reading – Page 19 – Ripple Effects

Too Much Jane?

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Andrew Davis pondering

The Welsh filmmaker Peter Greenaway once made a controversial remark criticising film versions of literary work as mere “illustrated books”. Regarding Jane Austen’s work, he said:

Cinema is predicated on the 19th century novel. We’re still illustrating Jane Austen novels–there are 41 films of Jane Austen novels in the world.

What a waste of time.

Click here for the Wales news article containing the above quote.

To the discomfort of Mr. Greenaway, there have been more Austen adaptations made since he spoke. As recent as just two weeks ago, BBC has announced that a four-episode production of Emma will be launched this fall. The award-winning writer Sandy Welch (Jane Eyre, 2006, TV; Our Mutual Friend, 1998, TV) is working on the new script, with actors pending.

Why do we need another Austen adaptation? Do we need another “illustrated book” as Greenaway has argued?

I was surprised to hear such remarks from Mr. Greenaway, himself an art house filmmaker. He certainly doesn’t need to be reminded of the power of the visual. I have expressed my stance against his argument in a previous post entitled ‘Vision not Illustration’. But as more Austen adaptations appear, laying ratings and profits aside, I still believe there is an artistic merit in turning book into film.

The visual has an immense power in bringing out the essence of the literary. An image can elicit deep and hidden thoughts, stir up emotions of past experiences, point to new insights, and unleash multiple responses in just a short lapse of time. The cliché “A picture speaks a thousand words” has its application in this visually driven generation. Not that I do not treasure the classics, or the literary tradition. Far from it. I think a good film adaptation can, at best, enhance our enjoyment of the literary, and if it fails, can only help us appreciate the original genius even more.

If Bach, over 300 years ago, could invent Theme and Variations, why can’t we in this post-modern age, where multiple narratives are cherished, create adaptations to a recognized original? Of course, the key is held by the filmmakers. It takes the insightful and interpretive lens of a good writer, director, and cinematographer to craft a fresh perspective, one that can evoke a new vision and yet still remain true to the spirit of the original.

Kate Harwood of BBC explains why another adaptation of Emma is ensued:

In Emma, Austen has created an intriguing heroine, and our four-hour canvas allows us to explore this multi-faceted character in detail. Emma was Austen’s last novel, written when she was at the height of her craft, and we are delighted that such an esteemed writer as Sandy Welch is bringing her vision to this appealing story.

How appropriate it is for Harwood to see film as a canvas for visual exploration, and the writer’s vision as a crucial element in the creative process.

I say, bring on more Austen adaptations. Jane would be most pleased… belatedly.

*****

The above posted article has since been published in the Jane Austen Centre Online Magazine, where you can read more about Jane and her world. Click here to go there.

Click here to read my review of Part 1 and Part 2 of Sense and Sensibility, broadcast on PBS Masterpiece Classic Feb. 1 and 8.

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

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“Jhumpa Lahiri is the kind of writer who makes you want to grab the next person you see and say, ‘Read this!'”

— Amy Tan

Unaccustomed Earth is one of the five fiction selections of New York Times Best Books for 2008. Jhumpa Lahiri’s debut work, Interpreter of Maladies, a collection of short stories, won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and later received the PEN/Hemingway Award, the New Yorker Debut of the Year award, American Academy of Arts and Letters Addison Metcalf Award, and was translated into twenty-nine languages. Her next work was The Namesake, a novel which was turned into film by acclaimed director Mira Nair. Unaccustomed Earth is her third book.

Jhumpa Lahiri was born in London, England, to Bengali immigrants. Her family later moved to the United States and settled in Rhode Island where she grew up. Lahiri went to Barnard College and received a B.A. in English Literature. She furthered her studies in literature and creative writing and obtained three M.A.’s, and ultimately, a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies at Boston University. So, she knows her subject matter well. In Unaccustomed Earth, characters are Bengali immigrants, mostly academics, their second generation who are born in foreign soil and their non-Indian friends or spouse. The stories deal with the entanglement of cultural traditions, incompatible values, failed hopes and expectations, and the subsequent internal strives that haunt them all.

But why would we be interested in stories like these? Herein lies Lahiri’s insight. While the viewpoint of these characters might be parochial, Lahiri’s stories bring out the larger universal significance. Who among us doesn’t belong to a community, and at one time or another, question his/her conformity in that very community? Regardless of our ethnicity, who among us isn’t born into a family with its own peculiar traditions and values? Who among us doesn’t feel the distance separating generations in our world of rapidly shifting paradigms, be they cultural, social, or spiritual? And who among us, as one in the mass diaspora of drifting humanity, doesn’t want to lay down roots in fertile soil?

Despite the somber themes, reading Lahiri is an enjoyable ride. Herein lies Lahiri’s talent. She is a sensitive storyteller, personal in her voice, subtle in her description, meticulous in her observation of nuances, and stylish in her metaphoric inventions. Her language is deceptively simple. The seemingly lack of suspense is actually the calm before the storm, which usually comes as just a punchline in the end of each story, leaving you with a breath of “Wow, powerful!” But it is for that very line that you eagerly press on as if you are reading a thriller or a page-turner.

jhumpa_lahiri The book is divided into two main parts. The first contains five short stories. The second, entitled “Hema and Kaushik”, consists of three stories but can be read as a novella on the whole, for they are about two characters whose lives intertwine in an inexplicable way. While the characters and their situations are contemporary, their quest is the age old longing for love and connection.

