The Small House at Allington

I really enjoyed The Small House at Allington, the 5th book in the Barsetshire series by Anthony Trollope, until the end.  What is it about endings that make even great writers like Trollope go all wobbly?

The Small House at Allington was strongly reminiscent for me of Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility, but different enough that it was not just a rehashing of the themes Austen explored.  Let's start with the basic premise and plot.  Like S&S, The Small House at Allington revolves around the lives and loves of two sisters, Isabel (aka Bell) and Lily Dale and their widowed mother, who live together in a house provided by a rich relative, in this case the mother's brother-in-law.

The older daughter, Bell, is the sensible, quiet, pragmatic one, quietly courted by a good and steady man.  Thank goodness he didn't have a girl on the side, ala Lucy Steele!  The younger daughter, Lily, is passionate, believes that someone can only really love once, and falls hopelessly and very publicly in love with a charming reprobate who breaks her heart when he jilts her to marry an earl's daughter.
I simply cannot believe that given the parameters of the story that Trollope was not inspired by S&S.

If you want more info about Austen's influence on Trollope, check out this post comparing Framley Parsonage with Pride and Prejudice.

One of the big differences is that in The Small House in Allington, the reader gets to hear the men's side of the story. Much of the book is really caught up in explaining how and why Adolphus Crosbie, the Apollo that Lily Dale falls for, comes to mess up his life so completely, how he comes to totally regret throwing Lily away for a harpy of a wife, and how he contrives to live a less happy but not completely unhappy life in the end. Early on, the narrator promises that the story is not about Crosbie, but then he lets him dominate most of the book.  It could be that Trollope was just more comfortable telling a man's story just as Austen was more comfortable telling a woman's story.

As in S&S, the major themes in The Small House in Allington are constancy, familial duty, and being true to one's own self.  As in S&S, Trollope's characters journey to self-awareness within the confines of fairly rigid social structures, but in the end, it is the individual who decides whether they will be happy and productive or miserable and slothful.

There are some wonderful characters surrounding the Dale family--in particular, I quite fell in love with Johnny Eames, the Colonel Brandon character, but in this case he is young, poor, hardworking, big-hearted, and bright.  He ends up entangled with the daughter of his landlady and spends most of the novel trying to extricate himself from her clutches so that he can be worthy of Lily when she finally comes to her senses and gets over Crosbie and falls in love with him.

***Spoilers below***
The frustrating part came in that after reading this long book--almost 600 pages--the reader really didn't get a satisfactory Victorian novel wrap up.  Lily never does get over Crosbie.  She should, she knows she should--like Marianne in S&S, she becomes dangerously ill with grief and emerges with the will to overcome her lost love, but she never matures to the point of being able to fall in love with the man she should.

Maybe Trollope never really bought that Marianne came to love Colonel Brandon as he deserved to be love and so made his S&S story one in which the passionate girl who declares that only first loves are real lives by that conviction.

We get the marriage of Bell to the good Dr. Crofts, and we get that Crosbie's wife deserts him, leaving him happily alone as a bachelor again.  But no resolution as to what happens to Johnny Eames, my personal favorite.

The last 50 pages of the novel are pretty much devoted to the wretched De Courcy family, none of whom I care about in the least.  Why, Trollope, why ruin a perfectly good novel by veering off at the end and not providing adequate closure of the main story?  It's not that I always have to have a happy ending--life isn't like that.  But I do like an ending!

This book is part of my Back to the Classics challenge for 2017--nicely filling the category "Classic which includes the name in the title." It also is part of the Big Book Summer Challenge, which runs through Labor Day.

Thinking about Sisters...The Nightingale and The Blind Assassin

I recently read two books that feature sisters, and I was struck with how closely they followed the pattern established by Jane Austen in Sense and Sensibility in which you have an older pragmatic, mostly sensible sister (Elinor Dashwood) whose passions run deep and silently contrasted with a younger, impulsive, heart-on-her sleeve sister (Marianne Dashwood).

In Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin, Iris is the older sister who is pressured into marrying a rich stick and Laura is the younger sister who is Marianne to the core, but never learns the lessons of moderation that Marianne ultimately does learn in S&S.

