Austenland
4 journalers for this copy...
This title grabbed my attention not only as a Jane Austen fan; I also have a passing interest in the Austen spin-off genre that has bloomed since the success of the BBC’s 1994 production of Pride & Prejudice. A friend warned me that Austenland was also (mere) chiclit. That’s OK – you don’t have to be a young woman to read chiclit, or a Russian to read Tolstoy.
Alas, Austenland will satisfy fans of neither Austen nor chiclit. Not that its target audience is unclear: the novel is dedicated to Colin Firth. Its heroine, Jane Hayes, is a 30-something New York graphic designer (ominously suggesting the phoney sophistication of Sex and the City). Jane is obsessed with the BBC’s 1994 P&P. At one point she says: “I don’t think I could explain it to a man. If you were a woman, all I’d have to say is ‘Colin Firth in a wet shirt’ and you’d say ‘Ah.’ “
Jane quickly finds herself on a lavish, expenses-paid trip to a country house in southern England. For nearly three weeks, guests will live in Regency style, down to the smallest detail of dress, diet, manners, and pastimes. Trained actors are on hand to facilitate the illusion and to furnish Austenesque characters. A bit like a murder weekend, only longer. The inevitable question is: who will play Darcy to Jane’s Elizabeth Bennet?
This idea sounds like fun, but as the core situation of a novel, it’s a fiasco. Who will take a romantic interest in whom? And is the Regency persona enamoured and/or the object of desire, or is it the real person beneath the disguise? With every character being two, there are just too many possibilities. It’s like watching an amateur juggler vainly trying to keep ten balls in the air at once. Character exposition and development (the novel is anyway under 200 pages long) collapse like a wet soufflé. The plot staggers from one non-event to another.
As Jane and the other guests prepare to go home, the story revives a little with some diverting farce, but all too soon it sags again into soggy romantic slush.
The author attempts some serious counterpoint to this charade by presenting a biographical history of (the real) Jane’s love life in the US, from kindergarten to the present. Her experiences with each boyfriend are briefly outlined, in chronological order, one by one at the head of each chapter. The aim is to put in perspective Jane’s desire either to fulfil her Darcy fantasy or get over it, whichever turns out to be the case.
Most of Jane’s failed relationships are commonplace instances of self-absorbed young people paying too little attention to each other as persons. Sometimes it seems as if they want to change partners as easily as trying a new flavour of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.
So the history of Jane’s love life looks depressingly normal, nothing much for her to whine about self-pityingly. Still, an escapist obsession with romantic love is a barrier to adult maturity and successful partnership.
Shannon Hale doesn’t get the point about romantic love in Jane Austen’s work. In her prologue she chides the BBC’s P&P for sappily romanticizing Austen’s prose. No, it doesn’t do that at all! A key to the quality of the Firth/Ehle romance is that it mostly uses Austen’s own words verbatim! Hale is projecting her own sappy ideas onto it.
Jane Austen was herself romantic only in the sense that she implicitly believed in the exalting power of love between the sexes, and of love in general. But Austen never felt that such feelings should be indulged at the expense of adult responsibility and practical good sense. She herself never married.
The mushy romance hawked by Hale is that of people in love with the idea of being in love, not with a real person. The attraction is clear, since real people are much harder work: they have their own hopes, dreams, desires, anxieties and practical needs and problems. For most of us, partnership is about buying groceries together more often than it’s about sharing a gondola in the moonlight.
This difference is really why Shannon Hale is the writer she is, and Jane Austen is the writer she is.
Alas, Austenland will satisfy fans of neither Austen nor chiclit. Not that its target audience is unclear: the novel is dedicated to Colin Firth. Its heroine, Jane Hayes, is a 30-something New York graphic designer (ominously suggesting the phoney sophistication of Sex and the City). Jane is obsessed with the BBC’s 1994 P&P. At one point she says: “I don’t think I could explain it to a man. If you were a woman, all I’d have to say is ‘Colin Firth in a wet shirt’ and you’d say ‘Ah.’ “
Jane quickly finds herself on a lavish, expenses-paid trip to a country house in southern England. For nearly three weeks, guests will live in Regency style, down to the smallest detail of dress, diet, manners, and pastimes. Trained actors are on hand to facilitate the illusion and to furnish Austenesque characters. A bit like a murder weekend, only longer. The inevitable question is: who will play Darcy to Jane’s Elizabeth Bennet?