I have enjoyed all the stories, but the most impressionable to me is the title one. In “Unaccustomed Earth”, Ruma is married to an American, Adam, with a young child Akash, and pregnant with another. Her recently widowed father comes to stay with her in Seattle from the East Coast, just for a visit. During his stay, Ruma’s father builds up a bond with his grandson Akash. The two create a little garden at the back of the house, a relationship thus flourishes as the flowers and plants blossom. Ruma struggles with the idea of whether she should welcome her father to live with her for good to fulfil her filial duty, but by so doing, she would be adding a burden to her nuclear family. What she does not know though is that her father has his secret and internal conflict as well. He too wants a life of freedom and love. The story ends with a dash of humor and a little surprise, reminiscent of a Somerset Maugham story. I will not say more, or the spoiler will lessen your enjoyment.

I have read all three of Lahiri’s work. And this is my query: If her first book garnered the many literary awards including the Pulitzer, I just wonder what else could she win with her newest creation, which I enjoy far more.

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri, published by Alfred A. Knopf, NY, 2008. 333 pages.

~ ~ ~ Ripples

****

Tess of the D’Urbervilles (2008, TV): Part 2

tess The “lite version” of Part 1 has turned into a heavy and somber continuation on PBS Masterpiece. In this second and final part, screenwriter David Nicholls and director David Blair unleash the gloomy Hardy worldview unreservedly, releasing the bleak and dismal elements that are almost too much for new year viewing. The music has played a major and dramatic role in setting the tone and mood of the movie. The cinematography too, in contrast to the lush green opening in the first part, has drawn us into a slough of mud, grey and black. Hardy’s view of nature lamenting the tragic condition of his heroine is effectively conveyed, engrossing albeit a tad too melodramatic.

Kudos to David Nicholls for a meticulous job in adaptation. He has kept the plot intact, for the most part faithful to Hardy’s book. While a couple of incidents are left out, quite meaningful and symbolic too, but not to diminishing effects. These include the sleepwalking episode, the Freudian slip of Angel’s innermost longing to love Tess despite all restraints. The second being Tess’ mercy-killing of pheasants wounded by hunters, a sensitive portrayal of her own predicament. However, Hardy would not have her killed off so easily. Like the sadistic “President of the Immortals” in his view, Hardy the author wreaks havoc on his heroine, leading her into scenes after scenes of tragic events beyond her control.

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Tess can forgive Angel for his sexual sin, but he refuses to forgive her. Actually, what sin has she committed if she was innocently violated by Alec D’Urberville when she was a young girl. She loves Angel unconditionally, but his love for her is marred by constraints. Later, she cannot avoid stalking by Alec, who keeps preying on her, and in her most needy and vulnerable, takes advantage of her again by manipulating her love for her family. Whatever dignity she may have Tess ultimately sacrifices it for her beloved family. But I admire Tess’ integrity, yes I like to see it as integrity, and not pride, that has sustained her until that very end when she finally has no choice but to yield to Alec’s sinister scheme.

It is for this reason that I find Gemma Arterton’s portrayal of Tess as just a proud and feisty gal to suit modern viewers incongruent with the book. She may look innocent enough, but her performance at times is contrived and lacks the striving complexity required. But her tears are effective and moving, I must say. While Hans Metheson has delivered his diabolic role adequately, Eddie Redmayne as the losing lover at the end is a bit lacking.

And Angel, oh, what a tragic character. The seemingly altruistic lover cannot stand the test against social mores. In the book, the chapter describing the mutual confession of sins between the newlyweds is aptly entitled: “The Woman Pays”. What an irony of double standard! This might well be the name of the novel. While Hardy may have held an entangled and agnostic view of the transcendent, his social critique is incisive and spot-on.

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At long last, Tess and Angel can enjoy marital bliss, but only for a painful, fleeting moment. Tess says in her anguish: “It is too late”, the four words that define the tragedy of her life. As a young girl, she did not understand the meaning of Alec’s sinister advances until too late. And now as a married woman, her husband has come to her rescue too late. I learn from the end notes of my Penguin edition that the original title of the book was Too Late, Beloved! What a heart-wrenching story.

PBS has a link to an online interactive Q & A with screenwriter David Nicholls. In there he answers the many questions viewers have regarding the process of turning book into film. I have enjoyed Nicholls’ previous adaptation of Blake Morrison’s memoir into the movie “And When Did You Last See Your Father”, starring Colin Firth and Jim Broadbent, an excellent and sensitive film. I look forward to seeing more of Nicholls’ work in the future.

~ ~ ½ Ripples

Click here to go back to Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Part 1.

*****

Reading the Season: Fleming Rutledge

Two things I always do whenever I go to Vancouver: Check out the indie movies and visit the Regent College Bookstore on the UBC campus. I admit before that gloomy December day when I entered the Regent Bookstore, I had not heard of the name Fleming Rutledge. Thanks to Regent’s gigantic book sale, I came out with, among others, two of Rutledge’s titles: The Bible and The New York Times and The Battle for Middle-earth, a commentary on Tolkein’s writing. For the purpose of basking in the Christmas Season in a more meaningful way, I delved right into The Bible and The New York Times.

The theologian Karl Barth has a famous axiom that says sermons should be written with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. This book is evidence that Fleming Rutledge has taken this motto to heart in her over twenty years of preaching and teaching ministry. The book is a compilation of her sermons delivered in the 80’s and 90’s from the pulpit of Manhattan’s Grace (Episcopal) Church where she has served for 14 years, as well as from her visits to other churches in Eastern U.S. As for her writing, Annie Dillard has commented that, “this is beautiful, powerful, literary writing.”

