Any Jane Austen fans?

[HereWeGoAgain]

wife and I and an online friend of mine formed our own private Jane Austen book club earlier this year. wife and I had already read Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. My friend is a college prof who has been published on JA before, so he led the three of us. We read Mansfield Park first. This is Austen's best, according to my friend. Next up was Northanger Abbey, then Persuasion (my favorite). We are going to do Emma one of these days.

Any other Austen fans here? She was a remarkable woman. Her insights into human nature, revealed in her dry, ironically humorous ("humourous", as Jane would write it) prose, are very keen. It is a real shame that she died before her time. Her sister Cassandra destroyed many of Jane's letters, I suppose to protect her privacy, but a few have survived. It is thought, by some, that she had a secret engagement, but she never married.

The recent movie Becoming Jane is a somewhat fictionalized account of her life. There is a speculative romance added to liven things up. I enjoyed the movie, but our book club leader refuses to have any truck with that kind of stuff. He will watch adaptations of her novels, but almost always dislikes them (he does like the 1995 BBC version of P&P, with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, though).

 

[everywoman]

Absolutely love P&P; it is one of my favorite books. I've read some of the others. Heard a lot about Mansfield Park from a former student who had to read it in college. He enjoyed it a lot.

 

[trinityroyal]

I am a HUGE Jane Austen fan.
I've read Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion (my favourite as well), Mansfield Park and Emma.

I've seen all of the movie adaptations too. I love the language, the subtleties of behaviour, the way that the flick of a fan or the lift of an eyebrow could speak volumes.

My favourite movie version was the 1995 P&P with Colin Firth. However the 1940's one with Greer Garson was delightful.

HWGA, don't listen to your book club friend. If you take delight in the movie and TV adaptations, then feel free to do so. They may stray from the stories a bit, which may upset the Austen purists, but so what? They're really really fun.

If you get a chance to see the BBC film version of Persuasion (starring Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds), it is a very good adaptation of the book and well acted.

Sorry...I'm rambling a bit, but I get so excited when I find other Jane Austen fans.

Trinity