Thomson, but he was also a skilled colourist. He and his brothers maintained a Cambridge studio filled with various curios, antiques, furniture, and a costume collection. Using these, family members would model for each other.

The approach of C.E. Brock's work varied with the sort of story he was illustrating. Some was refined and described as "sensitive to the delicate, teacup-and-saucer primness and feminine outlook of the early Victorian novelists," while other work was "appreciative of the healthy, boisterous, thoroughly English characters" – soldiers, rustics, and "horsey types." Other illustrations were grotesqueries drawn to amuse children looking at or reading storybooks. (Wikipedia)

Watercolor Illustrations

Tinted Line Drawings

Paranoid Charlotte Lucas

2010-01-13T14:35:00.000-08:00

Make a joke and I will sigh and you will laugh and I will cry
Happiness I cannot feel, love to me is so unreal.

Hopes often breed the most bitter feelings when our plans and aspirations fall hopelessly through, but is it the right course of action to simply resign to our fate and go with the flow. Charlotte Lucas certainly seems to think so. She's given up and resigned to whatever may come her way now.
In my opinion, in many ways Charlotte Lucas is the saddest character in the whole book and it's not simply because she marries Mr. Collins. Her acceptance of Mr. Collins' proposal is just a symptom of a profound hopelessness and resignation. All the proverbial lust for life seems to have left her for good.
As the old song goes, 'An empty heart is like an empty life and it makes you wanna cry' That's what contemplating Charlotte does to me. She's found her equilibrium but it comes across as too much like death. Her body lives on but her spirit's been snuffed out, there's no fight left in her. When she hears Mr. Bingley talking about how he liked Jane better than her, she takes it as something perfectly natural and never makes any attempt to do something about it. She's perfectly passive in her dealings with men, there's no snide remarks to be found in her company and when proposed she does just what's expected from her, she accepts.
Mr. Collins may repulse everyone else but Charlotte Lucas just couldn't care less because she long ago gave up trying to be happy.
Poor girl and to think she's only 27 years old. In our day and age she'd be in her best years with lots more options. But still I don't suppose it can all be put down to society alone, our attitudes to life don't just come from our upbringing, nurture plays a part but nature essentially determines how nurture's influence will play out in the end. The question is wouldn't it be better for people like this to never be born?

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

2010-01-11T06:08:00.000-08:00

What do you associate with Jane Austen? Genteel romance? Wry social comment? Blood-splattered bodices?

If that seems inconsistent, you may need to flick through Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a new version of Austen’s classic romance into which US writer Seth Grahame-Smith has inserted a series of zombie horror interludes. The text of the new edition is roughly 85% Austen and 15% Grahame-Smith.

Apparently Seth Grahame-Smith is one of those people who thinks that zombies and ninjas automatically add a new level of awesome to... anything.

However, this isn't exactly the Jane Austen story one would expect. England is overrun by a plague that turns people into shambling zombies, with the sort of repercussions you would.... not really expect. The Sisters Bennet are a deadly Shaolin-trained squad of warriors (Lizzle "has something more of the killer instinct than her sisters") trained in countless weapons, Lady Catherine is a feared zombie-slayer with an army of ninjas, balls regularly get crashed by the undead, and Charlotte Lucas accepts Mr. Collins' proposal after she's infected by the zombie plague. I guess marriage to the professional toady isn't quite as bad as becoming a zombie.

Grahame-Smith also change some scenes (the famous proposal scene is pretty much the same in dialogue, but Lizzie spends it trying to kick Darcy to death while he fends her off with a poker), and he adds in some bizarre scenes of his own (Lizzie spars blindfolded with some of Lady Catherine's faithful ninjas).

And he adds some rather... unique spins to Austen's beloved characters, especially since most of them are reinvented as being acquainted with the "deadly arts." Elizabeth Bennett is a psycho and not at all likeable or sympathetic, even in light of this being a satirical work. She is such a nutcase that you wonder why you even care. Mr. Darcy is a haughty, sexy man... who can be somewhat dirty-minded and mutters four-letter words when Caroline Bingley pesters him, and Lady Catherine is reknowned for being a killer of the unmentionables as well as being a foul snobby old bat ("Five daughters brought up at home without any ninjas?").

Seth Grahame-Smith seemed to at least "try" to imitate Jane Austen's style of writing at the beginning of the book, but towards the middle, he seemed to lose steam and he lapsed into a more modern style of writing. It was jarring to see Austen's style next to Grahame-Smith's in many cases.

The writing style is fairly weak, and the characters have dialogue and thoughts that are out of character. The best things about this book are the brilliant cover art and the funny illustrations of zombies. So get a good laugh from the title and the cover - it's the only one you'll get from this book.

You can read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies here

Darcy's quote

2010-01-09T07:27:00.000-08:00

"A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment."

Pride and Prejudice 1995 Trailers

2010-01-08T07:46:00.000-08:00

Miss Austen Regrets

2010-01-08T06:53:00.000-08:00

Watch online Miss Austen Regrets

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Director Joe Wright Makes Pride & Prejudice for a New Century

2010-01-08T06:24:00.000-08:00

You know going into an interview with director Joe Wright you’re not going to be speaking with a local Seattle boy. The north London native speaks with an accent as thick as his wavy brownish-blonde hair, talking sometimes so fast it’s a bit hard to understand him. But, be that as it may, it’s apparent after the first few moments he’s a driven filmmaker, someone who knows exactly what he wants to see onscreen and will do whatever it takes to get it there.

And so here we were, this tall athletic Seattle girly-girl and a somewhat short, slightly disheveled British director sitting in the middle of a suite at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel discussing his new picture Pride & Prejudice starring current media darling Keira Knightley and based on the legendary novel by Jane Austen. Yet, the pressure of the material, of working with the young star, of treading on ground covered in the past by the likes of Laurence Olivier, Greer Garson and Colin Firth, never showed on either Wright’s face or mannerisms. Only his passion for the material, his eagerness to talk about it, his excitement towards its prospects, were the only things to ever show through making our talk truly one the interview highlights of my year.

Sara Michelle: Talking with the publicist earlier, you’ve really been all over the place doing interviews on this movie. It has to be a little exciting, but do you ever get a chance to go out and experience the cities your in or do you keep getting stuck in hotels like this one?

