"historically renowned for its shipping"
Apparently the other day was Jane Austen Day in honour of Pride and Prejudice's 200th birthday. Due to time-zones, I did not discover this until after that day was finished here (While I can remember the year something was published, I never remember the exact publication dates for books).
Anyway, here are a collection of thoughts - not always mine - about Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice and The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.
1. There are two clips from the adaptation of Austenland!
Not how I imagined the book, but it is a very rare adaptation which is that, so that seems an unfair expectation to have. I loved Austenland and I am optimistically excited about the film.
2. I liked Sarah Rees Brennan's response to a BBC article ("The curious American cult of Jane Austen"): a) why has nobody invited me to an Austenian tea party? The people demand bonnets!
b) It made me so sad to see, in the article, that even though Jane Austen remains super popular there has been a decline in respect for her as a serious artist. Because it’s ‘chick lit’… as if any genre is Automatically Bad. And as if anything a woman created that a lot of women really like… is Automatically Bad.
3. I read a stupid article on which asks "Is Jane Austen So Popular Because Her Books Are Kinda Just Highbrow Twilight?" and still don't know quite how to respond to it. Mainly because it makes assumptions about why people love Austen - and hey, about why people like Twilight, too, just for god measure - and those sorts of generalisations just ANNOY ME SO MUCH.
So I went looking for Shannon Hale's blog entry about The Marvelous Mutations of Pride and Prejudice, in which she lists the different things she found to appreciate about Pride and Prejudice when she read it at different stages in her life. Many people ask me, why do you think Jane Austen is so enduring? Simple answer: she writes books people want to reread. Books mean different things to different people at different times. It’s impossible to generalize why so many people love her.
4. There seems to be an assumption - and this might be a bit hypocritical, because I am making an assumption about this assumption, but just bear with me, 'kay? - that women like certain romantic stories because they fall in love with the romantic hero and wish that they were the one in a romantic relationship with him.
Presumably there are women in that category and so long as it doesn't negatively impact on their relationships with real people - see Austenland as a possible example of that, I guess? - there's nothing wrong with that. People are free to read books however they wish! But it is - as a rule - not how I respond to fictional romantic relationships.
I'm reminded of something I found on Pinterest: Here's to letting Mr Darcy set the bar for all future dating partners and cheerfully enduring the resulting loneliness. To which one of my friends responded: "I still maintain I wouldn't really want to date Mr Darcy..."
And honestly, I wouldn't either. But I also think there are degrees of "letting Mr Darcy set the bar". Does that mean you want a guy with Darcy's personality and / or appearance and / or wealth? Or that you want to be a relationship with someone who, when you criticise him, considers your comments carefully, responses appropriately (communication FTW!) and tries to change his behaviour accordingly?
It is possible to love two fictional characters' romantic relationship without wishing that was your romantic relationship. It is also possible to desire an aspect of their relationship - how they communicate, or complement each other, or relate to each other, or what have you - without desiring their entire relationship.
There are a myriad of other reasons why one might love a (romantic) story: because of how it is written; because of its insight or sense of humour or sense of place; because of the ideas it explores; because it is suspenseful, moving or entertaining. Because of its female characters.
I started writing this because I wanted to protest against the idea that I must be in love with the "romantic heroes" of my favourite romances. But now I am annoyed at the assumption that the appeal of a romance depends on the appeal of the main male character.
Because, ugh.
5. I liked Sarah Rees Brennan's response to the most recent episode of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, episode 83 "Corporate Interview", in which Lizzie's interview of Darcy is completely derailed by flirting and Darcy telling Lizzie that she is good at what she does: But in this episode Darcy recognises her videos as valid creative work-when she puts them down a bit (because unpaid work isn’t meant to be valuable, ladies are meant to be modest about what they do), he’s like: no, they are amazing, let me discuss why, let’s discuss how valuable it is to have work you both love and are good at, giving the world something useful and enjoyable and gaining personal satisfaction from that. He admires and does not dismiss her passion: he loves her more for it.
6. Episode 83 also involved Darcy doing costume theatre, possibly the most hilarious thing The Lizzie Bennet Diaries has done since Lizzie stopped impersonating Darcy.
I thought Darcy's impersonation of Fitz says a lot about Darcy's - well, his sense of humour for one thing, but also his confidence in their friendship. He can parody his friend without worrying that it might cause offence.
Whereas he is more careful when it comes to his sister. It is probably a wise position to adopt. I suspect that theirs has not always been an equal relationship, because Darcy is older than Gigi (and is acting - or at least, has acted - in loco parentis for her). He has hurt her in the past. He is proceeding cautiously because he does not want to do so again. Sure, parodying his sister is not on par with interfering in her love life, so this is less about avoiding hurting Gigi and more about wanting to give her the message that he takes her seriously.
At least, that's my interpretation.
7. In the vein of other-things-on-tumblr-which-interested-me, here are some thoughts about lbd!Darcy: I find it interesting that the two most important (living) women in Darcy’s life have been brutally honest with him and furious with him. Loudly and scathingly furious with him-but he accepts that. He takes what’s useful and tries to improve himself.