In Kristin Hannah's most recent novel, The Nightingale, set in WWII France, you have Vianne as the older sister who stays on the farm and compromises virtually everything of value to her in order to keep herself and her child alive during the German occupation.  Her younger sister, Isabelle, like Laura from The Blind Assassin, is Marianne by another name and in another time. Virtually unable to not utter every thought, she falls in love with danger and willingly risks everything in order to live according to her ideals.

Of course, there is more to both books than simply following the S&S sister model but in a way it sort of undercut the freshness of both.  I must say, though, that I enjoyed The Nightingale far more than The Blind Assassin, which thought I well-written, but was a chore to read, probably because it was so bleak and tried so hard to be innovative that there were parts were I literally did not know what was happening and to whom.

Perhaps Hattie Morahan and Charity Wakefield (Elinor and Marianne from my favorite adaptation of S&S) will be cast as Viane and Isabelle in the upcoming film version of The Nightingale.  I must say, it will make a terrific movie.  Kept me on the edge of my seat and moved me to tears in parts.

Happy Birthday, dear Jane...a gift from John Keats

I started reading Austen as a young teenager and by the time I went to college had finished my first time through the six novels, with some of them read multiple times already. When I was a sophomore in college, I took a class on John Keats poetry...that's right, one class on just Keats. I found a new favorite, and because I was still youngish and my brain was still being hardwired, I have forever linked Austen and Keats together. They were sort of the Marilyn Monroe and James Dean of the Regency artistic world. Both possessed huge talents, both were largely unknown during their life, both died relatively young (though Keats died at the heartbreakingly young age of 25), and both are now considered giants of English literature.

Keats' first poem was published in May 1816 in The Examiner. I have never read anything that suggests that Austen read this poem, and considering that she was ill from early 1816 until her death in July 1817, it's probably not likely. Nor, have I ever read that Keats read anything by Austen. Again, given her relative obscurity at the time of her death and his focus on poetry and not novels, I think it highly improbable that he did.

And yet, I believe they would have appreciated each other's work, and not just because I love both of them so much. I find it almost a tragedy that the arcs of their lives were such that they just missed each other.

Keats' deeply introspective, pastoral, and highly imaginative poetry is not unlike Austen's highly-crafted, nuanced, multi-layered stories in that both display a tension between passion and restraint, humility and talent, sense and sensibility.

And so, for my gift to Jane Austen, on this the 236th anniversary of her birthday, I give her John Keat's beautiful poem, When I Have Fears, which was written in 1818 and published posthumously in 1848. I think Austen might have been able to understand the anguish that Keats felt in frantically trying to realize his life's work before he died. I also feel that Austen might've traded her current fame for a few more years on earth. She left so much unfinished.

When I Have Fears
by John Keats

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to Nothingness do sink.

In honor of Austen's birthday, I am giving away two books.

1) My own Intimations of Austen, a collection of Austen-inspired short stories.

2) Sense and Sensibility (Marvel Comics) edition, which I reviewed here.

To enter, please leave a comment and email address. For an additional entry, Tweet and let me know. I will collect all entries and do two drawings, with the first winner getting Intimations and the second winner getting S&S Marvel. This is open internationally, so comment and tweet away! Drawing ends on Thursday, December 22 at 8 pm MT.

Please visit the other 31 bloggers, authors and literature enthusiasts, who are participating in this Austen Birthday Soiree, organized by Katherine Cox of November’s Autumn & Maria Grazia of My Jane Austen Book Club.

Participants in Austen’s Birthday Soiree

Sharon Lathan
Giveaway: one copy of Miss Darcy Falls in Love

O! Beauty Unattempted
Giveaway: one copy of Letters of Love & Deception

Austenprose Giveaway: one signed copy of Jane Austen Made Me Do It

SemiTrue Stories
Giveaway: one copy of Mr. Darcy's Little Sister (open internationally)

First Draft Giveaway: one signed copy of My Jane Austen Summer and a package of Lily Berry’s Pink Rose Tea by Bingley’s, Ltd.