Joe Wright: It is exciting. It’s really exciting. I got to see a bit of Dallas and last night I was able to get up to Capital Hill [an eclectic alternative neighborhood just east of downtown Seattle], ran around there and went to a few bars; it’s great, it’s really great. Had a good time. Went to a place called Cha Cha’s. Loved it. Was a bit crowded, but loved it all the same.

SM: The Cha Cha Lounge, yes, I’ve been there many times. It’s a great place. One of Seattle’s best kept bar secrets if you ask me.

JW: It was really great.

SM: So, I have to ask right upfront, why Austen? Why this book? Why again? Why now?

JW: Well, they hadn’t made a film out of Pride & Prejudice since 1940. I was surprised by that, and I had never read the book before I was sent the script. Then I was sent the script and I didn’t know if I was really all that interested; I thought I was a little bit more mainstream then this, a bit more edgy. But then I read the script and I was surprised I was very moved by it. And then I read the novel, and the novel was an amazing piece of character observation and it really seamed like the first piece of British Realism. It felt like it was a true story; had a lot of truth in it about understanding how to love other people, understanding how to overcome prejudices, understanding the things that separate us from other people… things like that.

Keira Knightley and
director Joe Wright - Photo © Focus Features

It was a story about love. About the physical side of love, the difficulty of love,
and it’s a story of the emotional and spiritual and the elemental side
of love. It’s all of those things. I had already been interested in
doing a film about love and so I agreed to do [this]. And, I had never
seen any other version other than the 1940 version, not seeing the
[recent] miniseries or any of those beforehand.

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SM: Did that help, not knowing or having any connections with those other versions of the story?

JW: Yes, of course. I mean, I purposely didn’t watch them because I was worried I would nick ideas and plagiarize them. I wanted to be as original as possible.

SM: And that was something you really didn’t have to worry about in regards to the 1940 version, because everyone in that movie didn’t really seem connected to the novel at all. I mean, while the movie is, don’t get me wrong, very good, the stars are in their thirties. Not exactly the age when a person usually goes through their first pangs of love.

JW: And that was really the first decision I made. I wanted to make something that is about young people, about young people experiencing these emotions for the first time and not understanding the feelings they are having. If you have a 40-year-old man as your star not understanding the feeling he’s having then it becomes a bit unbelievable and suspect, rather like The 40-Year-Old Virgin or something instead of Pride & Prejudice.

SM: So realism was your main goal?

JW: Well, I wanted to be respectful to this 21-year-old girl who sat in a parlor in the south of England and wrote this book. I wanted to be true to her. I wasn’t particularly interested in the temples that had been built around her. I wasn’t interested in the ‘Jane Austen Franchise,’ if you will; not interested in the monolith that has been erected over her and her books. I was interested in being true to her spirit and the spirit in her stories. That was what was important to me.

SM: How hard is it, though, to take a book like this and par it down to a manageable length for a motion picture?

JW: Well, yeah, you are condensing it down to two hours and you have to be quite careful about what you do. But, basically, what you do is work out beforehand what the story is you’re telling – what the prime story is – and that story is obviously about Elizabeth and Darcy, following them, and anything that detracts or diverts you from that story is what you have to cut.

SM: Considering that is the prime story, do you think Pride & Prejudice and the romance of Elizabeth and Darcy was the birth of the romantic comedy as we know it today?

JW: Yes, it was. But, also, I think [the novel] was the birth of social realism, of observation. British Realism is one of the best things I think that’s come out of our country, culturally speaking, and so I think there is quite a sense of the birth of that in Pride & Prejudice as well.

Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFadyen - Photo © Focus Features

SM: But when you take on something like this, how do you avoid the clichés of the genre and remain true to the prose? Remain true to the ideas and the concepts that spoke to you in the first place? What struck me was how real, how lived-in, your film felt; how as I was watching it I could almost imagine that I was there. That’s rare in most period adaptations, especially Austen adaptations.

JW: Well, it comes from the book. I mean, you’re not only trying to stay faithful to the narrative events of the story but you’re also trying to stay faithful to the tone and the writing of the story. You try to find the cinematic equivalent of the prose and so, first instance I stated that I thought the book was very acutely observed, that’s why there are so many close-ups in the film and not as many wide shots. I also felt there was a certain realist element to [the book] so I decided to shoot the film in a realist style. I tried to put the audience right in there within that environment so we shot the whole thing on location. You’re then able to go in and out of doors and in and out of windows and really see and feel the environment for a full 360-degrees rather than something very static and stage-bound.

SM: In that way, this must have been very different than working on your telefilms or your short films?

JW: Well, each thing you do is incredibly specific to the story that you’re telling. The only period thing I’d done before was [the BBC telefilm] The Last King, and that was very much about a very claustrophobic world and was quite theatrical. We ended building a set for that, a rather huge set a lot like The West Wing set, and recreated the 1600’s. That was what the story demanded. This, on the other hand, demanded something much more realistic.
So, your focus than is really based on how you respond to the material. The difference really isn’t that massive. I mean, there’s the obvious. When you walk onto the television set there are about 17 people there and then when you walk onto a movie set there are sometimes about 500 people there. That was quite different; sometimes quite scary.

SM: What about walking onto the set with a burgeoning superstar like Keira Knightley for the first time?

JW: Well, Keira’s a mate, really. She’s one of those people that immediately becomes a friend. She’s a very warm, open person, and incredibly brave and strong. She’s one of the strongest young women I’ve ever met. We both come from north London so there’s an atom there of understanding between one another. She’s great.

SM: She’s never been asked to carry a movie before. She’s always been a supporting player before this.

JW: There are very few roles for women that are leading parts.

SM: True, but were you even a little worried at all that she would have the experience or the ability to carry this film?

JW: I kind of knew that she’d be fine. She’s a very strong young woman and incredibly dedicated, and I kind of had an idea that she would be able to do this. I trusted her, and I had to trust her, because if I had not than I’m not sure she would have been able to do it. You have to give the actor your trust. You have to make them feel like they can do it. And then they do; it’s positive postulation, I guess.

SM: How important is casting?

JW: It’s massive. I’d say 99-percent of directing is casting. Not only in terms of the actors playing the roles but also in terms of creating a company of actors and crew that can work together; to play with each other and respond to each other and that’s an incredibly important part of the directing process.

Matthew MacFadyen and Simon Woods - Photo © Focus Features

SM: How hard was this movie to cast?

