The New Austen-World
It is strange, but up until very recently I somehow managed to miss the fact that the whole world (speaking hyperbolically) has gone Austen-happy. Austen spinoffs such as Austenland (a recent book by one of my sister's favorite authors) and Becoming Jane (a movie which I will not see, because I have read and heard some reviews that indicate it to be rather regrettable) are coming out in droves. I was shocked to find an entire rack of Austen-derived novels in Borders. Today I spent the morning and early afternoon doing catch-up office work while my sister-in-law worked the CD-producer and watched the new Pride and Prejudice. I caught part of the last third of the movie.
All this adds up to some thoughts, which I want to turn into comments. It will probably take me a few posts to get through all of them, but I'll begin with Mr. Darcy because he seems to be an icon of the Austen spinoff world.
I don't know how to describe the attitude taken towards Darcy in this Austen-world---not because I can't, but because the most appropriate words are... shall we say... distasteful. Let me attempt to express it by saying "Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot" and, almost as an afterthought, "hard-to-get."
I'm not really surprised. I am merely pained. Though Darcy is not my favorite of Austen's male characters (that honor goes to Mr. Knightly), Austen achieved in him a real personality. Her triumph lies in the fact that I think of him as "him" rather than "it." And, truthfully, I hate to see him trampled.
Why, I wonder, does popular culture operate by taking beautiful, complex things and reducing them to a simplicity that has but one (or at most two) dimensions of appeal---and that appeal made only of the crudest stuff? The new movie is visually stunning, I grant freely, but it has reduced Austen's characters and especially her language to a pale shadow of their former splendid brightness.
I am perhaps especially aware of this because I spent a great deal of time revising the script and coaching for a production of Pride and Prejudice once. Possibly I am also more aware of it because Austen's collected works have been my primary pleasure reading during five years of college. On Sunday afternoons I would take my volume of Austen and go find a place in the sun, eventually thereby coming to the point where I can say I have read each of her works (including the posthumously published epistulary novel) at least five or six times.
I have the greatest possible respect for Austen precisely because her works are intricate enough to hold my attention for so long, even after so many readings. I believe that she provides valuable wisdom in her stories, and I know I have learned a great deal from them. It has been especially interesting to me to note how my tastes have changed over the years. As a freshman, Pride and Prejudice was my undisputed favorite. By the middle of my junior year, I loved Mansfield Park best. Now, Emma is my beloved Austen work. Each has contributed something to my life. The first taught me that pride, hasty judgments, and a conceited opinion of one's own intelligence are destructive, but that humility brings joy. The second showed me that patience and self-control are beautiful. The third revealed that there is redemption, love, and the possibility of change, even for girls who don't see their own faults.
These lessons are well worth learning, but in the Austen-world they have vanished. The new Pride and Prejudice movie teaches that passion, a sharp wit, and a good deal of feministic principle (not to mention the occasional disrespect and rudeness) will win one a good-looking, inexplicably attractive, but otherwise moody and distant husband. Delightful. Austenland satirizes the common women's fantasy about Mr. Darcy, but also fulfills it. Mixed messages. Becoming Jane I will not evaluate because I have not experienced it. My reviewers, however, lead me to believe that it is more of the same stuff that went into the latest Pride and Prejudice.
I will say nothing about such new novels as Darcy's Daughters or The Second Mrs. Darcy, because I know nothing more of them than the fact that their prose is clumsy and starkly imitative, lacking not only charm and ease but also basic believability.
All this, I know, will pass. Ten years hence there will be another fad, and twenty years hence I will not longer have to flinch at the casual lusty reference to "Mr. Darcy in a wet shirt." For now, however, permit me a moment of aching regret. A moment is all I ask. After that, in the spirit of Austen (though certainly not of Austen-world), I will try to laugh at my discomfort and cheerfully endure what cannot be helped.
Dear Austen, if I could apologize to you for what my contemporaries have done to your exquisite works---if I could speak to you across time and space and find a way to say "I'm sorry for it," I would. Since I cannot, and since I imagine it will be a matter of little importance when I first meet you in Heaven, I will push away these painful thoughts and fix my imagination on that day. Oh, how I shall enjoy taking your hand and claiming you for a sister!
Have you ever considered, gentle reader, how great a gift it is that, by divine adoption, we can claim a great number of the world's best writers as our kindred?