Regency Sketches Giveaway: one copy of I was Jane Austen's Best Friend, by Cora Harrison

Brant Flakes Giveaway: A canvas ACCORDING TO JANE tote bag and a pair of A SUMMER IN EUROPE luggage tags

Mesmered’s Blog Giveaway: one copy of Georgiana Darcy’s Diary: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice continued, by Anna Elliott

The Heroine’s Bookshelf Giveaway: Pride and Prejudice notecards, by Potter Style

vvb32 reads Giveaway: Jane Austen’s Little Instruction Book (Charming Petites), by Jane Austen, edited by Sophia Bedford-Pierce, illustrated by Mullen & Katz, introduction by Barbara Paulding

The Fiction vs. Reality Smackdown Giveaway: 2 Jane Austen candles and 2 signed copies of Definitely Not Mr. Darcy plus drink coasters and tea!

ReginaJeffers’s Blog
Giveaway: one signed copy of Christmas at Pemberley

Alyssa Goodnight Giveaway: one Jane Austen Action figure

Jane Austen in Vermont Giveaway: 2012 calendars from the Wisconsin JASNA Region

Jane Started It! Giveaway: one copy of Young Master Darcy: A Lesson in Honour, by Pamela Aidan; one set of Frederick Wentworth, Captain (Books 1 and 2), by Susan Kaye; two copies of Mercy’s Embrace: So Rough a Course (Book 1), by Laura Hile; one copy of George Knightley, Gentleman (Books 1 and 2), by Barbara Cornthwaite

Choc Lit Authors’ Corner Giveaway: one copy each of Persuade Me and The Importance of Being Emma

Reading, Writing, Working, Playing Giveaway: one copy each of Intimations of Austen and Sense & Sensibility (Marvel Illustrated)

The Jane Austen Film Club Giveaway: a copy of Northanger Abbey DVD starring Felicity Jones and JJ Feild (The winner will choose region 1 or 2 DVD)

El Salón de Té de Jane Giveaway: one copy of the Spanish edition of Sense and Sensibility and one copy of DVD package with adaptations of Jane Austen. (It’s only zone 2, but it’s in Spanish and English ), and one copy of BBC’s Emma with Romola Garai (Blue-ray)

Kaitlin Saunders Giveaway: one copy of A Modern Day Persuasion

One Literature Nut Giveaway: selection of Austenesque Reads

Patrice Sarath Giveaway: one copy of The Unexpected Miss Bennet

Jane Austen Brasil Giveaway: DVD – Sense and Sensibility (1995) – English / Portuguese subtitles

Jane Austen Sequels Giveaway: one mug with one of Jane Odiwe’s illustrations and one copy of Mr. Darcy’s Secret

Stiletto Storytime Giveaway: one copy of Noble Satyr by Lucinda Brant (Regency Romance)

Jennifer W. Becton Giveaway: one copy of the eBook of the Personages of Pride and Prejudice Collection, which contains Charlotte Collins, “Maria Lucas,” and Caroline Bingley. Open internationally.

Urban Girl Takes Vermont Giveaway: a copy of Vera Nazarian’s gift hardcover edition of her inspirational calendar and diary, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration


Pemberley Variations Giveaway: one signed copy of Mr. Darcy’s Undoing

AustenAuthors Giveaway: one copy of Georgette Heyer’s Regency World, by Jennifer Kloester

November’s Autumn Giveaway: one $10 B&N Gift-card (US only)

My Jane Austen Book Club Giveaway: A selection of Austenesque reads

Sense & Sensibility (Marvel Illustrated)

As part of the Sense & Sensibility Bicentenary Challenge
I set for one of my tasks to read the Marvel Illustrated version of Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility.

Having read the original earlier in the year, as well as treating myself to rewatching of two of the three adaptations, the story was very fresh in my mind, which means that I was painfully aware when the adapters, Nancy Butler and Sonny Liew, deviated from the original or inserted their interpretation of what I saw as Austen ambiguities in the story.