The 34 sermons are arranged according to the liturgical calendar, all eloquent reflections on the meaning of the occasion, from Thanksgiving to Advent, Christmas to Lent. I’ve heard numerous sermons in my life, countless I dare say, but I admit this is the first time that I read through a compilation of sermons and thoroughly enjoy them all like a page-turner. They throw light on events of our world, from politics to popular culture, addressing them as springboard to a spiritual perspective albeit not without practical wisdom; her commentaries on the human condition are incisive and spot-on. I’ve come out heartily admiring Rutledge’s intellectual prowess and literary repertoire, but above all, her boldness in proclaiming what may not be politically correct in this day.

rembrandts-annunciation-of-the-angel-gabriel-to-mary

The four Advent Sundays are preparatory for the main event of Christmas. Rutledge reminds us that without recognizing the darkness we are in, there is no need for the Light. Oblivious to unresolvable conflicts and the depravity of our human condition, we would not be desperate enough to search for truth and redemption. Without being shattered by tragedies and wounded by sorrow and grief, we would not be genuinely seeking solace and healing. And, not until we see the absurdity of our human world, we would not humbly seek meaning in the transcendent.

In one of her Advent sermons, actually exactly today, the last Sunday of Advent, Rutledge relates the spiritual experience of John Updike one time when he was alone in a hotel room in Finland. He was besieged by a sense of awareness that pulled him to confront what he called a “deeper, less comfortable self.” She quotes Updike’s own words:

“The precariousness of being alive and human was no longer hidden from me by familiar surroundings and the rhythm of habit. I was fifty-five, ignorant, dying, and filling this bit of Finland with the smell of my stale sweat and insomniac fury.”

Rutledge notes that at the time:

Updike is in the prime of his life, at the peak of his powers and the pinnacle of his fame. Yet even a celebrity has to be alone with himself at three o’clock in the morning, even as you and I.

If we approach Christmas in such a state of “deeper, less comfortable selves”, then we might come closer to appreciate the magnitude of its significance and meaning.

Annie Dillard has commented that Rutledge “writes as a person who knows she is dying, speaking to other dying people, determined not to enrage by triviality.” The world situation today is grave, our hope lies not within but beyond ourselves. For this reason the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Emmanuel, God with us …

This is the meaning of the Virgin Birth: God has moved. God has moved, not we to him in our impotence, but he to us.

This is not the Season to be merely festive and jolly. Christmas is the celebration of the Grand Entrance into humanity, thus reason for deep rejoicing.

“All hopes and fears of all the years,

Are met in Thee tonight.”

rembrandts-adoration-of-the-shepherds

******

Art images: Rembrandt’s Annunciation of the Angel Gabriel to Mary and Adoration of the Shepherds

‘Reading The Season’ Posts over a Decade:

2020: Jack by Marilynne Robinson

2019: ‘A Hidden Life’ – A Film for the Season

2018: A Verse from Madeleine L’Engle’s The Irrational Season

2017: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

2016: Silence by Shusaku Endo

2015: The Book of Ruth

2014: Lila by Marilynne Robinson

2012: Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis

2011: Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle

2010: A Widening Light by Luci Shaw

2009: The Irrational Season by Madeleine L’Engle

2008: The Bible and the New York Times by Fleming Rutledge

2008: A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis

Reading the Season: A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis

c-s-lewis2 To embrace the Christmas season in a more meaningful way, I’ve been trying to stay close to the heart of the matter by reading.

A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis is one of my selections. Now, of all the wonderful books by the Oxford scholar, why would I choose this title for the Season?

From my reading of Joan Didion’s The year of Magical Thinking, I learned that during her mourning for the loss of her husband, she had read C. S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed. That sparked my curiosity. After finishing Didion, I turned right away to explore Lewis’s book about his own experience of loss.

After 58 years of bachelorhood, Lewis found the love of his life in Helen Joy Gresham, an American author who had come all the way to England in search of a genuine and credible faith. Their love story is poignantly portrayed in the movie Shadowlands (1993). In Helen Joy Gresham (‘H’ in the book), Lewis found his equal in wit, intellect, and a faith that had endured testing and evolved from atheism to agnosticism and ultimately reaching irrevocable belief. Lewis entered into marriage with Joy at her hospital bed as she was fighting bone cancer. She did have a period of remission afterwards, during which the two enjoyed some traveling together. Regretfully, only four years into their marriage, Joy succumbed to her illness.

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A Grief Observed is a courageous and honest disclosure of a very private pain. But what’s so different about this personal loss is that this prominent Christian apologist, acclaimed academic and writer, was willing to lay bare his questioning mind and disquiet heart to his readers. As his step-son Douglas Gresham wrote in the Introduction, the book is “a man emotionally naked in his own Gethsemane”. By crying out in anguish and exposing his torments, he shared his personal journey of painfully seeking the meaning of death, marriage, faith, and the nature of God. Lewis was brave enough to question “Where is God?” during his most desperate moments, when his heart was torn apart by searing pain and his intellect failed him with any rational answers.

Gradually he came out of despair realizing that the loudness of his screams might have drowned out the still, small voice speaking to him.

The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just the time when God can’t give it: you are like the drowning man who can’t be helped because he clutches and grabs…

After all, you must have a capacity to receive, or even omnipotence can’t give.

After the fog of doubt has dispersed and the dust of despair has settled, Lewis saw the dawning of a gentle glimmer. He realized that he had been mourning a faint image or memory of his beloved, but not beholding the reality of her. The fickleness of his senses offered only fading fragments of her image. However, it is in praise that he could enjoy her the best.

I have discovered, passionate grief does not link us with the dead but cuts us off from them. This become clearer and clearer. It is just at those moments when I feel least sorrow–getting into my morning bath is usually one of them–that H. rushes upon my mind in her full reality, her otherness.

Praise is the mode of love which always has some element of joy in it. Praise in due order; of Him as the giver, of her as the gift.

