The Squeee

I've often wondered why in Jane Austen the interesting new acquaintances of the heroine's age are often men rather than women. If the women are bad, they are petty, malicious, proud and inconstant. If the women are good, they are giggly, unintellectual, sometimes sensible, never really deep or profound. (We're not talking about the heroines themselves). Perhaps Jane Austen preferred the company of men? (We seem to see quotes from her letters favourable things about the gentlemen she met). Was she trying to tell us something by having the heroines be friendlier (in a platonic sense) to men than women? Look at Pride and Prejudice . Miss Bingley is a petty malicious slanderer who thinks she's greater than the less well-off Elizabeth. Charlotte Lucas is sensible but then marries the idiotic Mr Collins. Lady Catherine de Bourgh is a vulgar, arrogant interfering old woman. The only exception is Mrs Gardiner, but she's Lizzie's aunt, so that doesn't count. The ge...

In the news today: The most recent adaptation of Jane Eyre was number three in the UK box office during its opening weekend. Well done! I think it was really well done considering out of the four cinemas in Nottingham (that I know of, anyway), only one is actually showing it - Showcase. Broadway will be showing it, but not until the end of the month. If that's the case here, what's it like in other parts of the country? #3 is well done! :) Keira Knightley, Jude Law and Aaron Johnson are billed to star in next year's adaptation of Anna Karenina . Haven't we known about Keira Knightley playing Anna Karenina for months now? Jude Law is to be Karenin and Johnson Vronsky. Speaking of adaptations, Joanna Trollope is apparently set to write a modern day re-make of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility . It's set to publish late 2013 and is a part of HarperFiction's attempts at giving all the Austen novels an update. I'm just slightly puzzled as to why this...

The Awl has posted a list of 111 Male Characters Of British Literature, In Order Of Bangability . (Thanks for posting about it in the forum, rhubarbsmom!) First of all, let's correct the image they use to illustrate the article, as they've chosen number THREE on the list as opposed to number one. Can't have that now, can we? There we go. MUCH better. Order is restored. Ta-daaaah!! Mr. Rochester of Jane Eyre made number one! :D Congratulations on your impeccable taste, Carrie Frye! Of course he is the most bangable character in British literature. Here are some reflections on selected parts of the rest of the list:

Was going through Marvin (the desktop computer) to find some files, and came across this, which I believe was posted on Facebook a couple of years ago or so. So not necessarily very up-to-date, but anyway. Here goes: 1) What author do you own the most books by? Technically, Carolyn Keene, but on the other hand, they’re not all mine and besides, they’re all at my parents’. Seriously though, we’ve got probably 100+ Nancy Drew books! Sheer number of books aside from that … Bengt Linder. My collection of books about Dante and Tvärsan is almost complete. :D 2) What book do you own the most copies of? Hmm. I’ve got a few doubles of Jane Austen books now, as I decided to get a new batch from the same series (Wordsworth Classics) to make it look nice and consistent. 3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions? Prepo-what-a? :P

I haven't even seen Fight Club and I think this is hilarious! :D (Even though I can't help but disagree with their costumes.) I bid you have a great weekend!

Question posed a while back was: who's your preference, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy from Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice , or Mr. John Thornton from Elizabeth Gaskell's North & South ? 1. John Thornton - 39 votes - 88%  2. Fitzwilliam Darcy - 5 votes - 11% Thank you to the 44 voters, the results are perhaps not that surprising, considering I'd say the majority of the readers of this blog (love you all!) are fans of Richard Armitage. ;) On the other hand, Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, he was the first introduction I had to the wonderful world of period drama, and my first cravat crush. (The 2005 version of P&P just doesn't work for me at all. Colin Firth is and always will be the perfect Darcy.)

"Will you be following the World Cup this year, Miss Dashwood?" "Indeed I will not, Mr. Ferrars. I find football most disagreeable." Any football fans out there? (Soccer fans if you're American.) I couldn't give a stuff about the World Cup personally. Apparently, Sweden's not even in it - nor did we make it to the Eurovision final, gasp! At present, England is at a standstill, because they're playing the USA. So far, it's 1-1 and it's about 15 minutes to go. It being the World Cup means "but now there's nothing decent on telly for ages !" - or is there? Actually, there is. The channels are exceedingly agreeable, as it happens! One channel's showing Sense & Sensibility '95, another one's showing Pride & Prejudice '95. Another one is showing Notting Hill . It's chick flick heaven! And it'll go on during the World Cup so that all of us who give a collective yawn at a bunch of blokes chasing...

The people we bought the house off had left behind an empty photo frame. Possibly because it was a bit wonky. I finally found a use for it, the other day! :) When the Squeeze and I went to London in mid-March, we popped in to the National Portrait Gallery (I insisted, because I really wanted to see the Brontë portraits in real life). You weren't allowed to take pictures there (boo!), so I had to settle for getting some postcards instead, and the frame came in really useful now - so, from the top: Charlotte Brontë (by George Richmond), Emily Brontë (by Branwell Brontë), the Brontë sisters (also by Branwell), and a self-portrait of Jane Austen. All except the Richmond one were on display at the museum. Maybe that one was as well but we didn't see it. So there you have it, my collection of inspirational female authors! :) Now I just have to figure out where to put it... haha.

"You are Marianne Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! You are impulsive, romantic, impatient, and perhaps a bit too brutally honest. You enjoy romantic poetry and novels, and play the pianoforte beautifully. To boot, your singing voice is captivating. You feel deeply, and love passionately." Take the Quiz here! Umm. I took piano lessons for a year when I was ten... that's not "beautifully", that's "yes, you do play only a little". Captivating singing voice? I do okay on Singstar, but I wouldn't call that "captivating" by any stretch of the imagination! I also have an intense dislike of poetry. I once bought the collected poems of DH Lawrence in a fit of "I like his writing and he's a LOCAL!" (five years in Nottingham and I've still never been to the DH Lawrence Heritage site in Eastwood, 20 mins from where we live now *cough*) only to remember, when I finally opened it to read, that I find 98% of all poetry insanely...

Last Sunday, saw the trailer for Emma on BBC. It's airing this Sunday at 9pm / 21:00 on BBC One. Starring Angel/Mary Bryant, Eli Stone, Dumbledore, Fran from Black Books and David from Cold Feet . :D More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n7pk1

"BBC has already announced that they're cutting back on costume drama and this will be the last 19th century project for a long time" someone wrote on the IMDb boards, and I think that's a great shame. We all love a good costume drama! But at least we have this one, the upcoming adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma to keep us keen! The script has been done by the great Sandy Welch. Don't know who she is? She wrote the scripts for North &; South (BBC 2004) and Jane Eyre (2006)... and they were absolutely marvellous, so I've high hopes for this one as well. Sandy Welch is like the new Andrew Davies. :)