JW: Very hard. Just because I was so specific about the types of people I wanted to work with. Some roles were much easier than some but it was still quite tricky. You’re also having to balance the producer’s investment – in terms of names and not names – with your own ideas of who is best for each particular role.

SM: Were there ever times you really wanted a particular person and the producers weren’t quite comfortable with your choice?

JW: No, they were incredibly supportive in that sense. I think Matthew [MacFadyen] is obviously less of a star than Keira and so if she hadn’t been playing Elizabeth I’m not sure I’d been allowed to cast Matthew [as Darcy]. So, it kind of worked like that. You try to balance it out as much as you can.

SM: Having not seen any of the other versions, did it still ever enter your mind the pressures you would be under taking on this story?

JW: No, and I think that is one of the reasons I cast Matthew. I mean, I think he’s one of the best actors of his generation in England but, also, I knew he would approach the role like any good actor should, and that’s from the point-of-view of trying to understand the character. He’s the least vain actor you’ve ever met in your life and he wasn’t coming onto this trying to portray an icon, he was coming on to play a character in the same way he would had he been approaching Hamlet or any other great role.

SM: I can’t say I’d ever seen too much of him before, not even his BBC television show, MI-5 [original title Spooks], that everyone talks about.

JW: He’s a properly manly man, as well, and I didn’t want a pretty boy kind of actor. His properties were the ones I felt I needed [for Darcy]. Matthew’s a great big hunk of a guy.

SM: That’s very true. I can’t disagree with that. He’s definitely not hard to look at.

JW: But he’s also very good in the role. At least, I think he’s very good in the role. I liked what he did with the character quite a bit.

SM: Do you wonder, maybe just a little, though, if people will completely accept the unabashedly romantic ending of this movie?

JW: Pride and Prejudice is my first film with a happy ending. Before, I naively thought they were a cop-out, but now I've come to believe happy endings and wish fulfillment are an incredibly important part of our cultural life.

SM: So, to that end, what do you hope the response to this is?

JW: The book was written, I think, with a lot of love. I hope that when people watch the film, the part of them that is still filled with love will recognize this in the film and be re-ignited by that. Do you know what I mean?

SM: Sure, I think I do. You want people to…

JW: I hope it makes people love. That’s it. I hope it makes people love.
That’s a really cheesy thing to say, isn’t it?

SM: No, not that cheesy. Maybe a little bit, but it fits, I think, fits the movie. It certainly made me happier and maybe even feeling like I should give that whole dating thing a try again. Can’t be single forever, after all. I’m sure getting people to think like that after watching your movie can’t be bad.

JW: Guess not. Guess I did my job.

SM: I guess you did.

Making of Pride and Prejudice (BBC)

2010-01-08T06:05:00.000-08:00

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Interview: Matthew Macfadyen (Pride and Prejudice) (Nov 2005)

2010-01-08T06:01:00.000-08:00

One of the cool things about seeing movies early is that sometimes you walk in not knowing much about it. That was the case with Pride & Prejudice. All I knew was that it starred Keira Knightey and that it was based on the Jane Austen novel. So when the film’s Mr. Darcy was introduced, I got psyched - it was Tom Quinn from MI-5!

Or Spooks, as it was known in the UK. I like to imagine the title was changed for the US version because of perceived racial insensitivity, but most likely it was because A&E thought people would assume it was a show about ghosts, and not a very realistic show about spies.

Matthew MacFadyen is the star of MI-5/Spooks, and he’s awesome. And he’s awesome as Mr. Darcy as well. He really walks the line with this character, coming awfully close to being unlikable at times. In fact, that was my first question for him.

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Q: One of the things that is difficult about Darcy is that if he’s played wrong, he’s just a dick. He never gets likable. How did you approach that to make sure your Darcy wasn’t just a dick?

MacFadyen: I just hoped that Joe [Wright, the director] had his eye on it. But reading the script it’s quite clear the moments when he’s vulnerable. The scene in the rain - until then he’s just unlikable, and that’s quite correct. Because he’s a dick. [laughs] He doesn’t say anything nice about anybody, he doesn’t look at anybody – he makes a little bit of an effort in the scene at the piano when he explains why he can’t talk to people. But it’s the scene in the rain, that car crash scene where everything goes so badly when he tells her he loves her, that’s [when you like him]. That’s a big thing for him to say. Now to us it seems very snobbish to say, ‘I’ve been big enough to get over the fact that your parents are naff, and I love you.’ Then it would be such a huge and generous thing to say, despite my rank and the inferiority of your birth.

Q: At least he doesn’t have a line as offensive as Olivier’s ‘a certain amusement to be derived from watching the lower classes at play.’

MacFadyen: I haven’t seen that film. I would be curious to see that now.

Q: Can you talk a little bit about taking on the iconic role of Mr. Darcy? While Lizzie is the protagonist, he’s the most famous character in Pride & Prejudice.

MacFadyen: It was daunting in that I was aware there was the Darcy “thing,” and that people are quite proprietaril about Pride & Prejudice as a whole. ‘Why are they making another version?’ ‘How dare they?’ ‘You better not fuck it up!’ They’re really fierce, the Jane-ites. Which is good, because it’s a classic, and it’s much loved.

But I hadn’t seen the BBC version, so I didn’t really worry about it. Because you can’t as an actor, otherwise you could never play Hamlet or you could never play Richard III. Actually it was quite flattering to be in such good company. A lot of people asked me how I would be trying to make it different from Colin Firth, which is strange because even if I had seen him, I wouldn’t try, because you couldn’t. You do what you can do.

Q: Most, if not all of this film was shot on location. How does location shooting affect you as an actor getting into character?

MacFadyen: It means you’re there. It’s lovely. It’s less of a leap of the imagination than if you’re in a studio.

Q: Are there hardships to location shooting as opposed to shooting on stages?
MacFadyen: No, it’s nice. I would much rather do location. There weren’t great distances involved or anything.

Also, Darcy’s not in it that much, so I’d sort of go for a bit and come back. My wife was pregnant at the time, and I’d be delivered to these various stately piles around the UK and do a scene or two – solemnly – and then go home again! It was a nice summer!

Q: How important has Spooks – or MI-5 here – been for you?

MacFadyen: Important in that it was the most commercial – I’m not in it anymore – the most mainstream thing I’ve done on the TV, so it raises your profile a bit.