Further, as with God, he knew he should grasp the reality, not just the image. He should treasure God Himself, not just the idea of Him:

I need Christ, not something that resembles Him. I want H., not something that is like her.

Upon this revelation, Lewis powerfully points out that the Incarnation, the Word becoming flesh, is how God reveals Himself to us in His full reality. Our ideas of God are shattered by Christ Himself.

The Incarnation… leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins. And most are ‘offended’ by the iconoclasm; and blessed are those who are not.

As Christmas draws near, I ponder once again the humbling of the Creator God, born a babe to grow up to experience the full spectrum of being human, showing us by His life and death the reality of God, an iconoclastic act only He can perform.

Lewis has drawn me to the heart of the matter, the crux of the Season:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

— John 1:14

*****

‘Reading The Season’ Posts over a Decade:

2020: Jack by Marilynne Robinson

2019: ‘A Hidden Life’ – A Film for the Season

2018: A Verse from Madeleine L’Engle’s The Irrational Season

2017: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

2016: Silence by Shusaku Endo

2015: The Book of Ruth

2014: Lila by Marilynne Robinson

2012: Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis

2011: Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle

2010: A Widening Light by Luci Shaw

2009: The Irrational Season by Madeleine L’Engle

2008: The Bible and the New York Times by Fleming Rutledge

2008: A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis

Slow Blogging and the Long Take

Recently, I’ve been mulling over the notion of slow blogging, a movement that is gradually gaining attention. I first read about it in a blog I frequent. In her post entitled “Slow “, Stefanie has drawn out the essence of what slow blogging is. It’s all about thinking through, reading and studying in depth, chewing and digesting, and finally putting something meaningful down in words. I don’t know who initiated the idea. It may have sprouted up from various bloggers, those who care about the quality of their writing, and the effects of their posts. I urge my readers to visit the Oxford University Press blog post on the subject, and the Slow Blog Manifesto.

Yes, a Slow Blog Manifesto, written by Todd Sieling dated back to September, 2006. But for some uncanny reasons, just as I was working on my draft of this very post, after I’ve linked the SBM to my draft, it has now been taken off the WWW. Hope this is not an omen of things to come. Fortunately, before its disappearance, I had the chance to read and mull over his words:

“Slow Blogging is a rejection of immediacy. It is an affirmation that not all things worth reading are written quickly.”

(It’s back! Todd Sieling has just re-posted his SBM. He has created a whole new site just for this. Click here to go there. You may want to read his comment at the end of this post. I’m just going to leave the following paragraph as is.)

But then, all is not lost. Barbara Ganley’s BGBLOGGING is still standing. Ganley had taught writing at Middlebury College in Vermont for some years until quiting her academic job in recent months and ventured into uncharted personal exploration. She is an advocate of slow blogging, and related the idea to the term meditative blogging, way back in November 2006. Here’s the link to that post.

After more than two years, the notion has finally reached Arti of Ripple Effects. As my blog name suggests, I thrive on hindsights and delayed resonance. I may not have immediate response to all that I come across, but for those ideas I find stimulating, I would delve into and mull over, research and read about them, sometimes for a long while, before I dare to put thoughts into words. I’m glad I have finally found a name for the kind of writing and thinking with which I feel most comfortable all along.

And that is why I find a recent article in the November issue of ‘The Atlantic’ so disconcerting. In his article entitled “Why I Blog”, Andrew Sullivan , the prominent political commentator and blogger, describes blogging as postmodern writing that thrives on its immediacy. By nature it is rash and temporal.

“It is the spontaneous expression of instant thought. As a blogger, you have to express yourself now, while your emotions roil, while your temper flares, while your humor lasts.”

What Sullivan is pronouncing is that you may have an instant platform accessible by all in the blogosphere, and with links authenticating your sources, but what you write is as ephemeral as your breath, as unreliable as your mood, and as momentary as your fleeting thoughts. Time is of the essence in the blogging world.

I can understand such a perspective may apply to political and news blogs, where bloggers’ views and comments are almost on a par with professional journalists, or where bloggers are journalists, such as Sullivan himself.

But I’d just like to remind Sullivan that there are also those of us for whom blogging is not about beating to the punch, or channeling rants and angsts, or climbing to a higher ranking and authority. What we write may seem like ramblings at times, but they are thoughts that have gone through regurgitation, pondering, and conscious self-censure. For the writing I read in some of the blogs I visit, their quality is not undermined by the self-publishing nature of blog writing. Their message is no less important, their style no less eloquent, their impact no less powerful than many conventionally published materials.

Around the same time, I came across the post on the long take in Brett McCracken’s blog The Search. Do click on the link there to read the whole essay when you are there. The long take is a technique where a camera follows its subject for an extended period of time without cutting, capturing life in real time. Viewers looking for instant gratification and fast actions would often find the long take boring, incongruent to the normal pacing of a normal movie. But as blog writer and movie critic Brett McCracken reflects, the long take leads us to confront life in a real sense, in real time:

I go to movies to recapture time—that achingly pervasive burden that keeps us so unceasingly busy in our normal lives. In the movies, time is “free.” We need not worry about our own time; all that is required of us is that we cede our imagination to the screen, where time is footloose and fancy free, dancing to and fro in flashback, flashforward, slow-mo, still, etc.

A vivid example is Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Flight of the Red Balloon which I reviewed in my last post. Who would want to sit in a theatre to watch a balloon slowly drifting above the urbanscape, other than those who enjoy the grace of unhurried moments, those who consciously seek for poetics in the mundane, and those who take time to ponder the meaning conveyed by the filmmaker.

Slow blogging and the long take, two powerful ways to glean the indelible essence of life.