And I wonder if Gigi saw Lizzie finally, finally getting through to Darcy in a way in which she hadn’t been able to-and that makes her want to all but duct tape her to him.
8. Darcy and Gigi took Lizzie around San Francisco. Gigi took photos. I am amused. Especially by her commentary: I was just saying that this area of the city was historically renowned for its shipping.
9. I thought this was a very insightful response to the argument that Jane is a bad sister for not watching Lydia's videos: I just don’t think Jane thinks of Lydia’s (and Lizzie’s) videos as a means of communicating with her sisters, because, for the most part, her sisters don’t use the videos to speak directly to Jane; they’re speaking to the internet at large, and Jane assumes that she would get a better idea of what’s really going on in her sisters’ lives by actually talking to them [...] Jane has no reason to suspect that Lydia would say things on the videos that she wouldn’t say to Jane. She might suspect that there’s something Lydia’s holding back, something she’s afraid to talk about, but she’d never think to try to find that information on the videos-she’d expect to hear that directly from Lydia when she’s ready to talk.
10. I was listening to The Wreckers' song "Hard to Love You" today and realised it applies to Lydia's relationship with George Wickham, and all the internet-commentary which is accompanying that relationship. Or at least what we see of that relationship through The Lydia Bennet videos: Why do they make it hard to love you?
Why can't they even start to try?
I think the lyrics can also apply to Lydia's relationship with Lizzie - I realize I never let them know me / I always wanted to be right / Took a mistake to really show me / Exactly what they were like
- and perhaps also to her relationship with Wickham further down the track.
11. Ashley Clements has started a Tumblr about Lizzie's clothes. I love Lizzie's clothes. I love that she doesn't have an infinite wardrobe, and occasionally wears things which seem out of keeping with the rest of her "style", and some days doesn't dress up as much as others. It makes her seem like a real university student, more like me and the people I know.
I also love that Ashley Clements is taking the time to answer people's questions about her/Lizzie's wardrobe...
12. Complete change of topic, but I found a fanvid for Lix and Randall from The Hour, set to "Requiem Waltz" by Emily Jane White, and I liked the song enough to go looking for more of her music.
It is quiet and melancholy singer-songwriter-folk, so it's exactly the sort of music I listen to. But just in case I wasn't sure, one of the few lines I've recognised so far (paying attention to lyrics is not a priority of mine) is: "And he rode away / and he rode away / and he died".
Yep. My sort of music.
(I told my brother this and he laughed and laughed.)
~ Herenya
rereading: the Attolia books! (I persist in thinking of them as "the Attolia books" even though I think the series' name is actually "The Queen's Thief")
Anyway, here are a collection of thoughts - not always mine - about Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice and The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.
1. There are two clips from the adaptation of Austenland!
Not how I imagined the book, but it is a very rare adaptation which is that, so that seems an unfair expectation to have. I loved Austenland and I am optimistically excited about the film.
2. I liked Sarah Rees Brennan's response to a BBC article ("The curious American cult of Jane Austen"): a) why has nobody invited me to an Austenian tea party? The people demand bonnets!
b) It made me so sad to see, in the article, that even though Jane Austen remains super popular there has been a decline in respect for her as a serious artist. Because it’s ‘chick lit’… as if any genre is Automatically Bad. And as if anything a woman created that a lot of women really like… is Automatically Bad.
3. I read a stupid article on which asks "Is Jane Austen So Popular Because Her Books Are Kinda Just Highbrow Twilight?" and still don't know quite how to respond to it. Mainly because it makes assumptions about why people love Austen - and hey, about why people like Twilight, too, just for god measure - and those sorts of generalisations just ANNOY ME SO MUCH.
So I went looking for Shannon Hale's blog entry about The Marvelous Mutations of Pride and Prejudice, in which she lists the different things she found to appreciate about Pride and Prejudice when she read it at different stages in her life. Many people ask me, why do you think Jane Austen is so enduring? Simple answer: she writes books people want to reread. Books mean different things to different people at different times. It’s impossible to generalize why so many people love her.
4. There seems to be an assumption - and this might be a bit hypocritical, because I am making an assumption about this assumption, but just bear with me, 'kay? - that women like certain romantic stories because they fall in love with the romantic hero and wish that they were the one in a romantic relationship with him.
Presumably there are women in that category and so long as it doesn't negatively impact on their relationships with real people - see Austenland as a possible example of that, I guess? - there's nothing wrong with that. People are free to read books however they wish! But it is - as a rule - not how I respond to fictional romantic relationships.
I'm reminded of something I found on Pinterest: Here's to letting Mr Darcy set the bar for all future dating partners and cheerfully enduring the resulting loneliness. To which one of my friends responded: "I still maintain I wouldn't really want to date Mr Darcy..."
And honestly, I wouldn't either. But I also think there are degrees of "letting Mr Darcy set the bar". Does that mean you want a guy with Darcy's personality and / or appearance and / or wealth? Or that you want to be a relationship with someone who, when you criticise him, considers your comments carefully, responses appropriately (communication FTW!) and tries to change his behaviour accordingly?