Q: Wait – I’m a very big MI-5 fan and I’ve only seen up until the end of series 2… you don’t die, do you?!
MacFadyen: I don’t!

Q: OK. I got very nervous for a minute there. As long as Tom Quinn doesn’t die.

MacFadyen: He runs off.

Q: What was it like working with Keira?

MacFadyen: Delightful. Lovely. I wish there was some dirt on Keira. It’s infuriating that there isn’t. I felt very old, and I’m just 30. And she was going straight off to do another film, she was exhausted.

Q: When you have a leading lady, how do you know if you’ll get along or not?

MacFadyen: I’d screen-tested and rehearsed with her, and I’d auditioned with her. We got on and it was fine.

Q: Any goals to do some acting in the States?

MacFadyen: If the script is good, yes. But not to do a Hollywood film just to do a Hollywood film.

Q: You’ve done some classical stage acting – you just finished both Henrys. How was that experience?

MacFadyen: It was great. I hadn’t done a play in four years, so it was a relief to get back.

Q: And Michael Gambon was your Falstaff.

MacFadyen: He was a hoot. He was great. I worked with him once before on the TV, and he was lovely.

Q: Normally a costume drama in the United States wouldn’t get this much notice, but because she’s in it it becomes important. Do you feel a greater pressure as well, that people will be seeing you for the first time perhaps?

MacFadyen: No, I don’t really. It’s a big one for Keira, and I feel very sort of hats off to her, for making Lizzie her own. Those parts anyway, the knives are out because Lizzie and Darcy are so… But I don’t feel a terrible pressure. As an actor it’s out of your hands. You’re on to the next thing.

Q: Brenda Blethyn, who plays Mrs. Bennett, had another life before she became an actress – she worked for the railroad. Keira has been an actress since she was three.

MacFadyen: She had an agent at birth! This is your mum, this is your dad, this is your agent!

Q: Do you see a difference in them in the way they approach things as a result?

MacFadyen: Not drastically different. It’s quite irreverent. Maybe it’s a British thing as well.

You heard the Judi Dench thing… There’s an irreverence, and once you start taking the work too seriously you’re labeled a wanker and people let you know. And it goes around rather quickly and it’s not useful either, as you’re not really working.

Sir Michael Gambon, who I’ve just done this play with, has water pistol backstage. This is a Knight of the Realm. He’s got water bombs, and the dressing rooms in the National Theater are in a quad – this is the Royal National Theater – and everyone is throwing water bombs. It’s great. He’s nearly 70 years old and he has this amazing career.

What I’m trying to say is that Brenda is in that same spirit, it’s anarchic. It’s healthy I think.

Q: Who’s a wanker?

MacFadyen: Who’s a wanker? I don’t know any wankers!

Q: You mentioned the Jane-ites before, and this has opened in the UK – so what has their reaction to you been?

MacFadyen: Apparently they saw a screening before and they gave it a thumbs up. Working Title may proceed. They can continue to market the film!

Q: Apparently there’s an internet campaign to get the North American ending in the British version. Do you have a preference?

MacFadyen: I think I prefer the version without the kiss. Only because I find it quite difficult to watch myself anyway… But I don’t know, I find it saccharin.

Q: You don’t like to watch yourself, but didn’t you have to go to the premiere?

MacFadyen: I did, but I took my wife to dinner. I left. I left and got drunk.

Q: Do you read the reviews?

MacFadyen: I do, with rising fury or rising delight. They all kind of cancel each other out.

Q: Do you read the reviews when you’re in a play?

MacFadyen: No, that’s much more of a different thing. I tend not to, but it’s very hard not to. You meet actors and it’s like cigarettes, they say they’ve given them up and don’t read them anymore. You say, ‘How did you do it? How did you do it?’ and they say, ‘I just stopped. It’s fine. I don’t think about it really.’ Then they sneak off to the newsagents.

Q: Could you imagine having a career only on the screen?

MacFadyen: I would hate not to do a play every couple of years. I think it’s not me. I did four or five years in telly, and by the end of it was drained. I was a bit sick of myself. I didn’t feel like an actor anymore. That sounds silly, but when you’re doing a play you’re using different muscles, and it blew all the cobwebs away.

Q: When you see what Keira has accomplished by 19, do you ever say ‘What was I doing at that age?’

MacFadyen: I was here. I was at BAM, doing a play.

Q: The Brooklyn Academy of Music? Do you see a difference between American and English audiences?

MacFadyen: Yes. Much more generous, much more savvy than the West End. I don’t know about Broadway, as I never played Broadway, but certainly at BAM. The difference is amazing. It was totally exhilarating. West End audiences seem very kind of [leans back, folds arms] ‘Come on, entertain me.’ The National feels much more lively and more exciting.

Jane Austen's Biography

2010-01-08T05:52:00.000-08:00

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Elizabeth's quote

2010-01-07T13:42:00.000-08:00

"Affectation of candour is common enough— one meets with it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design— to take the good of everybody's character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad— belongs to you alone."

Pride and Prejudice - Documentary

2010-01-07T12:58:00.000-08:00

Pride and Prejudice 1980, Pros and Cons

2010-01-05T14:46:00.000-08:00

The script, written by Fay Weldon, is written more closely to Jane Austen's original language than any of the other film versions. Austen was a master at writing dialog and her witty use of language is one of the joys of her novels, so adherence to the original language is generally a plus for those of us who love Austen's prose. The down side of that faithfulness is that readable prose is not always the same thing as prose that sounds natural when delivered in conversation. The dialog in this version often sounds stilted and unnatural.

Unfortunately, most of the performers , including, the two principal ones, sound very much like actors delivering lines in an amateur play rather than people conversing in real life. A few of the middle-aged actors, such as Michael Lees and Barbara Shelley, who play Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, deliver their lines naturally, but all of the actresses, excepting Sabina Franklyn (as Jane), who play the Bennet sisters are all too obviously performing parts rather than inhabiting their characters.

Elizabeth Garvie is a bit too old for the role, but that's a problem for most of the film versions. Elizabeth is not supposed to be as drop-dead gorgeous as Jane, but should be pleasing to gaze upon, with especially fine eyes, and a personality, intelligence, and expressiveness that enhances the beauty of her visage. Elizabeth Garvie is pretty enough to be Elizabeth at first sighting but there is nothing about her behavior or facial expressions that enhances her looks. Her eyes are not "fine." Elizabeth Garvie only matches Elizabeth in the letter of the description, but she doesn't match her in spirit or the deeper intents of the novel.