*****

Two Guys Read Jane Austen: Again, the Gender Issue

Some guys would rather have jaw surgery than to read JA. Steve Chandler could well have been one of them. As an English major in college, now a successful writer in his sixties, Steve has miraculously managed to avoid reading JA all his life, until now. On the other hand, his co-author Terrence N. Hill, an award-winning playwright and author, has read Pride and Prejudice three times, good man. Prompted by their wives, Steve and Terry embarked on this new project in their “Two Guys” series, taking the risk of treading no man’s land. However, considering their previous “Two Guys” titles, Two Guys Read Moby Dick and Two Guys Read the Obituaries, they are well-primed for this venture.

Thanks to blog reader Julie for sending me a copy of this book, I’ve been thoroughly entertained. Attaining to true Austenesque style, the two lifelong friends read two JA novels and wrote letters to each other about their thoughts over a six-month period. I must admit I’m surprised (sorry guys) at the incisive look and the fresh perspective they bring to the forefront. Their sharp observations, humorous takes on many issues, their LOL commentaries on popular culture, and intelligent analysis on various topics make this a most gratifying read for both men and women, Janeites or would be’s.

Many do not want to read JA because they think she was just a 19th Century rural spinster awashed in naiveté, who had never heard of Napoleon or the war he was raging, ignorant about the slave trade from which England was benefiting, or couldn’t tell the difference between a country and a continent. The most they might think of her is the mother of all modern day chick lit or the romance novel. Well, these myths are all dispelled by two guys that have experienced Jane Austen first-hand, and lived to tell their discovery.

Here are some of their insights and words of wisdom as they read Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park. I’m quoting directly from their letters to each other:

Jane’s got more adoring female fans than Brad Pitt, and my guess is they’re more intelligent too.
JA (through Elizabeth) is a witty, rebellious voice for intelligence and passion in the face of those stuffy British strictures. I love this. I love a woman (or a man, for that matter) who has no need to win anyone over.
Wasn’t Elizabeth Bennet heroic because she was such a totally self-responsible, proudly independent person? Wasn’t Darcy the same?
I really enjoy how much you like Jane Austen, that you cry when reading her books, and that you can still be a man… A man not afraid of the feminine principle becomes even more of a man.
…elegantly cerebral. But once you acclimate yourself to the flow of the language, it is addictive. JA’s writing becomes more captivating with each new chapter because of how many layers of psychological posturing she strips away.
Men are often accused of putting their wives on a pedestal. Women build a pedestal and then spend their time trying to create something worthy of going on it.
I don’t think Austen ever gets proper credit for her role in the development of the comic novel.
Jane never attended school after the age of 11. After that she was entirely self-taught… S&S, P&P, NA, three of the greatest novels of all time–all written by 25. Thinking of myself at that age. If I had had time on my hands I could well imagine having written three novels… What I can’t imagine is that they would have been any good. Ah, but then I had the disadvantage of an education.
The true measure of her characters is their hearts and minds. What the movies cannot get to – or do justice to – is the intelligence.
What has excited Henry Crawford the most is Fanny’s inner strength. On the surface she is delicate and demure. But underneath she is power itself. That’s what makes JA so great and so endearing.
Jane is all about principle. Living true to your highest ideals, your highest self… she shows us there is a beauty to morality… there’s beauty in integrity!

Need I say more?

Two Guys Read Jane Austen by Steve Chandler and Terrence N. Hill, Robert D. Reed Publishers, Bandon OR. 2008, 126 pages.

*****

This article has been published in the Jane Austen Centre Online Magazine, where you can read more about Jane and the Regency Period.

Lost in Austen: Episode 1 (TV, 2008)

What a delight it was for me to catch the Canadian premiere of Lost in Austen on the new VIVA channel last night, two months after its UK debut on ITV. No, I had not anticipated it with much eagerness, I admit, nor had I held any expectations before I watched it. But, what a pleasant surprise.

I was somewhat skeptical about another time-travel movie and yet another take on Pride and Prejudice. It seems we are doing Jane Austen a disservice to have so many different “versions” of her ingenious work, turning P & P into a modern day literary cliché. How many more original antics can screen writers squeeze out after all the adaptations and fan fiction spin-offs in recent decades? But this one is fresh and original. It is laugh-out-loud funny, entertaining, with intelligent dialogues and a new perspective. I’m afraid to say too, that there are moments with SNL type of parody on the story and its characters, especially Colin Firth’s role as Mr. Darcy.

But it’s all harmless fun. “No offense taken.” I’m sure Jane, with her sense of humor and satire, would have responded, or Colin, for that matter.

Amanda Price (Jemima Rooper, The Black Dahlia, 2006), a modern day working female living in Hammersmith, London, is a JA addict. Reading Pride and Prejudice has become her escape from her lacklustre life. She reminds me of Renée Zellweger’s Bridget Jones, although Amanda here manages to keep her weight under control and has a boyfriend that gets drunk on beer and proposes to her with a beer bottle tag as a wedding ring. So, it is a real fantasy for her to find Elizabeth Bennet (Gemma Arterton, Quantum of Solace, 2008 ) in her bathroom, showing her a portal that leads straight to the Bennet house. But understandably, Amanda is a bewildered and reluctant time-traveler, at least at this point.

The freshness of the story comes from all the twists that do not follow Jane Austen’s story. As with my usual reviews, I don’t like to give out spoilers. But I have to say, the key to these ingenious renderings is that Amanda Price swaps places with Elizabeth Bennet. With Lizzy out of the picture in P & P, the rest of the story is up to the screen writer Guy Andrews’ and director Dan Zeff’s own imagination.

