Jane Austen | Golden Skate

Jane Austen

WeakAnkles

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Joined
Aug 1, 2011
I am a huge Jane Austen fanatic. And given some of the comments I've seen on the boards recently, I know I'm not alone. Perhaps we might want to start discussing the books after the holiday/new year insanity has settled down? Including the juvenalia--I think Love and Freindship (sic) is one of the funniest things I've ever read! If interested or you have any ideas for a book discussion, feel free to chime in.
 

karne

in Emergency Backup Mode
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Jan 1, 2013
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Australia
I love Pride and Prejudice. One of my favourite books ever. And don't get me started on the 1995 BBC Mini-Series starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. :love:
 

LRK

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Joined
Nov 13, 2012
Love Jane Austen - "Pride and Prejudice" and "Persuasion" are my favourites. I've read her juvenalia as well, but it's been so long, that I don't think I have more than quite vague memories of it. I do remember much of it was very funny - her English history, for example.:)

@karne - Yes, love that adaptation! :)
 

rosacotton

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 2, 2012
Another huge fan here!

My personal ranking of Jane Austen's Novels:
1. Mansfield Park
2. Northanger Abbey
3. Persuasion
4. Sense and Sensibility
5. Pride and Prejudice
6. Emma

I've also read Lady Susan, as well as her The Watsons and Sanditon fragments. And I have a weakness for reading completions of her unfinished novels, retellings, and sequels. :eek::

Favorite film adaptations are the BBC 1980s miniseries of Mansfield Park and 1995 Emma Thompson Sense and Sensibility.

P.S. Just curious, has anyone watched/liked the various web series that have been made of her books -- Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Welcome to Sanditon, Emma Approved, From Mansfield with Love?
 
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Jaana

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Jul 27, 2003
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Finland
A fan here, too! My ranking of her novels that I have read so far:

1. Pride and Prejudice
2. Emma
3. Sense and Sensibility

Tv series of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy was just fantastic!!!
 

skatedreamer

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Feb 18, 2014
Country
United-States
Pride and Prejudice is one of my all-time favorite books! I got started on Jane Austen after seeing the BBC adaptation of P&P from the early '80s and have loved her ever since. Have to say, though...with all due respect to Colin Firth and his surpassing gorgeousness in that wet shirt (sigh :love:) I still like the earlier version better. IMO the 1980's version is closer to the spirit and personality of the book. Much as I loved the one with Firth/Ehle, my gut feeling is that it was a little too "in your face." Having a hard time finding the right words to express this....

BTW, did anyone see Patricia Rozema's (sp?) film of Mansfield Park from the mid-90's? If so, what did you think? My head was sort of spinning around like Linda Blair in The Exorcist after that one -- hated it w/ a purple passion because it took so many liberties w/ the book. Would love to hear other perspectives and promise to keep an open mind. :biggrin:

OTOH, I thought Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility was just about perfect. Same for Persuasion w/ Amanda Root & Ciaran Hines.

rosacotton...I'm not familiar w/ any of the web series you mentioned and am really curious! Will search on YouTube.
 
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LRK

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Joined
Nov 13, 2012
My only complaint about Persuasion was that it was too short... I thought the actors did an excellent job, and I wish it had been longer.:)

I've not seen that Mansfield Park - but from what I've heard about it, I imagine my reaction might very well be similar to yours! :)
 

WeakAnkles

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Joined
Aug 1, 2011
Ok, I am going to take a quick stab at defending Rouzema's version of Mansfield Park.

First off, it is THE most difficult of the novels to film. The main characters, including the presumptive "heroine" and "hero" of the novel, are not especially likable. Fanny in particular just turns many readers off. I think it was Lionel Trilling who said that the prospect of being invited to their family home for a visit filled him with dread, because they would be such dreary company. It's very "moral" in a way that the other novels are not (we can get into that at another time if anyone is interested), and its morality is very different from ours. For example, we wouldn't quite see the home theatrical as the utter calamity and threat to morality that the novel presents it as. It's just a silly play performed by a family and their friends, amateurs all, isn't it? That's how we would see it. The most fun characters of all, Mary and Henry, turn out to be the villains. The plot just rambles on and on and on. Not the best ingredients for a movie.