This idea sounds like fun, but as the core situation of a novel, it’s a fiasco. Who will take a romantic interest in whom? And is the Regency persona enamoured and/or the object of desire, or is it the real person beneath the disguise? With every character being two, there are just too many possibilities. It’s like watching an amateur juggler vainly trying to keep ten balls in the air at once. Character exposition and development (the novel is anyway under 200 pages long) collapse like a wet soufflé. The plot staggers from one non-event to another.
As Jane and the other guests prepare to go home, the story revives a little with some diverting farce, but all too soon it sags again into soggy romantic slush.
The author attempts some serious counterpoint to this charade by presenting a biographical history of (the real) Jane’s love life in the US, from kindergarten to the present. Her experiences with each boyfriend are briefly outlined, in chronological order, one by one at the head of each chapter. The aim is to put in perspective Jane’s desire either to fulfil her Darcy fantasy or get over it, whichever turns out to be the case.
Most of Jane’s failed relationships are commonplace instances of self-absorbed young people paying too little attention to each other as persons. Sometimes it seems as if they want to change partners as easily as trying a new flavour of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.
So the history of Jane’s love life looks depressingly normal, nothing much for her to whine about self-pityingly. Still, an escapist obsession with romantic love is a barrier to adult maturity and successful partnership.
Shannon Hale doesn’t get the point about romantic love in Jane Austen’s work. In her prologue she chides the BBC’s P&P for sappily romanticizing Austen’s prose. No, it doesn’t do that at all! A key to the quality of the Firth/Ehle romance is that it mostly uses Austen’s own words verbatim! Hale is projecting her own sappy ideas onto it.
Jane Austen was herself romantic only in the sense that she implicitly believed in the exalting power of love between the sexes, and of love in general. But Austen never felt that such feelings should be indulged at the expense of adult responsibility and practical good sense. She herself never married.
The mushy romance hawked by Hale is that of people in love with the idea of being in love, not with a real person. The attraction is clear, since real people are much harder work: they have their own hopes, dreams, desires, anxieties and practical needs and problems. For most of us, partnership is about buying groceries together more often than it’s about sharing a gondola in the moonlight.
This difference is really why Shannon Hale is the writer she is, and Jane Austen is the writer she is.
Thank you so much for this. Not sure based on your review whether I am looking forwarding to reading it or not!! But I''ll give it a shot. Thanks
Absolute drivel! I am not a fan of Jane Austen , despite having read Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Sense and sensibility. For dramatic storyline I much prefer the earthier works of the Brontes and for light romantic historical fiction I actually prefer Georgette Heyer. So I was reading it from a slightly different point of view.
I found it very difficult to get into the story as it did not in any capture me in any way from the off. In short it isn't even worthy enough to be considered as a Mills and Boon. Not enough Jane Austen to make Jane Austen fans happy, not enough chicklit to make chicklit fans happy, not enough rounding out of the characters or the plot to make anyone else happy.
Yes we admit it, virtually every woman has drooled after Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, but there is not enough substance in that one fantasy to fashion a complete novel. And even if there were, it would have to have been by a much better writer than this one.
Reading this, after reading such a wonderful, lyrical, expressive, heartwarming book as Marley and me, was certainly coming down to earth with a bang.
Anyone who wants, please feel free to ask me for this book......please!
I found it very difficult to get into the story as it did not in any capture me in any way from the off. In short it isn't even worthy enough to be considered as a Mills and Boon. Not enough Jane Austen to make Jane Austen fans happy, not enough chicklit to make chicklit fans happy, not enough rounding out of the characters or the plot to make anyone else happy.
Yes we admit it, virtually every woman has drooled after Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, but there is not enough substance in that one fantasy to fashion a complete novel. And even if there were, it would have to have been by a much better writer than this one.
Reading this, after reading such a wonderful, lyrical, expressive, heartwarming book as Marley and me, was certainly coming down to earth with a bang.
Anyone who wants, please feel free to ask me for this book......please!
Journal Entry 4 by Gizmopuddy at O'Neills, Pearse St in Dublin, Co. Dublin Ireland on Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Released 16 yrs ago (1/22/2008 UTC) at O'Neills, Pearse St in Dublin, Co. Dublin Ireland
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
RELEASE NOTES:
Releasing at the BCie January Monthly meet up
Releasing at the BCie January Monthly meet up
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a book trading on a tenuous association with one of the greatest writers in the English language, must expect to be judged by admirers of that same writer.
And so, as a dyed in the wool Jane Austen fan, I can only say that I admire her bravery, however deluded and misplaced. This book is trite, trivial, badly written, implausible to the point of farce, and leaves me wondering if the author actually has read Austen at all. She has watched the BBC adaptation of P & P, obviously, but seems to have missed the point where Elizabeth Bennet is the protagonist.....