In this first episode, most of the major characters are introduced. All of them deliver a lively performance, although I’m particularly fond of Amanda and Mr. Bingley (Tom Mison). The music reminds me of the 1995 BBC production, energetic and swift. In turn, the pacing is quick and effective. My main criticism though, is the set design of the interior of the Bennet house. It looks more like a modern day rather than an early 19th Century setting, quite incompatible with the exterior of the house.

Right from the start, I have resolved to not take this TV production too seriously, but just immerse myself in the wild and fanciful ride it freely takes me. After all, Jane herself had excelled in this very act, transporting us to meet all sorts of characters and situations through the imaginary worlds of her novels. I’m sure she would have a good laugh too tonight if she were watching with me… now that would be a fantasy indeed.

Just Click to read my review of the other episodes:

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

*****

Rewards and Awards of Blogging

Why do we blog? WordPress seems to have grasped the psyche of bloggers in five words: “Express yourself. Start a blog.” If being free to self-expression is the intrinsic reward of blogging, then being heard and read is the extrinsic reward. And, to top it all off, getting unexpected awards for what one already enjoyed doing is the icing on the cake. A few months ago Arti had the first taste when she received the Excellent Blog Award. This past week Arti has tasted more icing from fellow bloggers in the form of two awards. In chronological order, they are:

The Premio Dardos from Ms. Place (Vic) of Jane Austen’s World. Thank you Vic for naming Arti as one of your 15 recipients of this award “that is given for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing”. Thanks Vic for the honor and for the translation from Portuguese:“O conceito deste prémio passa por reconhecer valores culturais, éticos, literários e pessoais, transmitidos de forma criativa e original nos pedacinhos rabiscados por cada blogueiro que o receba.”

To meet the requirement, in turn, I am naming the following blogs to receive the same award. To avoid duplication and to make it more meaningful, I have selected 10 instead of the 15 suggested. Here are their excellent sites in alphabetical order:

Austen Quotes is the blog of Lori Smith, writer of the book A Walk with Jane Austen, her personal experience of treading the paths of Jane’s in England. She has inspired me with quotes from the works and letters of JA, some witty, some wise, some poignant, and all of them delightful. Lori may have taken a hiatus due to physical ailment, but what she already has chronicled in her site is worth reading time and time again.
Austenprose is a wealth of JA information and forum. Laurel Ann offers Janeites with a wealth of Regency knowledge, book discussion, interviews… a delight to visit every time. This is one of the first blogs that got me hooked on JA…, no I wasn’t born a Janeite. I only discovered this wonderful world a few years back. And it’s blogs like this that feed me to my fill.
Blogging for a Good Book is created by the staff of Williamsburg Regional Library. In there you’ll find in-depth and insightful book reviews. With several contributors, the blog offers a new post almost every day, keeping us up-to-date with newer titles. The quality writing and informative entries are enjoyable to read.
Film Think is a site where films, theology, and criticism meet. Writer M. Leary offers a wealth of resources and knowledgeable discussions and critique for those interested in the intellectual pursuit of the art of film, and its interaction with Christianity, criticism theory, other art forms, and their relevance in society today.
Itinerant Idealist is Sarah’s journal “in search of a soul awake”. I’ve enjoyed her excellent writing. In her casual way, Sarah embeds her prose and poems with style and spiritual insights. Hers is one of the long time blogs I’ve been reading since the beginning of my own blog. I’ve learned and gained much from reading her posts.
Looking for Life’s Humor looks at life and brings out the joyous perspective. As a mom with an autistic child, the writer of this blog depicts the humor and love that we often miss in many of life’s circumstances. A heart-warming and delightful read in every post. A truly enjoyable break in the midst of daily chores and chaos.
Of Books and Bicycles As a book lover and an avid cyclist, Dorothy has successfully created a concoction of writings involving both…well maybe more about books. Informative reviews and personal book experiences can be found here, while she has another site dedicated more to bikes and her training as a cyclist.
So Many Books Stefanie chronicles “the agony and ecstasy of a reading life” with detailed research and insightful commentaries. This is a literature lover’s blog. Just the Blogroll is impressive enough, for there are probably hundreds of lit blogs on her list to provide almost unlimited avenues for blogging and reading pleasure.
The Happy Wonderer It’s a joy every time I visit Ellen’s blog. As a happy wonderer, Ellen wanders in the fields of photography, food, life, family, and the Bible, offering us musings, pictures, and inspiration, a celebration of life every day. This is one of the earliest blogs I found when I first started blogging, and I’ve been reading her since. “To honor and encourage”, that is exactly so.
The Task At Hand What Linda Leinen has created here in her relatively new blog is nothing short of a compilation of model writing. Every single post is an example of style and inspiration. At this point of her life she is a boat varnisher along the Texas Gulf Coast (how cool is that!), and she writes what she lives. In her blog, she has woven artfully a tapestry of penetrative observations and skillful, affective writing. I have gained and learned much from reading her every single post.

*****

The other award I received just a couple of days ago is the Arte y Pico given by Linda of The Task at Hand. Directly translated from Spanish means “Art and Peak”, at the peak of its art. Linda has included Arti’s Ripple Effects for its “creativity, design, content and contribution to the blogging community, regardless of language”. Thank you Linda, I’m greatly humbled by such an honor.

To fulfill the requirement of the Arte y Pico, I’m naming 5 other blogs to be recipients in turn. Noting that it’s Spanish in origin, and the phrase “regardless of language”, I attempt to highlight some of the ones I visit that have a different geographical or cultural flavour, although I admit they are all in English.

