Austentatious Ideas

How are the civilities and compliments of every day life to be related as they ought to be, unless noted down every evening in a journal?

One of my old college roommates used to shake her head or scoff at me whenever I suggested we watch a Jane Austen film for our weekly movie night.  The mere mention of Pride and Prejudice seemed to make her nauseous, no doubt related to resurfacing memories of high school literature courses.  I've been there.


I can admit that I usually don't admit to being a die-hard Austen fan myself. There are a combination of factors at play here.

➻ Actually reading Jane Austen's novels can be similar to pulling teeth (and my six-year-old self remembers having a tooth yanked out that wasn't ready to go, thank you!)

➻ Social structure of the Jane Austen Era makes me want to throw things.

➻ There's enough similarity between her work and modern-day romance novels for me to  fear I'm turning into my mother already.

BUT.

One day I managed to convince my roommate to watch Northanger Abbey with me, and soon enough we were sitting through all 3+ hours of  Sense and Sensibility. We laughed, we screamed at the heroine, we swooned over the men - I converted her to an Austen fan easily in just two weeks.

What makes the film adaptations so much better than the original work?

I often compare William Shakespeare to Disney's animated films ("He might not have come up with the story, but he knows how to make me like it!"), both genius in their own right. Andrew Davies is another person to add to that list. Every single screen adaptation of Jane Austen's work with his name attached is one I can claim is worth seeing.

If I could choose my ULTIMATE website project, it would be to compile a shrine to Mr. Davies list of Jane Austen BBC (and ITV) adaptations and what makes each unique. Choice of actors and actresses, adaptation of dialogue, and even set design could all be a part of the comparative process.

I am, however, aware of the various problems that could arise with such a topic. Not only external, but my own sad tendency to ramble like a rambling thing that rambles.

Failing a Jane Austen Adaptation site, I do seem to have quite a few photos I took of empty benches lying around my desktop. 

Could be an idea there.

I am simultaneously sitting as close to and as far away from a good idea as possible.

Hmn.