Overall, I enjoyed the graphic version. The drawings were fun and fresh. Unlike the Northanger Abbey graphic version that I so enjoyed in Gothic Classics: Graphic Classics Volume 14, I didn't think this rendition was superior to other adaptations (video or otherwise). Where it fell down was when the adaptors added their own language, which I found rather wooden.

Again, I think Marianne was a bit over-simplified as a highly emotional self-centered twit instead of a self-absorbed, committed artist, but that's a bias that runs deep on my part. I was also amused that Margaret and Edward once again play-act at piracy; Emma Thompson's fleshing out of Margaret has apparently become part of the canon. They also fiddled with Mrs. Dashwood's perception of Edward's and Elinor's attachment whilst at Norwood, and mucked with the timing and motivation around her staying at and then quitting Norland. They also didn't portray Willoughby rejecting Marianne in London properly--why change a perfectly good scene like that?

Lucy was depicted perfectly, however, and Colonel Brandon definitely had a David Morrissey look about him. And, they allowed Elinor to feel sorry for Willoughby after he visits her at Cleveland while Marianne is ill. I know that many readers cannot forgive Willoughby for his selfish actions in the story, but Elinor does feel sorry for him and I'm glad they didn't cut that part out as others have.

Despite my nit-picking it was as good an adaptation as the two latest film/video versions, and better than the old BBC version. I liked it enough to offer it up for a giveaway on Austen's birthday, December 16...so stay tuned if you would like to win a slightly used copy!

From Prada to Nada: Sense & Sensibility Bicentenary Challenge Update

Back in April I belatedly signed up for the challenge to focus my Austen-only eyes on her first published novel, Sense and Sensibility, in honor of the 200th year since its first publication.

Here's what I committed to and how I'm doing...

☑ Reread Sense and Sensibility
☑ Read The Three Weissmans of Westport, by Cathleen Schine
☑ Rewatch the Ang Lee adaptation, aka the Emma Thompson adaptation
☐ Rewatch the 2008 BBC adaptation
☐ Watch I have Found it (Kandukondain Kandukondain)
☑ Watch From Prada to Nada
☐ Reread Sense and Sensibility: The Screenplay and Diaries
☐ Read Sense and Sensibility (Marvel Illustrated)
☐ Read Willoughby’s Return, by Jane Odiwe
☑ Write S&S-inspired short story for the Jane Austen Made Me Do It competition
☐ Attend the 2011 JASNA AGM in Fort Worth in October

I watched the Emma Thompson/Ang Lee adaptation after finishing a reread of the novel in the spring, and enjoyed it as usual. Also as usual, I still found myself gnashing my teeth over Thompson's exclusion of the Willoughby visit to Cleveland near the end of the book. It is a crucial scene in my opinion, and the movie is flawed for omitting it.

I am looking forward to getting my copy of Thompson's Sense and Sensibility: The Screenplay and Diaries back from the JASNA friend to whom I lent it and reading it over the summer.

In May, I watched From Prada to Nada. When I first heard about this movie, I was pretty excited about it--I tend to like LA Latino movies (e.g., Tortilla Soup) and felt that the plot line had potential in a modern adaptation. Then my teenaged daughters heard that I wanted to see it and gave me all sorts of grief about how silly it looked. But, I had made a commitment to the Challenge gods, and so rented it from NetFlix.

I have to say it was kinda fun. I absolutely love the song, Cielito Lindo, which was featured early in the movie, so I spent the week after watching the movie humming the song. My favorite version of the song is that by The Three Tenors. Unfortunately, for most people my age, it will be forever associated with Fritos corn chips, since it was the jingle theme music during our formative years.

Back to the movie, as is typical in these modern retellings of S&S, the Elinor character is a stick-in-the-mud, beauty-behind-glasses and the Marianne character is a flighty, shallow, narcissistic knock-out. The Edward character was a rather cute lawyer with typical Edward dithering, his sister was an over-the-top gold-digging bitch, and the John Dashwood character was a long-lost (or rather recently found) brother who turned out not that bad after all.