All this adds up to some thoughts, which I want to turn into comments. It will probably take me a few posts to get through all of them, but I'll begin with Mr. Darcy because he seems to be an icon of the Austen spinoff world.
I don't know how to describe the attitude taken towards Darcy in this Austen-world---not because I can't, but because the most appropriate words are... shall we say... distasteful. Let me attempt to express it by saying "Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot" and, almost as an afterthought, "hard-to-get."
I'm not really surprised. I am merely pained. Though Darcy is not my favorite of Austen's male characters (that honor goes to Mr. Knightly), Austen achieved in him a real personality. Her triumph lies in the fact that I think of him as "him" rather than "it." And, truthfully, I hate to see him trampled.
Why, I wonder, does popular culture operate by taking beautiful, complex things and reducing them to a simplicity that has but one (or at most two) dimensions of appeal---and that appeal made only of the crudest stuff? The new movie is visually stunning, I grant freely, but it has reduced Austen's characters and especially her language to a pale shadow of their former splendid brightness.
I am perhaps especially aware of this because I spent a great deal of time revising the script and coaching for a production of Pride and Prejudice once. Possibly I am also more aware of it because Austen's collected works have been my primary pleasure reading during five years of college. On Sunday afternoons I would take my volume of Austen and go find a place in the sun, eventually thereby coming to the point where I can say I have read each of her works (including the posthumously published epistulary novel) at least five or six times.
I have the greatest possible respect for Austen precisely because her works are intricate enough to hold my attention for so long, even after so many readings. I believe that she provides valuable wisdom in her stories, and I know I have learned a great deal from them. It has been especially interesting to me to note how my tastes have changed over the years. As a freshman, Pride and Prejudice was my undisputed favorite. By the middle of my junior year, I loved Mansfield Park best. Now, Emma is my beloved Austen work. Each has contributed something to my life. The first taught me that pride, hasty judgments, and a conceited opinion of one's own intelligence are destructive, but that humility brings joy. The second showed me that patience and self-control are beautiful. The third revealed that there is redemption, love, and the possibility of change, even for girls who don't see their own faults.
These lessons are well worth learning, but in the Austen-world they have vanished. The new Pride and Prejudice movie teaches that passion, a sharp wit, and a good deal of feministic principle (not to mention the occasional disrespect and rudeness) will win one a good-looking, inexplicably attractive, but otherwise moody and distant husband. Delightful. Austenland satirizes the common women's fantasy about Mr. Darcy, but also fulfills it. Mixed messages. Becoming Jane I will not evaluate because I have not experienced it. My reviewers, however, lead me to believe that it is more of the same stuff that went into the latest Pride and Prejudice.
I will say nothing about such new novels as Darcy's Daughters or The Second Mrs. Darcy, because I know nothing more of them than the fact that their prose is clumsy and starkly imitative, lacking not only charm and ease but also basic believability.
All this, I know, will pass. Ten years hence there will be another fad, and twenty years hence I will not longer have to flinch at the casual lusty reference to "Mr. Darcy in a wet shirt." For now, however, permit me a moment of aching regret. A moment is all I ask. After that, in the spirit of Austen (though certainly not of Austen-world), I will try to laugh at my discomfort and cheerfully endure what cannot be helped.
Dear Austen, if I could apologize to you for what my contemporaries have done to your exquisite works---if I could speak to you across time and space and find a way to say "I'm sorry for it," I would. Since I cannot, and since I imagine it will be a matter of little importance when I first meet you in Heaven, I will push away these painful thoughts and fix my imagination on that day. Oh, how I shall enjoy taking your hand and claiming you for a sister!
Have you ever considered, gentle reader, how great a gift it is that, by divine adoption, we can claim a great number of the world's best writers as our kindred?
posted by Praelucor at 2:11 PM
1 Comments:
I share your disappointment over the latest movie. I don't quite understand the popular fascination with Mr. Darcy either, other than that, as you mentioned, he is an excellent, real character.
It is Darcy's imperfections that make him such a "real" character. But though Elizabeth finds that she can love him, there are a thousand other girls for whom a "Mr. Bingley" or "Mr. Knightley" would be a better choice, if they could get him.
I think I tend to share some of Darcy's vices--pride, the tendency to pass judgment on others, a sense of superiority, and a corresponding lack of social affability. These qualities don't seem to be the kind of man most girls would want to have to live with. A Bingley is much more forgiving.
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