Blogging in Paris As a 64 years-old cancer survivor, Claude’s attempt at blogging is in itself inspiring. She writes from Paris, and from her many travels in Europe, affecting us with her zest for life and eye for beauty. It’s a mixed bag in her blog, some photography, some journal writing, some personal musings. A delight to visit.
Moderato brings a European perspective to the discussions of art, books, music, films, and literature. The writer offers in-depth and well researched commentaries on the subjects. A very fine and intellectual lit blog. Some great You-tube clips to augment the enjoyment.
The Errant AEsthete From New York, “Essentials for the Cocktail Swilling Savant”, ok, it may sound a bit exclusive, but the art, photography and visuals presented in the blog are stunning and often thought-provoking. And since it’s located in the ever widening blogosphere, anyone can visit and better yet, no dress code.
Hidden Art A blog for the arts and crafters among us. The name says it all… art can be found and creativity unleashed in almost every homely place. I’ve enjoyed the casual atmosphere and the stimulating ideas for mixed media and paper arts that are achievable by those who, like myself, are not art school graduates. Accessible art speaks a universal language.
Edible Landscape This is a unique blog on food written by a young guy from Hong Kong, an interesting diversion from the blogs on food and cooking we see from North America. Wilson concocts an international flavour with his fine, quality writing on food and restaurants. What more, where do you ever read a 20-something young man writing about cooking and cuisine art with such expertise?

Wow, that’s a mouthful! Why do we blog? The above are some of the obvious answers.

Art Imitates Life, Life Imitates Art, or…

Neither. After reading Tomalin and Shields on the life of Jane Austen, I am inclined to draw that conclusion. The often sanguine outlook of Austen’s works is deceptive. The seemingly jovial ending may lead some to assume they are reading the simplistic stories of a woman wrapped in romantic bliss all her life.

Reality is, that Austen could persevere, write and published is already an incredible achievement considering the confining social environment she was in. Instead of embracing the normative female role in comfort, she chose to trod the road less traveled to become a writer despite the gloomy prospect of poor spinsterhood, enduring rejection even from her own mother. She wrote in secret and struggled in isolation. For a long period she battled depression. Upon her death, her beloved sister Cassandra could not attend her funeral because the presence of females at such events was not sanctioned, apparently for fear of any outbursts of emotion.

It is Austen’s imagination that empowers her to break free of her reality and to rise above her constraints. She has created her art from the palette of the imaginary, as Tomalin has lucidly observed:

Hampshire is missing from the novels, and none of the Austens’ neighbours, exotic, wicked or merely amusing, makes recognizable appearance. The world of her imagination was separate and distinct from the world she inhabited.

Austen’s contemporary, the renowned Gothic writer Ann Radcliffe, has attested that it is the imagination and not real-life experience which gives rise to story-telling. A scene in the movie Becoming Jane (2007) has vividly illustrated this point.

In the famous little book, The Educated Imagination, a must-read for any literature student, the late great Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye states that :

The world of literature is a world where there is no reality except that of the human imagination.

Austen has great proficiency in the language of imagination. In her novels, she has created a world that never was, but one that makes her readers yearn for. There is no Mr. Darcy in real life, or Elizabeth Bennet for that matter, but we could well use them as the ideal types to measure by, or, to strive for.

What about the satirist in Austen? How can the social critic be extracted from reality? How can one write social commentaries devoid of real life input? Austen may have toiled in isolation for fear of social repercussion, she did not write in a vacuum. While her art did not imitate her life, Austen had the chance to sharpen her observation from the very public sitting-room of her home and those of her relatives and friends, an opportunity that was conducive to her novel writing, as Virginia Woolf has pointed out. Ever since her childhood, the Austen home was the hub of family readings and discussions. Her brothers grew up to be men well versed in the fields of the military, clergy, and business.

In her ingenious way, by satirizing the things that ought not to be, Austen is bringing out the world that ought to be. In Frye’s words:

The fundamental job of the imagination in ordinary life, then, is to produce, out of the society we have to live in, a vision of the society we want to live in.

If art imitates life, it would be just a reproduction; if life imitates art, well… ours would be one very wacky world. But life could well be the reason for creating art, channeling our imagination to build a sublime vision of the ideal.

Visual: Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh

Update: This article has just been published in the Jane Austen Centre Online Magazine. Click here to go there for other interesting reads on Jane Austen and the Regency World.

*****

Reading, Writing, and the Gender Issue

With all these posts lately about Jane Austen on Ripple Effects, Arti feels there is a need for an erratum. Before the comedy of errors gets to Austenesque proportion, and considering Arti’s minute talent in writing such that there being no aspiration to become a modern day George Eliot, a major confession is called for here: Arti is A Lady.

At first when I started Ripple Effects, I thought that the name “Arti” is neutral enough like “Les”, “Chris”, or “Alex”. I subscribe to the ideal that great literature and good writing is gender neutral, by this I mean their relevance and significance surpass the boundaries of gender to reach the universal, be it the work of Jane Austen or George Orwell. And, laying aside the gender issue, good books deserve to be read. The novels of Jane Austen come to mind. The gender of a writer should not be an impediment if the writing speaks to all. Arti proceeded to write all reviews and articles based on this premise, attempting to strive, albeit remotely, towards this ideal.

I hope the disclosure of Arti’s gender does not diminish readers’ enjoyment of Ripple Effects. Definitely, Arti does not want to be accused of carrying a concealed weapon, or acting as an undercover agent when it comes to the battle of the sexes. So here I am, coming out with both hands up in the air.

As readers can quickly observe, Ripple Effects encompasses not only Austen, or just books. But because Arti is endowed with only 24 hours in a day, wherein a few have to be allotted to that essential yet elusive activity called sleep, there is just not enough time to see all the many exciting worlds Arti would like to explore. To alleviate this deficiency, Arti visits other people’s blogs to quench the thirst. I thank you all for transporting me to those worlds in this great blogosphere of ours.