My favorite character was the Colonel Brandon character, who was a barrio artiste who definitely outshone the Willoughby professor character from our first encounter. Strong, silent, and sensitive, he champions Marianne throughout and definitely was the romantic lead, leaving Edward in the dust...as usual.

My second favorite character was the girls' aunt with whom they go to live when thrown out of their father's house after death--she plays the Mrs. Jennings and Sir John Middleton part collectively and was earthy, practical, maternal, and family.

What I ended up liking about this movie is the theme of family--embracing one's roots and celebrating life together. I'm not sure it's a theme I necessarily associate with S&S itself, but it ended up making From Prada to Nada work.

From Prada to Nada didn't have the script that Clueless had and won't have the staying power in the hearts of Janeites, but in this year of S&S, it is definitely worth watching...if only to be reminded of what a pretty song Cielito Lindo is.

The Umpteenth Reading of Sense and Sensibility

I honestly don't know how many times I've read Sense and Sensibility. I know I first read it after I finished Pride and Prejudice when I was in about 7th grade. I know I read it in a hospital waiting room while my mother had colon surgery 20 years ago. I know I read it at least a couple of times in college--I was an English major and Austen was one of the authors that I was examined on for graduation. Since joining JASNA about 25 years ago, I've read it whenever it was the topic of the AGM. So what is there new to say or think about S&S?

Last time I read it, I remember being struck by how funny it was. It made me laugh out loud in places, and it did this time around again, of course.

I don't remember as many phrases and passages from S&S in the same way that I do from P&P--P&P is like an exquisite polished diamond on which every surface is perfectly honed and completely memorable. S&S is not quite as polished, but I did find some passages that I must've simply skated by every time because they were fascinating and yet I don't remember thinking about them before.

Here's my favorite, from the end of chapter 17, in which Edward is talking with Elinor and Marianne during his short visit to Barton Cottage:

"Marianne is as stedfast as ever, you see," said Elinor, "she is not at all altered."

"She is only grown a little more grave than she was."

"Nay, Edward," said Marianne, "you need not reproach me. You are not very gay yourself."

"Why should you think so!" replied he, with a sigh.

"But gaiety never was a part of my character."

"Nor do I think it a part of Marianne's," said Elinor; "I should hardly call her a lively girl; she is very earnest, very eager in all she does -- sometimes talks a great deal and always with animation -- but she is not often really merry."

"I believe you are right," he replied, "and yet I have always set her down as a lively girl."

"I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes," said Elinor, "in a total misapprehension of character in some point or other: fancying people so much more gay or grave, or ingenious or stupid than they really are, and I can hardly tell why, or in what the deception originated. Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge."

"But I thought it was right, Elinor," said Marianne, "to be guided wholly by the opinion of other people. I thought our judgments were given us merely to be subservient to those of our neighbours. This has always been your doctrine, I am sure."

"No, Marianne, never. My doctrine has never aimed at the subjection of the understanding. All I have ever attempted to influence has been the behaviour. You must not confound my meaning. I am guilty, I confess, of having often wished you to treat our acquaintance in general with greater attention; but when have I advised you to adopt their sentiments or conform to their judgment in serious matters?"

"You have not been able then to bring your sister over to your plan of general civility," said Edward to Elinor. "Do you gain no ground?"

"Quite the contrary," replied Elinor, looking expressively at Marianne.

"My judgment," he returned, "is all on your side of the question; but I am afraid my practice is much more on your sister's. I never wish to offend, but I am so foolishly shy, that I often seem negligent, when I am only kept back by my natural aukwardness. I have frequently thought that I must have been intended by nature to be fond of low company, I am so little at my ease among strangers of gentility!"

"Marianne has not shyness to excuse any inattention of hers," said Elinor.

"She knows her own worth too well for false shame," replied Edward. "Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or other. If I could persuade myself that my manners were perfectly easy and graceful, I should not be shy."

"But you would still be reserved," said Marianne, "and that is worse."

Edward stared -- "Reserved! Am I reserved, Marianne?"

"Yes, very."

"I do not understand you," replied he, colouring. "Reserved! -- how, in what manner? What am I to tell you? What can you suppose?"