Garvie's shortcomings are modest in comparison to those of David Rintoul as Darcy. Rintoul's credits include only one film outside of television (along with 18 television series, miniseries or movies). Rintoul plays the part as though he has a broomstick perpetually stuck up his butt. Yes, Darcy is reticent when in company and excessively proud, but one of the points of the novel is that Elizabeth's initial impression of Darcy was prejudiced by his aristocratic manner. Then, her prejudice was further increased when she overheard his disdainful remark about herself and, again later, when she was mislead by Wickham's story. Darcy is supposed to have an aloof manner, but underlying that haughtiness and pride, both Elizabeth and we viewers are ultimately supposed to recognize in Darcy the kindness and warmth about which the housekeeper at Pemberley speaks. Rintoul gives us a fundamentally unlikable Darcy and one for whom Lizzie's initial impression seems more accurate, in the end, than her revised feelings of admiration.The scene in which Darcy first proposes, which is supposed to be the story's highlight, comes across as two amateurs reciting memorized lines, without any spontaneity of feeling. Without a palpable warmth and attraction between the two leads, the romance comes across as hollow.

Among the other roles, there are some casting strengths as well as some more deficits. Sabina Franklyn as Jane is the only one of the Bennet sisters who comes across as a real person. Tessa Peake-Jones, as Mary, overacts in her part. Although she spouts some pedantic nonsense from time to time, she also actually comes across as more appealing in this version than Elizabeth. She does a nice job with the line, "One coughs when one must, doesn't one?" Clare Higgins is never natural as Kitty, plus she's too tall and too old for the part. Lydia is never developed as a character in this version until after running away with Wickham. Then, after Lydia returns to Longbourn married, Natalie Ogle hams it up excessively in the role. Moray Watson is pretty good as Mr. Bennet and Priscilla Morgan is adequate as Mrs. Bennet, though nothing special. Judy Parfitt is very effective as Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Osmund Bullock is ineffective as Bingley as is Marsha Fitzalan as Caroline Bingley. Malcolm Rennie is very good as Mr. Collins and Peter Settelen is adequate as Mr. Wickham.

The production values are nowhere close to the quality of any of the other true adaptations. The costumes and sets look cheap and stagy. There's very little opening up of the story to take advantage of the potentials of cinema.

This version of Pride and Prejudice pretty much epitomizes what people sometimes criticize about BBC Masterpiece Theater kinds of productions: stilted, dry, slow, stagy, amateurish actors reciting lines as though they had just memorized them, and poor production values due to limited budgets. The film's biggest strengths are that it delivers many of Austen's best lines intact and includes a few scenes omitted from other film versions. Some of the supporting performers are good and provide another take of how different characters can be rendered. The film's biggest shortcomings are poor production values, a stiff, unyielding, and unemotional David Rintoul, and four (out of five) Bennet sisters, including Elizabeth, poorly cast and/or scripted. When the two leads in a romance sound like they're reciting lines rather than living their parts, no other aspect of the film will be enough to compensate.

Elizabeth's quote

2010-01-05T06:25:00.000-08:00

'You wish to think all the world respectable, and are hurt if I speak ill of anybody. I only want to think you perfect, and you set yourself against it. Do not be afraid of my running into any excess, of my encroaching on your privilege of universal good-will. You need not. There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.'

Susannah Harker takes the crown as the best Jane Bennet

2010-01-03T14:19:00.000-08:00

So after a month of voting Susannah Harker comes out on top the best Jane Bennet with 75% of the votes. This result can perhaps be interpreted as another proof that the 1995 BBC mini-series is the best adaptation of Jane Austen's immortal masterpiece so far.
It has to be noted however that a lion's share of the credit for this result must go to Susannah Harker who managed brilliantly to highlight all the defining qualities of her character; Jane Bennet is kind to and trusting in everyone, which includes even the worst 'villains' who lie to her face; she can justify and identify with just about anyone, even people who hurt her personally. At the same time, being the eldest sister in the family, she never shirked the responsibilities and obligations that come with this status. And Susannah Harker carried it all off with finesse. It's a well deserved victory.

A few words about our runner-up, Rosamund Pike, it has to be said that perhaps it wasn't entirely her fault that her portrayal of Jane Bennet ended up being a bit off the mark (in one scene in the 2005 movie Rosamund Pike's Jane Bennet even comes across as selfish, one trait that's totally uncharacteristic of the Jane Bennet we find in the book). Rosamund played the part written in the script and as far as that screen-adapted Jane Bennet is concerned, Rosamund was quite adequate. It's just that the adapted version was so different from the book. And once again we inevitably arrive at the same conclusion, namely that the 1995 mini-series is a much more faithful and better adaptation than the 2005 film.
Congrats to Susannah Harker.

As for the other participants of our little poll, Antoinette Cellier and Maureen O'Sullivan probably stood no chance of having even a single vote cast for either of them; 1938 an 1940 is such hopelessly dim and distant past by today's standards that perhaps only a select few of Internet users will have heard of those two early adaptations and apparently none of these select few have voted in our poll. I personally tried watching the 1940 version and I wasn't impressed at all. Maybe it's because the way movies were made in the UK back then (or was it still Great Britain) was so alien to what we've been conditioned to expect by Hollywood or maybe the film is just plain lame. Either way I wasn't able to watch it to the end. Shame on me.

As for the 1980 series, I've seen it, from start to finish and I must say Sabina Franklyn does a very decent job; her Jane Bennet is definitely more faithful to the book than the 2005 version, however in my opinion she's not quite as good as Susannah Harker in the 1995 mini-series, so now I guess you know who I voted for.

