Becoming Jane...

[fajrdrako]

Another Jane Austen movie. Not a story by her this time, but a story about her: the story of her brief (and probably mostly apocryphal) romance with Tom Lefroy.

I enjoyed it in spite of myself. It's a good historical movie, well extrapolated from fact, well acted - especially by the beautiful Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen. I wanted to find fault and really couldn't. The sets, the costuming, the acting - all first-class. I found myself comparing it in my mind to the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice, which to my mind was so unlike the period. I was almost more interested in the the romance of Jane's brother Joe (played stylishly by Joe Anderson) with a wealthy widow, than I was in Jane's relationship with Lefroy.

I also found myself wishing for the umpteenth time that they'd make regency movies that weren't about Jane Austen or her novels. Movies about people of the period whom I find fascinating, like Byron and Shelley and Mary Shelley, or Napoleon and his connections, or more Hornblower and Sharpe; and especially I'd like to see movie versions of Georgette Heyer and the Regency romance genre. They could. They should. They don't.

Becoming Jane made me cry, though. I particularly liked the scene where Jane met Mrs. Radcliffe. I also liked the scenes where we saw Lefroy without Jane - when he was in court, for example.

Does this movie have Jane Austen herself rolling in her grave, or at least rolling her eyes in polite disgust? I'm not sure what she would have thought about being cast as a heroine of romance, even if it is gently doomed romance enlivened with its share of ironical wit.

I was reading an article in Macleans magazine from August 13 that articulated so well why I don't generally like Jane Austen's books, even if there are many things I like about them - very mixed feelings. Persuasion is my favourite and I think it has somewhat different attitudes from the others. But this article by Lianne George, called "The Opposite of Sex", saying:

She's a pragmatist, an economist... In the 19th century, Charlotte Brontë famously rejected Austen's work as lacking warmth, enthusiasm, or anything heartfelt: "...The passions are perfectly unknown to her." ...Her works conjure- rightly or not - some quaint, if unrealistic notion of dignity and restraint.

It is precisely because Austen is not a romantic that her stories resonate today.

They don't resonate for me. I remain a romantic, ujnable to appreciate Austen's cynicism. I'm firmly in the Charlotte Brontë mould, with a deep distrust of Austen's distrust of passion. Austen is witty, but cold.

She isn't cold in Becoming Jane. The movie restores passion to the story of her life, and I'm not sure if that's true to her biography or fair to her legacy.

Comments

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I loathed Austen when I was forced to read her in school

Happily, I was never forced to read her in school. I tried Pride and Prejudice at some point in my early teens, found it deadly dull and stopped reading. Tried again with Northanger Abbey when I was a little older - still not eighteen yet, but older - and quite enjoyed it; then read Persuasion, loved it thoroughly, and moved on to read all the others. Austen has moments I love, but her prosaic attitude to romanticism and her sense of satire just aren't the literary qualities I most enjoy. To my eyes, she not only lacks warmth, she lacks empathy for all but the more detached and witty characters who most resemble her own attitude. I usually want to beg her to be just a little sentimental, just for a while, for a change of tone.

she doesn't gild some of the nastier home truths about life in her age

No, but she doesn't deal with many of them either. She deals with hypocrisy (for example), but writes entirely about the situation and viewpoint of a woman of her own class and style. You would hardly know the war with Napoleon was going on, or that there was a seedy side to life, or even a sexual side, or a masculine side, or people to whom the social structure she writes about doesn't even apply. I'm not saying she ought to go beyond what she offers us - it makes a fine package - simply that her view of her own world is more narrow than it is complete, and completion of the picture isn't what she is about. She's an excellent example of an author who writes what she knows - the kind of life that Austen herself had actually experienced. It's a slice of life, but not a complete picture of her times.

I agree that her heroines are good people, attractive and intelligent, and that's one of the strengths of her works. Even though the whole plot of Pride and Prejudice is about Elizabeth Bennet's misunderstanding of Mr. Darcy, Austen manages to make the plot work without Elizabeth ever appearing like a total idiot - even if the reader twigs to the truth before Elizabeth Does. I'm not terribly fond of plots where the whole story is centred on an error on the part of the protagonist. Austen pulls it off admirably there but it still isn't my preference.

Ann Elliot is my favourite of the Austen heroines by far, because Persuasion is the only one of the books in which I think the theme is actually romantic. I don't think the satire is compromised by this, either. And it doesn't all hinge on Ann being wrong about something, though it does hinge on an error she once made. And since the error was one of caution rather than passion, I'm much more sympathetic to the theme!

And don't get me started on Bridget Jones, the most annoying character in modern literature! Austen is infinitely better than that, granted, but that isn't setting much of a standard!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

It's a slice of life, but not a complete picture of her times.

No sin there. By keeping a lot of the historical details out, I think she managed to strip her plots to the bare essentials, which is why they continue to resonate, where a book that went into the scandals of the Regency or the war would seem much wierder and harder to grasp for the modern reader.

Persuasion was not a favorite, but I have a copy. Ought to give it another try. Northanger is actually my favorite, mostly because I've made many of Catherine's mistakes.

And don't get me started on Bridget Jones, the most annoying character in modern literature

Yes, but Bridget is based on Pride & Prej, and is the best example of 1) how the barebones plot is still compelling and 2) how deeply modern authors Don't Get It. (There's also a mystery series about a character named Jaine Austen - not to be confused with the mystery series using the historical person - and the first book was cute but by the third book I wanted to Hurt both author and character.)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

No sin there.

No, not at all. I was replying there to the comment that Austen 'doesn't gild home truths', and was just pointing out that the is selective in what home truths she decides to present. I can see why she resonates with our age, but it's in ways that I don't resonate with my own age, so while I can admire her stories and themes, I don't love them as I do the works of other authors.

I've made many of Catherine's mistakes.

LOL. I'm much more like Elizabeth Bennet in both my flaws and my strengths, which may be the reason I am particuarly critical of her.

Jane Austen inspired Georgette Heyer and the whole genre of Regency romance and romantic comedies of manners. Add to that the new mystery series, and the Jaine Austen you mention, and the movie industry - she's responsible for so much!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

she's responsible for so much

Some of which, I think, would horrify her!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think so! But she might also be amused.