Rouzema takes another tack at it. I think if you accept the basic premise that this really isn't Austen's novel on film, but a film that uses Austen's novel as the starting point for its own story, it's much easier to accept. Otherwise, you really will tear your hair out over it. It's a very feminist take on the Austen story. And it has the best ballroom scene from a cinematic point of view than any of the other Austen movies. The camera positively floats and gavottes. The one utterly ridiculous part of the movie that just cracks me up is the very brief scene where Fanny gets caught in a storm outside the parsonage, and Mary invites her in, and helps her dry off. It's so heavy handed in its hinting of lesbian seduction it's positively hilarious.

But again, if you take the film on it's own merits, it certainly isn't the worst of the adaptations. And I've seen--and own--ALL of them except for the BBC ones from the 60s, which I believe have never been released on any form of video. I thought ITV's adaptation with Billy Piper as Fanny was MUCH worse. Really, the book has to be a mini series. It's just not "film-able" at conventional movie lengths.
 
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tulosai

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Joined
Dec 21, 2011
YES JANE AUSTEN THREAD!!!

This might be a long shot but would anyone be interested in a Jane Austen book club? I imagine anyone bothering to post here has read most if not all of her work, so obviously this would be re-reading for most of us but I'd definitely be down to go through her books one by one and read and discuss...
 

TMC

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Joined
Jan 27, 2014
Another huge fan here!

My personal ranking of Jane Austen's Novels:
1. Mansfield Park
2. Northanger Abbey
3. Persuasion
4. Sense and Sensibility
5. Pride and Prejudice
6. Emma

Also a huge fan - and your ranking is identical to mine! I've never known anybody else to prefer Mansfield Park, it's usually the least liked. I don't know why it struck a chord because like WeakAnkles pointed out, nobody is that likeable. For some reason I just love it :love: Emma to me is much more unlikeable as a character.

I read all of Auste's novels at least once every year and have done so since I first read Pride and Prejudice almost 20 years ago.

I adore the movie version with Frances O'Connor from 1999!
 

eli60056

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 9, 2014
Considering the fact that most TV adaptations and other Jane Austen related movies are more or less comparable to fan fiction, do you guys know that there are many forums with excellent Jane Austen fan fiction stories out there? Most of them are closed to the general public, (but one can always register) due to the fact that the stories rating may be anything from PG to NC-17, but there are gems out there that are very true to the language and spirit of Jane Austen's originals. Many JA FF authors have become published in the last 5 years. Just something that some of you may find interesting.
 

solani

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Joined
Sep 8, 2014
Country
Austria
Also a huge fan - and your ranking is identical to mine! I've never known anybody else to prefer Mansfield Park, it's usually the least liked. I don't know why it struck a chord because like WeakAnkles pointed out, nobody is that likeable. For some reason I just love it :love: Emma to me is much more unlikeable as a character.
Oh, I positively hated Mansfield Park! There's this shy oh-so-very-agreeable good girl Fanny (I actually liked her) and there comes Henry to spice up her life (I liked him, too) and she rejects him! Because she loves her cousin or because she's afraid of Henry, I'm not sure, I stopped caring at that point in the story. She then settles for her brother-like cousin. Disgusting!
My list would be:
1. Northanger Abbey
2. Emma (I like her as well, adorable know-it-all ;) )
3. Persuasion
4. Pride and Prejudice
5. Sense and Sensibility
6. Mansfield Park
 

WeakAnkles

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 1, 2011
Also a huge fan - and your ranking is identical to mine! I've never known anybody else to prefer Mansfield Park, it's usually the least liked. I don't know why it struck a chord because like WeakAnkles pointed out, nobody is that likeable. For some reason I just love it :love: Emma to me is much more unlikeable as a character.

I read all of Auste's novels at least once every year and have done so since I first read Pride and Prejudice almost 20 years ago.

I adore the movie version with Frances O'Connor from 1999!