Tell Me What To Think

2010-01-02T10:58:00.000-08:00

Surely Elizabeth comes as the exception to some norms of behavior. A stile-jumper by conviction as well as instinct, she not only flouts convention, she holds it up for deliberate mockery. But does she exhibit the same
relationship to her community’s patterns of thought? She makes terrible blunders of judgment, yet don’t these also proceed from her energy, freedom, and brilliance—her desire either to laugh at everyone, as she would have it, or “willfully to misunderstand them”, as Darcy believes? If anyone is unlikely to have her opinions dictated to her, one would think, it is Elizabeth Bennet. Yet this is precisely what happens, and in the most important of all instances. There is no more crucial judgment in the novel than the one she makes about Darcy at the very start of their acquaintance. Pride, she decides: inexcusable, insufferable pride. The word becomes the tonic note of the book, and the whole course of the heroes’ relationship can be charted through the reorchestrations its meaning undergoes.
Some three hundred pages later, Elizabeth finds herself telling her father that Darcy “has no improper pride”, and the novel is ready to come to rest on its final, glorious harmony. But how does Elizabeth come to make that pivotal judgment in the first place? Quite simply, it is handed to her by her community. The movement
of the word “pride” through the narrative and into Elizabeth’s voice and mind follows the course I just traced: from community to family to individual. It begins as one of the judgments made by the collective consciousness
at the first assembly, the very first negative judgment rendered against Darcy: “His manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and
above being pleased”. By the end of the evening, the opinion has hardened: “His character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world.” Mrs. Bennet, we are given to understand, participates in the formation of this opinion, but her feelings are couched in words such as “dislike” and “resentment,” with no characterological judgment made. By the next morning, however, she has ceded both authority and articulation to the voice of her community: “ ‘every body says that he is ate up with pride’ ” . She is talking here (chapter 5) to her daughters and the Miss Lucases, and the word proceeds to circulate within this inlet of the communal lake. Charlotte accepts the characterization, dissenting only as to its moral valence: “ ‘His pride,’ said Miss Lucas, ‘does not offend me so much as pride often does, because there is an excuse for it . . . he has a right to be proud.’ ” Now and only now is the word taken up by Elizabeth: “ ‘That is very true . . . and I could easily forgive his pride if he had not mortified mine.’ ” Playing on Charlotte’s emphasis of the personal pronoun, she reverses the moral direction of her friend’s analysis with typical irony, but assimilates the
characterological assessment without a thought. Mary affirms the consensus in her own way (“ ‘Pride . . . is a very common failing, I believe’ ”), but her remarks serve mainly as a device to end the conversation, and the point of the episode seems precisely to have been the introduction of the word “pride” into Elizabeth’s head. Had Austen simply wished to show her making the judgment herself, either at the moment of Darcy’s snub or afterwards, she could have done so with a great deal less effort.
Even the feeling of “mortification” connected with the snub — at least as important to Elizabeth’s subsequent behavior as is the judg-ment itself — is urged on her by her community. Elizabeth was certainly not
pleased with Darcy’s behavior at first, but neither was she much affected by it: “Elizabeth remained with no cordial feelings towards him. She told the story however with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in any thing ridiculous” . There is a wide space between thinking something “ridiculous” and being “mortified” by it, and if Elizabeth had been mortified at the time, as she certainly is later, she would hardly have “told the story with great spirit among her friends.” Indeed, when she and Jane discuss the ball that same night, Darcy isn’t so much as mentioned, not even when the snobbery of Bingley’s sisters is explicitly canvassed. As Mrs. Bennet perceives (“I beg you not to put it into Lizzy’s head to be vexed by his ill treatment” ), Elizabeth’s resentment arises in the course of that next morning’s conversation, when she finds that her friends take the incident as a more serious affront than she was at first inclined to do. In short, while Elizabeth herself sends the story of Darcy’s snub out into the community, she gets her opinion and
feeling about it handed back to her.
Elizabeth’s second important judgment in the early stages of the novel, her delighted approval of George Wickham, is no less an act of unconscious mental conformity. Here the conformity is not to an opinion, but to the very way the community makes and maintains its opinions, that is, to the logical pattern I analyzed above. Another syllogistic mousetrap snaps shut, and it stays shut for twenty chapters. Elizabeth’s response to Wickham is encapsulated in a silent thought that occurs during their long conversation about Darcy’s perfidy and pride. The subject has already rendered her indistinguishable from her mother (“ ‘He is not at all liked in Hertfordshire. Every body is disgusted with his pride’ ” ), and at one point she exclaims: “To treat in such a manner, the godson, the friend, the favourite of his father!” — She could have added, “A young man too, like you, whose very countenance may vouch for your being amiable.”
In other words:
All men of good countenance are amiable.
Wickham is a man of good countenance.
Wickham is amiable.
Not only is the logic the same, so is its grounding in desire. Elizabeth, like her community, won’t let the facts stand in the way of what she wants to believe. This is, of course, a well-attested observation in the critical literature; the modification I am making concerns the origin of Elizabeth’s “prejudice.” It may well be that most everyone in the world thinks this way—excessively syllogistic, insufficiently self-critical, blinded by desire—but had Austen wished to make that point, she would have done so. The point she does make is much more specific; Elizabeth is presented not as a typical person, but as a typical member of her community. She assents to and helps propagate collective judgments; she takes her opinions for universal truths; witty as she is, she risks the same mental gridlock as those around her.
Darcy, the product of a different community, displays different shortcomings. His errors are ones of behavior, not of thought. But Elizabeth, in one of her least admirable moments, blurts out what could be the motto of all
the “good people of Meryton”: “ ‘I beg your pardon;—one knows exactly what to think’ ”.
The intellectual fault that Elizabeth shares with her community can be understood at its most basic level as an inability to deal with contradiction.
Much of Mrs. Bennet’s foolishness, and the humor of that foolishness, consists of an inability to see the contradictions in her own thinking: “ ‘Well, Lizzy . . . what is your opinion of this sad business of Jane’s? For my part, I am determined never to speak of it again to anybody. I told my sister Philips so the other day’ ”. Mr. Bennet’s moral indolence is made possible through the equivocations of irony: “ ‘I admire all three of my sons-in-law highly . . . Wickham, perhaps, is my favorite, but I think I shall like your husband quite as well as Jane’s’ ”. The tension between his disgust for Wickham and the recognition that he is responsible for Wickham’s presence in his family is resolved by the use of a single word, “admire,” to name both itself and its opposite. But the leading exemplar of the desire to evade contradiction is Elizabeth herself. The most telling examples occur in dialogues with Jane and Charlotte, her two intimates. In one, Jane tries to suggest that Darcy may not be as bad as Elizabeth has concluded. In another, Charlotte simply wants her to understand that she, Charlotte, believes that “happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance” and that “it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life”. In neither case does Elizabeth alter her opinion even slightly, and in both she closes the exchange with an arrogantly self-affirming gesture. The first we have already seen: “one knows exactly what to think.” The other is deaf even to the possibility of contradiction: “You make me laugh Charlotte; but it is not sound. You know it is not sound, and that you would never act in this way yourself.” It is no wonder that she spends so much of the novel being surprised.
Finally, even for Elizabeth, cognitive inertia becomes behavioral and emotional stasis. On the fundamental question that confronts her she is, for all her rapid motion, as jammed stuck as her mother ever is. Replying to
Charlotte’s suggestion that a young woman should secure a man first and then worry about falling in love, she says: “Your plan is a good one . . . where nothing is in question but the desire of being well married; and if I were determined to get a rich husband, or any husband, I dare say I should adopt it”. “Or any husband”: like Richardson’s Clarissa, Elizabeth has forsworn marriage. But though the gesture may have been conventional by this point, Austen does not use it casually. Essentially reflexive, it carries for that very reason a tone of utter finality. And although one may see it as nothing more than a prop that allows Elizabeth to maintain her self-esteem until the right man comes along, that observation points to the essential problem: the right man comes along, yet Elizabeth remains stuck in her old pattern. A complacent consciousness is at war with unsettled feelings, but complacency is winning. The process of breaking this pattern constitutes the burden of the
plot: the positive outcome is a foregone conclusion only in retrospect. At this point, certain of what she knows and of what she wants, Elizabeth has stopped questioning herself. She knows exactly what to think, and she knows exactly how to act. She is, like her community, “well-fixed.”