I think Shannon should have called this book Barbara Cart-land, in which case it would have mattered little that the female characters are all empty-headed passive bores, and the plot revolves around cliched hero-types proposing to them for no obvious reason. It would also not have mattered that she makes grating mistakes such as naming one of the charactors Sir Templeton when the title Sir attaches to the first name, and he would be correctly known as Sir John (or whatever). Surely an admirer of Persuasion would not have forgotten Sir Walter?? The lady instructing our (and I use the term loosely) heroine in correct behaviour has a lovely turn of phrase, including such gems as "that's your name, right?" which I am sure a regency young lady would find charming.
Shannon seens uncertain as to a style of writing, and decides to cover all bases, so sentances like 'her voice was soft, sand beat by waves till it's as fine as powdered sugar' share the same page with 'Jane grabbed her bag and split'.....And then there are her feelings on approaching Austenland - she wants to go, she doesn't want to go, she can't believe she has let herself in for this, she wants to go home, she has to get Darcy out of her mind, who knows it might even be fun, they would all know she had a deep dark secret, she was afraid they wouldn't like her, she can't believe she is actually here.....all this in a couple of pages........
My friend whose pc I am using at the moment insists I finish up now before I thump the keys of her keyboard right through on to the table underneath, so I don't even get to mention the complete implausability of the plot, right down to a Knicks game and root beer appearing in Janes' path when out on a midnight stroll.......There is nothing to recommend this book at all but a strange fascination in seeing just how bad it can get.....in that, at least, it does not disappoint!!
And so, as a dyed in the wool Jane Austen fan, I can only say that I admire her bravery, however deluded and misplaced. This book is trite, trivial, badly written, implausible to the point of farce, and leaves me wondering if the author actually has read Austen at all. She has watched the BBC adaptation of P & P, obviously, but seems to have missed the point where Elizabeth Bennet is the protagonist.....
I think Shannon should have called this book Barbara Cart-land, in which case it would have mattered little that the female characters are all empty-headed passive bores, and the plot revolves around cliched hero-types proposing to them for no obvious reason. It would also not have mattered that she makes grating mistakes such as naming one of the charactors Sir Templeton when the title Sir attaches to the first name, and he would be correctly known as Sir John (or whatever). Surely an admirer of Persuasion would not have forgotten Sir Walter?? The lady instructing our (and I use the term loosely) heroine in correct behaviour has a lovely turn of phrase, including such gems as "that's your name, right?" which I am sure a regency young lady would find charming.
Shannon seens uncertain as to a style of writing, and decides to cover all bases, so sentances like 'her voice was soft, sand beat by waves till it's as fine as powdered sugar' share the same page with 'Jane grabbed her bag and split'.....And then there are her feelings on approaching Austenland - she wants to go, she doesn't want to go, she can't believe she has let herself in for this, she wants to go home, she has to get Darcy out of her mind, who knows it might even be fun, they would all know she had a deep dark secret, she was afraid they wouldn't like her, she can't believe she is actually here.....all this in a couple of pages........
My friend whose pc I am using at the moment insists I finish up now before I thump the keys of her keyboard right through on to the table underneath, so I don't even get to mention the complete implausability of the plot, right down to a Knicks game and root beer appearing in Janes' path when out on a midnight stroll.......There is nothing to recommend this book at all but a strange fascination in seeing just how bad it can get.....in that, at least, it does not disappoint!!
I got this from a couple of friends, who felt that I would be amused by this book as I am a big Jane Austen fan. They'd warned me that it wasn't great but they failed to warn me that I would get irritated by the end of Page 1! Jennifer Ehle who plays Elizabeth Bennet in the BBC adaptation, "that comely, busty English actress" is in fact American. Anyway, I made it to page 50 and I'm sorry, but I can nto read any more of this. I find that I'm having to use restraint here with regards to my feelings on the story and the writing, but I'll just say that it's not my cup of tea. Or mug of coffee. Or glass of wine. At all. Rubbish.
Unfortunately this book will have to stay as reserved on my bookshelf as I'm flying out of country tomorrow and suitcase full of new clothing, shoes and books I want to read. Certainly not turfing one of them out to carry this back, and guess it's not really worth releasing this in an airport... to restrictive.
Unfortunately this book will have to stay as reserved on my bookshelf as I'm flying out of country tomorrow and suitcase full of new clothing, shoes and books I want to read. Certainly not turfing one of them out to carry this back, and guess it's not really worth releasing this in an airport... to restrictive.
