desertvixen | Entries tagged with jane austen

Day 24 – A book that you wish more people would’ve read
2010 Answer: Cordelia's Honor

Well, I did manage to get another person to read the one above, so my track record goes well... especially since he devoured the rest of the series AND The Hallowed Hunt.

My answer for this one is a little bit of a cheat, since I just read the book today, but it's a definite must-read for Jane Austen fans.

Sanditon by Jane Austen and "Another Lady", where an author finishes this unfinished novel. She does it so well, in fact, that I couldn't tell precisely where she picked up. It features a delightful heroine, Charlotte Heywood, and a really entertaining cast of characters, with some twists and turns I really enjoyed. It's far better, IMO, than the P&P sequels and some of the other attempts at capitalizing on Austen's name. Apparently, it was actually written in 1975 and I found a copy here in the "take one, leave one" pile. Sometimes that REALLY works out.

Sadly it is not available on Kindle, but there are plenty of cheap copies here.

DV

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Day 19 – Favorite book turned into a movie
2010 Answer: Pride and Prejudice by BBC (1980 and 1995)

Books into movies are always a delicate issue. The reason the P&Ps are both so good is that they went the miniseries route and did six hour long works, which let them really capture the books. They don't cut a lot of stuff out, or add a lot of stuff in (okay, yes, they did add the swimming in the lake scene in 1995's P&P but I thought it was a worthy addition - the icon is in honor of that scene). They preserve context for people who didn't read the book, and they pay attention to characters. I stopped watching the 2005 P&P with Keira Knightley the moment they showed PIGS in the house, demonstrating that they didn't understand one of the primary issues of P&P's plot - not that the family doesn't have money and a reasonable house, but that they stand to lose all of it with Mr. Bennet's death due to entail.

There are several good Agatha Christie adaptations - Murder on the Orient Express is very well done with an all-star cast, including Sean Connery as Colonel Arbuthnot for some enjoyable eye candy. Death on the Nile features Peter Ustinov, who proves that acting a character properly is not all about the physical, as well as David Niven, Bette Davis, and Angela Lansbury. The David Suchet Poirot series features some good ones - and Suchet is Poirot to the life. That being said, there's also some bad ones, notably the 1989 update of And Then There Were None that takes place on an African safari under the title Ten Little Indians.

There's also a lot of good movies that aren't necessarily good adaptations of their book - Gone With The Wind falls under this category for me, because there's simply so much they leave out due to time and sensitive subjects (for one, notice that all of the black characters who appear in the movie - Mammy, Prissy, and Pork from the Tara crowd - are "house Negroes", leaving out one of the more interesting characters in the book, Pork's wife Dilcey who is a field hand) I would be completely on board with a GWTW miniseries.

So, I would have to go with a few suggestions.

The first Harry Potter movie did an excellent job, in my opinion, of translating the descriptions of Harry's world into reality. It has a good cast and they put some effort into creating the world without slavishly including everything.

A Night to Remember, based on Walter Lord's book, is also very good. It's a thousand times better than the Cameron movie, and the book is an excellent read.

And, the best adaptation of And Then There Were None (Ten Little Indians) is a Russian-language one. It's the only one I've seen based on the book, rather than the play, which means everyone dies. (It is a Russian movie.) It's very well done. The 1945 adaptation is based on the play, and takes what I consider to be too many liberties.

DV
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I was in the book store today, browsing, when I spotted a book entitled Jane Bites Back. I had to buy it. It isn't quite a parody, but it is an absolute scream to read - especially if you're a Jane Austen fan.

The premise? Jane Austen is a vampire, and runs a bookstore in upstate New York. She has a manuscript that has been rejected 116 times. It sounds crazy, and stupid, but it is SO not. It is laugh-out-loud funny without being stupid, and there were several moments where I couldn't believe the author went for the joke. It works though - it is a book that is funny, and knows it, and isn't afraid of being funny.

The book opens with Jane hosting a book signing event by an author who has written a Pride and Prejudice-based book called Waiting for Mr. Darcy. It's a purity/abstinence sort of deal, based on P&P. The author admits to Jane after the signing that she thinks the book idea is full of crap, but she just keeps thinking of the money. It's her "piece of the Austen pie". It also has the first mention of crazy spin-off type books - Sense and Sensuality,a Jane Austen massage book. Jane, meanwhile, can't stop thinking about two hundred years of no royalty checks - ever. Then she admits that she doesn't even like the books. Jane's assistant in the shop, Lucy, defends the books. Jane later really sinks her teeth into the reviewer.

It's hilarious. If you're sick of bad Austen spin-offs (aren't most of us?), then you should read this. You'll enjoy it. There's a tip to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, as well as a hilarious list of Austen spinoffs:

1. Jane Austen paper dolls (these actually exist, see Amazon)
2. Jane Austen action figure (also actually exists)
3. Jane Austen workout book
4. Jane Austen cookbook

It's not just Austen that gets sent up, though. There's a darkly brooding poetic vampire who hails from roughly Jane's original time period (you get three guesses) that plays a major role in the story, and if you love Jane Austen and couldn't stand Jane Eyre, this book has a subplot for you! There's a cute line about how Mr. Darcy has ruined it for other men.

There's also a seriously hilarious parody of Oprah and the View (especially Elisabeth Hasselback), and a sexy male book editor who loves Jane Austen books... who Jane thinks is very sexy... who turns out to be gay. And what I assume is supposed to be a joke on Sweet Valley High and Gossip Girl, as well as a stab at the paranormal/urban fantasy stuff with a book series about a monster hunter who is a lingerie designer by day who dispatches a demon with a corset stay.

It was definitely worth the fourteen bucks at Hastings.

DV

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Entries tagged with jane austen

30 Day Book Meme (2014 version) - Day 24

30 Day Book Meme (2014 version) - Day 19

Attention, Jane Austen fans!

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