Community in Pride and Prejudice

2010-01-02T03:12:00.000-08:00

The opening of Pride and Prejudice can be called the most famous first sentence in English-language fiction.
Each of Jane Austen’s other novels begins by introducing one of its principal characters. Only Pride and Prejudice begins with an aphorism: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” An aphorism, or rather a mock aphorism, for it is immediately intimated that this “truth universally acknowledged” is in fact nothing more than one of the fixed opinions of the “neighborhood” of “surrounding families” amidst which the novel’s action is to take place. The introduction of individual characters is delayed until the third paragraph (even then withholding the usual Austenian fanfare of station, condition, and history), and the community turns out to be the novel’s true point of departure. Indeed, the note on which this opening ends, that our bachelor of property will himself become the property of “some one or other” of the local young ladies, lends, if only for a moment, a teasingly arbitrary air to the identity of the specific family the narrator finally does introduce. In other words, Pride and Prejudice can also be seen as beginning with the introduction of one of its principal figures, only here that figure is a community.
One might think this a strange choice given the protagonist with whom we are to be concerned; of all of Austen’s heroines, surely the brilliant, exuberant Elizabeth Bennett deserves star billing. But as one tends to forget in retrospect—so thoroughly does her presence dominate the novel as a whole,so large does her energy and brilliance bulk in one’s imagination—Elizabeth is very far from being the center of attention in the early chapters, scarcely mentioned at all until the third, not clearly emerging as the heroine until the sixth. What is presented in these first scenes is more than anything the story of a community: of communal expectations, communal conventions, communal activities. These pressures drive Mrs. Bennet, and consequently the rest of her family, into the actions that occupy the novel’s first chapters.
And in the most important of the early episodes, the assembly at which Mr. Bingley and his friends make their debut in the neighborhood of Meryton gentry, the community itself steps forward, through a kind of disembodied collective consciousness, to engage in acts of observation and judgment that set the course of the rest of the narrative. Elizabeth cannot appear until well into this initial story because it is that story—the story of how a community thinks, talks, exerts influence—that produces her plot, that produces her.

These considerations suggest a relationship between Elizabeth and her community very different from that generally depicted in the critical literature. A host of readers have emphasized her individuality and imaginative freedom, but in crucial ways she is not free and very little of an individualist, ways in which her story must be seen, not as an exercise of freedom, but as an effort to achieve freedom, not as a light-footed dance away from a community that cannot contain her, but as a struggle to wake herself out of a community in which she is all too comfortably embedded. From this point of view, Pride and Prejudice can be seen as Austen’s most deliberate and sustained critique of community—a constructive critique, since the novel ends by sketching an alternative vision of communal life that corrects what has been shown to be vicious and preserves what has been shown to cherishable in it. To trace these processes through the narrative we should take Austen’s hint and look at the community first, Elizabeth’s place within it only afterwards.

2005 Adaptation, Pros and Cons

2009-12-07T10:11:00.000-08:00

2005 saw the release of a new Pride and Prejudice film, directed by Joe Wright and starring Keira Knightley and Mathew Macfadyen. It was the first film adaptation since the old black and white film with Lawrence Olivie; all the adaptations that had come out in the intervening years had been for TV.

Films are different from TV series in that they have more time constraints, usually a film director has two or three hours at the most at their disposal. Such time constraints inevitably translate into cuts. Some scenes have to be made shorter, some have to be left out completely. More often than not the depth and complexity of characters have to be sacrificed as well and when you're dealing with a book whose characters are as deep and complex as those in P&P, that means there's a lot of sacrificing to do.
But, as the saying goes are cons are but extensions of our pros, so let's look at the pros first.

The film is very beautifully made, some of the frames are so good, I bet if they were made into pictures and hung in galleries they could sell for fortunes. The soundtrack is superb and the acting is very good too. Keira Knightley is very convincing and while the material she has to play may not be the best (more on this later), she definitely does the best with what she has. All in all if considered in separation from the book it's based on, the 2005 P and P is a very decent motion picture and very modern too.
It's when you compare it with the book it's based on that its faults stand out. As has been noted above, cuts and omissions are inevitable when you have to cram 400+ pages into two hours of screen time and yet one just can't help feeling disappointed when so little is revealed even about the main characters that they come across is somewhat cardboard. After watching the film the only reliable conclusion one can draw about Keira Knightley's Liz is that she enjoys making fun of and laughing at other people. Naturally there's quite a bit more than that to the Liz we find in the book. Then there's Darcey; a very multi-faceted and complex character has been reduced to the level of a complete moron barely able to speak. And this is probably my main beef with this adaptation, when supporting characters get glossed over or completely left out in a film adaptation, that's to be expected, but when the same sort of thing is done to the main characters, that's taking it a bit too far in my opinion.

