P&P, then and now
I seem to find myself on LJ inadvertently, but while I was here, I found my post of two years ago amusing. At that time, the Papaya had a deep longing for the black and white in literature. We had tried and failed with Jane Austen--the motivations and complications of characters being too much, in her words, like "real life." Ms. Buttercup, being an ambitious reader, though the junior of the two, had tackled Austen and Dickens, and her sister, slightly stung and faced with a dearth of Dr. Who episodes (no longer on Amazon Prime), agreed to at least watch Pride and Prejudice. I decided not to try again with Colin Firth, who she pronounced "ugly" (gasp) but went straight to Keira Knightley (2005). It's an odd production, anachronistic yet appropriately earnest on some of the harsher realities of women's history in the early 1800s--unsubtle, sarcastic, and just right for a young teen with a potentially embarrassing family. Thus launched AustenMania chez us--even Miss Whimsy insisted on watching that movie twice, and then the Colin Firth miniseries, and the two older children have read and reread the annotated edition and learned the difference between a post-chaise and a barouche. The various character's faults and motivations, the nature of--essentially--fairy tales for women then and now, have spurred many a dinnertime conversation, and Spot even picked up a card game called "Marrying Mr. Darcy" (hope it's good). Next up: Brontemania. They're both deep in Wuthering Heights. That should be a great intro to Psych 101. It's kind of like a little piece of heaven around here for me.