Elinor looked surprised at his emotion, but trying to laugh off the subject, she said to him, "Do not you know my sister well enough to understand what she means? Do not you know that she calls every one reserved who does not talk as fast, and admire what she admires as rapturously as herself?"

Edward made no answer. His gravity and thoughtfulness returned on him in their fullest extent -- and he sat for some time silent and dull.

There is so much to talk about in this passage.

First off, I love Edward and Elinor's analysis of Marianne's demeanor. I used to think of her as lively, but E&E are right--she is eager, earnest and animated (at times) but rarely merry, and never frivolous. While I did enjoy the recently published The Three Weissmanns of Westport, I think Cathleen Schine misread Marianne by having her version of the character so shallow. I once heard Marianne described as the most intellectual and truly talented of Austen's heroines, and I agree with this.

I love Elinor's insightful comment that she often has a "total misapprehension of character in some point or other...Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge." This is true of readers as well, being misled by what characters say of themselves, what other characters say of them, and sometimes even what the author says about them.

In fact, Marianne's misunderstanding of Elinor's character is captured in her saracastic comment immediately following Elinor's observation:

"But I thought it was right, Elinor," said Marianne, "to be guided wholly by the opinion of other people. I thought our judgments were given us merely to be subservient to those of our neighbours. This has always been your doctrine, I am sure."

I believe that she is saying that because Elinor observes and respects the conventions of propriety she subsumes all of her opinions to what is conventional; whereas Elinor is insisting in her subsequent statement that her actions and behavior don't necessarily have to reflect her opinions in order for her to retain self-integrity.

The conversation then moves to Edward and I think he provides a key clue to what has baffled readers for 200 years--how on earth did Edward ever end up engaged to Lucy Steele? In talking about his debilitating shyness, he says "I have frequently thought that I must have been intended by nature to be fond of low company, I am so little at my ease among strangers of gentility!" I think Edward ended up engaged to Lucy because her uncle's house was one of the few places where he didn't feel awkward and hence shy. Chances are that sense of ease gave him a sense of relief that must have been intoxicating.

Finally, I find it telling that Marianne finds being shy worse than being reserved. To Marianne, shyness is an affliction, but being reserved is a choice. A reserved person chooses to keep private some part of themselves. In a novel that turns on lies, misrepresentations, and miscommunications, you have to wonder where discretion ends and lying begins.

The Sense and Sensibility Bicentenary Challenge 2011

I always seem to be the last one to the party, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the party while I'm there. Last December, Laurel Ann of Austenprose announced the The Sense and Sensibility Bicentenary Challenge 2011 and I'm only now getting around to signing up for it, now that I have two challenges for it under my belt.

In the proverbial nutshell:

2011 is a celebratory year for Jane Austen and her legion of fans. It marks the bicentenary of her first published novel, Sense and Sensibility. Since 1811, we have been enjoying her romantic, dramatic and witty story filled with divergent characters – the Dashwood sisters: cool, practical Elinor and emotional, impulsive Marianne, and the men in their lives: stoic Edward Ferrars, staid Colonel Brandon and rakish Willoughby. There is much to praise in this novel which has inspired many movie adaptations, book sequels and spinoffs.

I think I will go for the Disciple level (5-8 selections), though I may make it to the Aficionada level (9-12 selections)

What do I plan to do?

☑ Reread Sense and Sensibility
☑ Read The Three Weissmans of Westport, by Cathleen Schine
☑ Rewatch the Ang Lee adaptation, aka the Emma Thompson adaptation
☑ Rewatch the 2008 BBC adaptation
☐ Watch I have Found it (Kandukondain Kandukondain)
☑ Watch From Prada to Nada
☐ Reread Sense and Sensibility: The Screenplay and Diaries
☑ Read Sense and Sensibility (Marvel Illustrated)
☐ Read Willoughby’s Return, by Jane Odiwe
☑ Write S&S-inspired short story for the Jane Austen Made Me Do It competition
☑ Attend the 2011 JASNA AGM in Fort Worth in October

The last two weren't options that Laurel Ann provided, but I felt inspired :)

Cross-Pollination with Stephanie's Everything Austen

Stephanie of stephanie's written word is doing a giveaway of two, count 'em two, copies of my collection of Austen-inspired short stories entitled Intimations of Austen. This is part of her wonderful Everything Austen reading challenge, which has been sweeping the blogosphere and twitterland. For all of us who read Austen and Austen-inspired on a regular basis, this is a reading challenge made in heaven.

