Re: Miss Austen Regrets
Dear Fellow Austenite Masterpiece Theatre Watchers,
I'm a bad, bad Austenite. Why? Because I was so caught up in the post-Super Bowl euphoria last night (wooohooo!!! yay Giants!! *said the Jets fan who despises all Boston teams*) that I forgot to tune into Miss Austen Regrets at 9. When it finally dawned on me, it was about 9.30p so I left Eli Manning and went to find PBS. I caught it after she'd already turned down Harris Bigg and Mr. Bridges, and she was at Godmersham offering Fanny advice about Mr. Plumbtree just before a ball. All I can say is that they did a fairly good job of trying to incorporate biographical info from her surviving letters, and fill in the holes which Cassandra's final tantalizing "you still think there's some secret love story in these" brings up. All the characters are mentioned in her letters, and she did have a running joke with her niece Fanny Knight that she would be Mr. Papillon's wife after all, while Fanny could have the windower with six children. However, the Mr. Bridges I remember from her Godmersham/Kent letters was an Edward Bridges not a Brooks Bridges, but my copy of her letters are still packed in one of my England boxes. Regardless, the Mr. Bridges of the letters as the Mr Bridges of the movie does appear to have proposed to her, and did live in Ramsgate with his wife. He also conveniently seems to have shown up whenever Jane was at her brother's Kent estate and stayed on for longer and longer stretches whenever she was there. I haven't done much digging into the criticism of her letters since most of it is speculative at best, so what I'm saying here is my own interpretation. Setting-wise, I will say the interiors and exteriors of Chawton cottage were pretty good. And the exteriors of Godmersham look like what I've seen in pictures; I never did make it out to Kent last year.
However, I was a bit bothered by the "Sad Jane" portrayal. True, she made the decision not to marry and, at the time that was a HUGE deal for a woman of limited means. But there's nothing in the surviving family papers to suggest she was almost obsessed and, at times, crippled with regret at staying single. Yes, her letters do show a concern with money and a desire that she get fair contracts for her novels, but this was a concern of *many* authors at the time since publishers were notorious for being miserly and corrupt. The vulgarity/impropriety of a woman being interested in such things, though, comes across more in letters and anecdotes from the very niece portrayed here later in her own life. So, you know, dramatic license and all that, somewhat like Becoming Jane. The "Jane, the relentless flirt" portrayal also comes from a letter written about her when she was in her 20s by a woman who did not like her, so I was a bit surprised to see them stretch this into an almost lifelong character trait.
I wondered if any of you thought there was a bit of an incestuous tone introduced towards the end there between Jane and Cassandra. This is something that's generated a bit of press recently in Austen studies with the growing interest in Queer Theory. Personally, I don't buy it. Women's relationships, especially between sisters, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is something that's tended to get overlooked and misinterpreted. And that Jane and Cassandra did have a very close sisterly bond is more than apparent in Jane's letters and the correspondence and recollections of those that knew them.
Anywho, imo, an interesting piece from what I got to see. What did you all think?
I'm *really* looking forward to watching P&P over the next three weeks....not like I don't own it on VHS and DVD.... *whistles*
I'm a bad, bad Austenite. Why? Because I was so caught up in the post-Super Bowl euphoria last night (wooohooo!!! yay Giants!! *said the Jets fan who despises all Boston teams*) that I forgot to tune into Miss Austen Regrets at 9. When it finally dawned on me, it was about 9.30p so I left Eli Manning and went to find PBS. I caught it after she'd already turned down Harris Bigg and Mr. Bridges, and she was at Godmersham offering Fanny advice about Mr. Plumbtree just before a ball. All I can say is that they did a fairly good job of trying to incorporate biographical info from her surviving letters, and fill in the holes which Cassandra's final tantalizing "you still think there's some secret love story in these" brings up. All the characters are mentioned in her letters, and she did have a running joke with her niece Fanny Knight that she would be Mr. Papillon's wife after all, while Fanny could have the windower with six children. However, the Mr. Bridges I remember from her Godmersham/Kent letters was an Edward Bridges not a Brooks Bridges, but my copy of her letters are still packed in one of my England boxes. Regardless, the Mr. Bridges of the letters as the Mr Bridges of the movie does appear to have proposed to her, and did live in Ramsgate with his wife. He also conveniently seems to have shown up whenever Jane was at her brother's Kent estate and stayed on for longer and longer stretches whenever she was there. I haven't done much digging into the criticism of her letters since most of it is speculative at best, so what I'm saying here is my own interpretation. Setting-wise, I will say the interiors and exteriors of Chawton cottage were pretty good. And the exteriors of Godmersham look like what I've seen in pictures; I never did make it out to Kent last year.
However, I was a bit bothered by the "Sad Jane" portrayal. True, she made the decision not to marry and, at the time that was a HUGE deal for a woman of limited means. But there's nothing in the surviving family papers to suggest she was almost obsessed and, at times, crippled with regret at staying single. Yes, her letters do show a concern with money and a desire that she get fair contracts for her novels, but this was a concern of *many* authors at the time since publishers were notorious for being miserly and corrupt. The vulgarity/impropriety of a woman being interested in such things, though, comes across more in letters and anecdotes from the very niece portrayed here later in her own life. So, you know, dramatic license and all that, somewhat like Becoming Jane. The "Jane, the relentless flirt" portrayal also comes from a letter written about her when she was in her 20s by a woman who did not like her, so I was a bit surprised to see them stretch this into an almost lifelong character trait.
I wondered if any of you thought there was a bit of an incestuous tone introduced towards the end there between Jane and Cassandra. This is something that's generated a bit of press recently in Austen studies with the growing interest in Queer Theory. Personally, I don't buy it. Women's relationships, especially between sisters, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is something that's tended to get overlooked and misinterpreted. And that Jane and Cassandra did have a very close sisterly bond is more than apparent in Jane's letters and the correspondence and recollections of those that knew them.
Anywho, imo, an interesting piece from what I got to see. What did you all think?
I'm *really* looking forward to watching P&P over the next three weeks....not like I don't own it on VHS and DVD.... *whistles*