Jane Austen

I’ve loved all the Jane Austen novels brought to “life” as movies the past several years.

I admit openly here that I’ve never read one of them.

Finances being tight, since I’ve been compelled to actually read the stories of late, I only recently was able to come into contact with a volume that I could call my own, and delve deep within to find joy in words.

Costco has a volume that has her published novels in one binding. It’s a beautiful book. The same thing has been done with Shakespeare and Dickens, etc. For $14.99 I have in this binding:

Sense and Sensibility

Pride and Prejudice

Mansfield Park

Emma

Northanger Abbey

Persuasion

Lady Susan

That’s the order they are in the book, accordingly to the first publish date they each had.

The illustrations in this book are wonderful as well. From the 19th Century by Hugh Thomson, as the forward by Claire Booss says: “This collection is also unique in that it is the only contemporary edition to include the charming, witty, and affectionate nineteenth-century illustrations of Hugh Thomson. He has captured, better than any artist, the particular Austen world, peopled with beautiful but preposterous figures. There are elegant turns and delightful flirtations Human comedy and romance are distilled in these priceless drawings.” Well said.

So, I’ve begun the reading of Sense and Sensibility, and find it much better than the movie I’m so familiar with. Generally I despise reading a book after first seeing it as a movie. In this case, I find the books delightful and I am eager to read them all. I’ve perused here and there in the book, reading a sentence or paragraph as it’s caught my eye.

I’m suppressing the desire that wells within me to skip ahead and read Persuasion. I love that movie of all the ones out, the most. The story is so differently told, and it simply speaks to me the most.

My rank of movies is as such:

1. Persuasion
2. Pride and Prejudice
3. Mansfield park
4. Sense and Sensibility
5. Emma [Paltrow version]

This is a difficult ranking to compile. Definitely the top three are nearly tied for first place. The other two are tied for second place. All in all they must all occupy their own space in my heart, and Persuasion wins the day. It’s a shorter piece, as a movie, than my other favorites. And the resolve it brings is vindictive. It’s good.

It’s the story that Jane Austen finished writing as she was dying. She died on my birthday, many years before of course. I didn’t realize my birthday was on the anniversary of her death, until recently. I’d already decided my favorite movie was Persuasion, and it only meant more to me upon paying further attention to the details of the authorship of the literature version.

I don’t know what kind of attention most people paid to Austen in the 1980’s. I don’t recall hearing much about it, the most notable would be “Mr. Darcy and Pride and Prejudice” and they were up there as high and ignorable as “War and Peace” was for me. I didn’t read either of those pieces. I had no friends that read Jane Austen. I am sad to know how much I would have enjoyed reading these things when I was younger.

So now I play catch up, and read the books after seeing most of them as movies already. The volume that I have was published first in 1981. So it’s been out there, just never crossed my path. My first introduction was with “Sense and Sensibility”. Before that I saw “Howard’s End” and really enjoyed that. So Emma Thompson was what brought me into paying attention to Austen.

I’m on chapter 4 of Sense and Sensibility, and trying hard not to just “sit down and read” every moment of the day. I’m glad for Jane Austen’s gift, she gives a wonderful view of life in another time, but life that is definitely of the same kind of people as we all are today. It’s a refreshing way to view humanity. Through Austen’s eyes. I have the same thing about Tolkien. Re-reading that makes me see things through that lense as well. An Austen/Tolkien lense is a very interesting combination. 🙂