In between visits, Arti will continue to plow through neutral grounds to learn the art and craft of reading, writing, watching, and gleaning the worthy ones to review.

(Visual: Le Blanc Seing by René Magritte)

What was Jane Austen really like? Reading Tomalin and Shields

As a biographer, Tomalin’s account of Jane Austen’s life is meticulous and exhaustive. Her analysis is critical and sharp, her writing style bold, precise and cutting. The following excerpts are prime examples.

When speculating about the possible consequence of Mrs. Austen sending her infants away to be raised, Tomalin makes the following inference:

“The most striking aspect of Jane’s adult letters is their defensiveness. They lack tenderness towards herself as much as towards others. You are aware of the inner creature, deeply responsive and alive, but mostly you are faced with the hard shell; and sometimes a claw is put out, and a sharp nip is given to whatever offends. They are the letters of someone who does not open her heart; and in the adult who avoids intimacy you sense the child who was uncertain where to expect love or to look for security, and armoured herself against rejection.”

Or this to say about mother and daughter:

Mrs. Austen had a sharp tongue for neighbours, appreciated by her daughter and passed on to her.”

Or, with the episode of Jane accepting and later recanting Harris Bigg-Wither’s marriage proposal, Tomalin’s view is clear:

We would naturally rather have Mansfield Park and Emma than the Bigg-Wither baby Jane Austen might have given the world, and who would almost certainly have prevented her from writing any further books.”

If you can appreciate such kind of abrasive commentaries, you would certainly find it entertaining to read Tomalin’s than an otherwise ordinary biographical sketch. Ironically, I have a feeling that this is the kind of biographies Jane would have written if she could write without censure.

Putting her incisive analysis to good use, Tomalin explores Jane’s creative process, giving credits to her imaginative ingenuity. The limitation of physical and social mobility render Jane’s world parochial, yet her characters and story lines are diverse and innovative. Her writing are evidences of pure creative concoctions.

…essentially she is inventing, absorbed by the form and possibilities of the novel… The world of her imagination was separate and distinct from the world she inhabited.”

For Jane, it is imagination and not experience that has given her wings to soar outside of her bleak circumstances. A vivid example is the writing of the sprightly Pride and Prejudice. The novel was written during a time of family tragedy with the death of Cassandra’s fiancé Tom Fowle, and amidst Jane’s own disappointment with the evaporation of hope with Tom LeFroy.

All in all, Tomalin’s sharp and cutting writing style works towards Jane’s favour. Her biography is resourceful and entertaining, her analysis incisive, and her conclusion moving. Above all, Jane would have found it amusing and satisfying.

Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin, published by Penguin Books, 2000, 362 pages, including appendices, notes, bibliography, chart, and index. Additional 16 pages of photos.

*****

Carol Shield’s Jane Austen is a succinct and gentler rendition of Jane’s life. Shields and her daughter, the writer Anne Giardini, were presenters at the JASNA AGM in Richmond, Virginia in 1996. This book came out five years after that. Shields has crafted a highly readable literary gem, adorned by her lucid and flowing writing style.

As a novelist, Shields’ main thrust is to trace Jane’s development as a writer. Exploring her family circumstances as she was growing up, Shields presents to us a gifted youth of exuberant spirit, one who had known the joy of theatrical performances and experienced the exhilarating power of humor. Jane’s ingenuity lies in her parodies. As a young contributor to her older brother James’ weekly magazine The Loiterer , she was already a skillful writer of satires. Shield notes that:

“…it is the satirical form of her youthful writing that astonishes us today. What makes a child of twelve or thirteen a satirist?

… Jane Austen had been nurtured, certainly, in a circle appreciative of burlesque… but she was also a small presence in a large and gifted household. Her desire to claim the attention of her parents and siblings can be assumed. She gave them what they wanted, that which would make them laugh and marvel aloud at her cleverness”

This yearning to entertain, influence and be acknowledged remained the motivation for Jane’s writing throughout her life. Her youthful gigs and satires transformed into full-fledged novels. Just take Northanger Abbey for example. It is a burlesque of the Gothic in a style which she was so familiar with since her girlhood days. And a look at the characters like Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice, or Mrs. Elton in Emma, readers could readily appreciate Jane’s “comic brilliance and… consummate artistry”.

Shields offers in-depth analysis of Austen’s works, exploring not just the writing but the psyche of a brilliant mind. Like Tomalin, she dispels the myth of art imitating life, and credits Jane’s imagination as the key ingredient of her ingenuity:

“Her novels were conceived and composed in isolation. She invented their characters, their scenes and scenery, and their moral framework. The novelistic architecture may have been borrowed from the eighteenth-century novelists, but she made it new, clean, and rational, just as though she’d taken a broom to the old fussiness of plot and action. She did all this alone.”

Considering the physical and social limitations confining Jane, it was her writing that transported her to brave new worlds, and the vehicle was her imagination.

As I finished reading these two biographies, Virginia Woolf’s praise of Jane Austen resonated in my mind:

“Here was a woman about the year 1800 writing without hate, without bitterness, without fear, without protest, without preaching. That was how Shakespeare wrote.”

While we lament that Jane had left only six complete novels upon her untimely death at forty-one, we treasure these legacies of imagination and the inspiration they evoke for generations to come.

Jane Austen, a Penguin Lives series, by Carol Shields, published by Vikings, 2001, 185 pages.

Update: This article has been published in the Jane Austen Centre Magazine, where you can read online informative articles on Jane and the Regency Period.

For more on Jane Austen’s creativity, click here to read the post “Life Imitates Art, or Art Imitates Life”.

*****