It is possible to love two fictional characters' romantic relationship without wishing that was your romantic relationship. It is also possible to desire an aspect of their relationship - how they communicate, or complement each other, or relate to each other, or what have you - without desiring their entire relationship.
There are a myriad of other reasons why one might love a (romantic) story: because of how it is written; because of its insight or sense of humour or sense of place; because of the ideas it explores; because it is suspenseful, moving or entertaining. Because of its female characters.
I started writing this because I wanted to protest against the idea that I must be in love with the "romantic heroes" of my favourite romances. But now I am annoyed at the assumption that the appeal of a romance depends on the appeal of the main male character.
Because, ugh.
5. I liked Sarah Rees Brennan's response to the most recent episode of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, episode 83 "Corporate Interview", in which Lizzie's interview of Darcy is completely derailed by flirting and Darcy telling Lizzie that she is good at what she does: But in this episode Darcy recognises her videos as valid creative work-when she puts them down a bit (because unpaid work isn’t meant to be valuable, ladies are meant to be modest about what they do), he’s like: no, they are amazing, let me discuss why, let’s discuss how valuable it is to have work you both love and are good at, giving the world something useful and enjoyable and gaining personal satisfaction from that. He admires and does not dismiss her passion: he loves her more for it.
6. Episode 83 also involved Darcy doing costume theatre, possibly the most hilarious thing The Lizzie Bennet Diaries has done since Lizzie stopped impersonating Darcy.
I thought Darcy's impersonation of Fitz says a lot about Darcy's - well, his sense of humour for one thing, but also his confidence in their friendship. He can parody his friend without worrying that it might cause offence.
Whereas he is more careful when it comes to his sister. It is probably a wise position to adopt. I suspect that theirs has not always been an equal relationship, because Darcy is older than Gigi (and is acting - or at least, has acted - in loco parentis for her). He has hurt her in the past. He is proceeding cautiously because he does not want to do so again. Sure, parodying his sister is not on par with interfering in her love life, so this is less about avoiding hurting Gigi and more about wanting to give her the message that he takes her seriously.
At least, that's my interpretation.
7. In the vein of other-things-on-tumblr-which-interested-me, here are some thoughts about lbd!Darcy: I find it interesting that the two most important (living) women in Darcy’s life have been brutally honest with him and furious with him. Loudly and scathingly furious with him-but he accepts that. He takes what’s useful and tries to improve himself.
And I wonder if Gigi saw Lizzie finally, finally getting through to Darcy in a way in which she hadn’t been able to-and that makes her want to all but duct tape her to him.
8. Darcy and Gigi took Lizzie around San Francisco. Gigi took photos. I am amused. Especially by her commentary: I was just saying that this area of the city was historically renowned for its shipping.
9. I thought this was a very insightful response to the argument that Jane is a bad sister for not watching Lydia's videos: I just don’t think Jane thinks of Lydia’s (and Lizzie’s) videos as a means of communicating with her sisters, because, for the most part, her sisters don’t use the videos to speak directly to Jane; they’re speaking to the internet at large, and Jane assumes that she would get a better idea of what’s really going on in her sisters’ lives by actually talking to them [...] Jane has no reason to suspect that Lydia would say things on the videos that she wouldn’t say to Jane. She might suspect that there’s something Lydia’s holding back, something she’s afraid to talk about, but she’d never think to try to find that information on the videos-she’d expect to hear that directly from Lydia when she’s ready to talk.
10. I was listening to The Wreckers' song "Hard to Love You" today and realised it applies to Lydia's relationship with George Wickham, and all the internet-commentary which is accompanying that relationship. Or at least what we see of that relationship through The Lydia Bennet videos: Why do they make it hard to love you?
Why can't they even start to try?
I think the lyrics can also apply to Lydia's relationship with Lizzie - I realize I never let them know me / I always wanted to be right / Took a mistake to really show me / Exactly what they were like
- and perhaps also to her relationship with Wickham further down the track.
11. Ashley Clements has started a Tumblr about Lizzie's clothes. I love Lizzie's clothes. I love that she doesn't have an infinite wardrobe, and occasionally wears things which seem out of keeping with the rest of her "style", and some days doesn't dress up as much as others. It makes her seem like a real university student, more like me and the people I know.
I also love that Ashley Clements is taking the time to answer people's questions about her/Lizzie's wardrobe...
12. Complete change of topic, but I found a fanvid for Lix and Randall from The Hour, set to "Requiem Waltz" by Emily Jane White, and I liked the song enough to go looking for more of her music.
It is quiet and melancholy singer-songwriter-folk, so it's exactly the sort of music I listen to. But just in case I wasn't sure, one of the few lines I've recognised so far (paying attention to lyrics is not a priority of mine) is: "And he rode away / and he rode away / and he died".
Yep. My sort of music.
(I told my brother this and he laughed and laughed.)
~ Herenya
rereading: the Attolia books! (I persist in thinking of them as "the Attolia books" even though I think the series' name is actually "The Queen's Thief")