Hmm, I hated MP the first time I read it. It was really a slog to get through it the first time. But it has definitely grown on me. So I'd rank it third:

1. Pride and Prejudice (I want to be Elizabeth Bennett when I grow up)
2. Persuasion
3. Mansfield Park
4. Sense and Sensibility
5. Northanger Abbey
6. Emma

I think I'm just too American to like Emma. All that blather about class distinctions just rubs me the wrong way. But it is perfectly plotted. You know that JK Rowling learned a ton about plotting from reading it. I'd bet money on that.

Yes, I would be totally into a JA book club. Including the juvenalia, because Love & Freindship (sic) is one of my very favorite pieces of JA's work.
 

FSGMT

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Joined
Sep 10, 2012
I'm actually reading Emma at the moment (I reached more or less the halfway point), and I'm absolutely loving it! :love: Emma is simply hilarious: it is perfectly clear that she's a parodied character, taking her in a serious way would be just the wrong thing for me, her beauty is that she's so perfectly "hatable" :cool:
 

plushyfan

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Joined
Jun 27, 2012
Country
Hungary
I am a huge Jane Austen fanatic.

me toooooo!

I love Pride and Prejudice. One of my favourite books ever. And don't get me started on the 1995 BBC Mini-Series starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. :love:

yes, of course! fantastic series..I'm sure I watched 10 times..:eek:: But I also read the novel many times..

I read many novels of her..I love her style, the british history, the romantica.
 

solani

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Sep 8, 2014
Country
Austria
I'm actually reading Emma at the moment (I reached more or less the halfway point), and I'm absolutely loving it! :love: Emma is simply hilarious: it is perfectly clear that she's a parodied character, taking her in a serious way would be just the wrong thing for me, her beauty is that she's so perfectly "hatable" :cool:
I see her differently: she's a very adorable spoilt kid, everyone loves her and she knows this, but she's very caring about the one she loves. She's very likeable, I mean, Knightley isn't a stupid idiot, he sees all her good qualities, but he's not blind to the fact that she's acting very childlike sometimes. And she's very young, at the beginning of the story she hasn't had any bad experiences in her life.
And Jane Austen wrote in a letter about Emma:
"a heroine whom no one but myself will much like"
. :)
 

bwayrose7

On the Ice
Joined
Jun 1, 2014
Another Austen fan here! I'm actually taking a course on her this semester- took me until my final undergrad semester to get in, but it's soooo worth it! I've read all the books way too many times, and this would probably be my ranking (not counting her smaller works):

1. Pride and Prejudice
2. Persuasion
3. Emma
4. Northanger Abbey
5. Sense and Sensibility
6. Mansfield Park

As far as film adaptations go, it's got to be the 2005 P&P and the late-2000s set of BBC TV adaptations (I'm especially fond of the 09 Emma and the 07 Northanger)
 

FSGMT

Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 10, 2012
I see her differently: she's a very adorable spoilt kid, everyone loves her and she knows this, but she's very caring about the one she loves. She's very likeable, I mean, Knightley isn't a stupid idiot, he sees all her good qualities, but he's not blind to the fact that she's acting very childlike sometimes. And she's very young, at the beginning of the story she hasn't had any bad experiences in her life.
Exactly! It may seem nonsense, but that's exactly why I like her so much: you can see that she was created just because the author wanted everyone to dislike her :laugh: She's just like an "anti-hero" for me!
 

solani

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Sep 8, 2014
Country
Austria
Exactly! It may seem nonsense, but that's exactly why I like her so much: you can see that she was created just because the author wanted everyone to dislike her :laugh: She's just like an "anti-hero" for me!
She is so real, even today. While I enjoy reading Austen novels, I often have the problem, that the characters lack character (to me!). For example: Jane Bennett or Eleanor Tilney do seem nice and empty, perfect 18th century ladies, like they're supposed to be, but not really interesting in the end. I see real feminist tendencies in Emma.
I'm a little surprised that "Persuasion" and "Northanger Abbey" seem to be so popular. The 2007 movies were good (Persuasion, I didn't like the running scene) and great (Northanger Abbey), maybe because of that?
 
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