There are also other things, such as the house the Bennets live in; in the movie it's rather derelict, as if the Bennets were not simply short on money but downright destitute. In one memorable scene a pig walks through the house; the courtyard looks like a pigsty with sundry domestic animals all over the place. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like a rather big error on the side of poverty when you compare it to the descriptions in the book.
So my verdict is as follows, if I were giving stars to this movie I'd probably give it three out of five. It has its good points and someone who's never actually read the book but only heard about it may even enjoy it. Probably even if you've read the book you may still enjoy watching this film if you get a kick out of visually striking scenes as long as you don't expect the same profoundness and complexity of characters as in the book, because you won't find much of that in this film.

Pride and Prejudice for Generation Y

2009-12-06T13:26:00.000-08:00

Pride and Prejudice is a great book, there's even people who think it may be greater than the bible, but it has one major drawback when it comes to making a splash with the younger generations - it's old; there ain't that many people today who would want to read about people in funny clothes that don't have either movies or TV, let alone the Internet. Even watching a movie about such ancient history may seem like a rather daunting proposition to some.

And yet the themes of Pride and Prejudice are immortal, which basically means they're recurring. After all, while our technology may have advanced in leaps and bounds since early 19th century, the human nature has essentially remained unchanged and thus the spirit of Jane Austen's masterpiece continues to live in modern literature and unavoidably in film. And if you've been around over the past couple of decades you must have crossed paths with it.

One example of this spirit rearing its beautiful head is Bridget Jones' Diary, the book and the movie. Some people even go as far as to argue that Bridgett Jones reads as a modernized adaptation of P&P. Yes Bridget Jones is no Elizabeth Bennet, but then modern emancipated fems are a far cry from the corseted fine ladies of the early 19th century. Perhaps had Elizabeth Bennet been born a couple of centuries later she'd have ended up being another Bridget Jones. There are also a slew of other things that don't exactly match, however a few characters in BJ seem to be pretty closely based off their counterparts in P&P.

Take Mark Darcy for example; first, in BJ the guy the main character falls for is played by the same actor that plays Darcy in BBC's 1995 P&P adaptation, Colin Firth, second, both characters share the same last name, sure the first name is different in BJ, but what can you do, different times call for different names, and third but not least, the character of Mark Darcy himself is in many ways the same as the P&P Darcy. And I don't think it's just all down to Colin Firth, after all there's the BJ book in which nobody plays him.

It doesn't stop with Mark Darcy though, there's Hue Grant's character. This one clearly alludes to Wickham from P&P, the story of the relationship between BJ and Hue Grant in BJ closely matches that of the relationship between Elizabeth and W in P&P and both characters share a host of similar traits; treacherous lying bastards both of them.
Finally there's the plot; the first impressions are negative, then the heroine falls for Hue Grant (who badmouths Darcy so our heroine begins to hate him even more), but in the end our heroine and Darcy end up together.
So to sum it up, if you've got a friend who's not keen at all on the good old days of horse drawn carriages, dependent women and no Internet, but you're still eager to introduce them to the wonderful(ly complex) world of human relationships as originally depicted by Jane Austen, you might wanna try to get them to watch/read BJD first. Give it a shot.

A Conversation with Colin Firth

2009-11-11T06:46:00.000-08:00

(Birtwistle, Sue & Susie Conklin - The Making of Pride and Prejudice (1995))

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2009-11-10T14:58:00.000-08:00

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2009-11-10T13:37:00.000-08:00

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2009-11-08T08:58:00.000-08:00

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2009-11-07T07:48:00.000-08:00

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2009-11-07T03:00:00.000-08:00

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2009-11-07T02:22:00.000-08:00

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2009-11-06T13:49:00.000-08:00

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2009-11-05T15:04:00.000-08:00

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2009-11-05T13:14:00.000-08:00

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2009-11-05T05:22:00.000-08:00

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Pride & Prejudice 2005 Soundtrack

2009-11-05T03:43:00.000-08:00

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2009-11-02T07:11:00.000-08:00

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2009-11-01T12:16:00.000-08:00

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Great female secret

2009-10-30T13:02:00.000-07:00

Men just don't get it, Pride and Prejudice is exclusively for women. If you're a man you sure can try reading it or watching one of the numerous adaptations, but don't be surprised if it just goes over your head. It's like women and soccer only in reverse, you take her to the stadium but she goes away puzzled with no clue as to what all the shouting and screaming was all about. Now she gets you to read Pride and Prejudice and... Well, maybe there are some men out there who know but I've yet to meet one of them.
Pride and Prejudice is exclusively for women thus when a big male thug reads its intro sentence in Black Books, it's totally hilarious if you know where that intro sentence comes from, most women will get it and have a laugh but most men won't get it, the joke will be on them.
What about Jane Austen's other books? Well, obviously they were all written from the female perspective, the female world view but Pride and Prejudice is definitely the one that for some mysterious reason has passed the test of time with flying colors while the others barely scraped through.
So if you're a woman and read it, appreciate it and enjoy it, if you're a man, read it and appreciate that despite all the sex ed in the world women still remain enigmas wrapped in mysteries.

Pride and Prejudice 2005

2009-10-30T06:49:00.000-07:00

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2009-10-30T06:06:00.000-07:00

Contact

2009-10-29T05:37:00.003-07:00

You Can Contact me Via Email at salynskayat@gmail.com

Jane Austen

2009-10-29T05:37:00.001-07:00

	A Memoir of Jane Austen
	Cambridge introduction of Jane Austen
	Sutherland, John - Who Betrays Elizabeth Bennet; Further Puzzles in Classic Fiction (1999)
	Pool, Daniel - What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew (Simon&Schuster; 1993)
	Ross, Josephine - Jane Austen; A Companion (Rutgers University Press; 2002)
	Sutherland, John & Deirdre Le Faye - So You Think You Know Jane Austen; A Literary Quizbook (2005)
	Jane Austen A Literary Reference
	Ruderman - Love and Marriage in Austen
	B.C.SOUTHAM JANE AUSTEN THE CRITICAL HERITAGE VOLUME 1, 1811–1870
	B.C.SOUTHAM JANE AUSTEN THE CRITICAL HERITAGE VOLUME 2, 1870–1940

Text

2009-10-29T05:36:00.003-07:00

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