Thanks Stephanie for doing this giveaway.

I do want to take this opportunity to point out that the title is Intimations with an "n" not Imitations with an "m" - I wouldn't presume to imitate Austen, only to be inspired by her! A number of people have made this mistake...hindsight is 20-20 and I probably could've picked a better title.

If you're interested in Intimations of Austen, here are the blurbs I recently wrote about my stories:

Rainbow around the Moon

This is one of the shortest stories in the collection and is a first-person narrative by the daughter of Captain and Anne Eliot Wentworth. Many find it hauntingly beautiful, many find it desperately sad, many find it peaceful and reassuring. I loved writing it. I was driving to work one morning and the opening line, "My father watches the sky" popped into my head. By the time I had finished my commute, I knew that I would be writing a Persuasion story that night. I also remember how much fun I had researching all the expressions that sailors use in predicting weather, starting with the most familiar...red sky at morning, sailors take warning.

The Last Baby

Regarding Austen characters we love to hate, this is one of my favorite stories because it evokes such strong response from readers. It is a Pride and Prejudice-inspired story, a sequel and prequel wrapped up together, and Mrs. Bennet is the heroine! Again, the story began with an opening line that demanded a story be written around it: "My arms are empty."

Bird of Paradise

Once again, this is one of my favorites because so many readers tell me that they absolutely love seeing Fanny Price with an unambiguously happy future. This story begins with the wedding of Fanny and her cousin, Edmund Bertram, and goes gothic when Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca tries to steal the scene. I loved writing it and researching flowers that take awhile to bloom, but when they do, they do so gloriously. My favorite Austen critics have written about how Fanny is one of the most passionate of all Austen heroines, and I wanted to find a story and symbolism that would capture that passion she hid so well while under her Aunt Norris's thumb at Mansfield Park.

All I Do

By far the longest of the stories in this collection, this is a what-if Pride and Prejudice-inspired story that is angst ridden and forces the characters and the readers to address a moral dilemma that has no easy answer. Most readers love this story, but a few are seriously troubled by it. As a writer, I wrestled with the same question that Darcy wrestles with--how can I rid myself of this obligation without compromising my integrity. The story takes place twenty years after Austen's P&P closes, and it was immensely satisfying to write about a mature Elizabeth in middle age. The inspiration for Colonel Fitzwilliam's burial place in this story was Princess Diana's--her death, though it happened several years before I wrote this story, was still fresh in my mind.

Three Sisters

This story was once described as the anti-Persuasion. I won't give away the one-two punch at the end by telling you which Austen novel it's really about, but suffice it to say, I always rather thought that Lady Russell has gotten a bad rap all these years and that she may have had point that Anne Eliot and Austen readers don't like to acknowledge.

The Color of Love

I thought about this story for years before I sat down to write it. One of my brothers sent me an article about Synesthesia, a neurologically based condition in which one sensory path is crossed with another. There are many varieties of Synesthesia, and one that I read about involved reading in color. I found in this a way to explore Darcy's struggle to reconcile his love for Elizabeth Bennet with his own sense of self and family. This story parallels the action of Austen's Pride and Prejudice, but is told entirely from Darcy's perspective as a synesthete.

When Fates Conspire

The last story I wrote for the collection and different from most of the others in tone. This Persuasion story focuses on Captain Wentworth as he approaches Kellynch Hall to visit his sister and her husband. I was in a fanciful mood when I sat down to write this story, and when I got to wondering just what those Fates who play with our fate really look like and sound like pure fancy struck my pen.

Remember That We Are English

A Northanger Abbey story that explores how Henry felt knowing that his father was entirely mistaken about Catherine Morland's family and prospects. One of the threads that runs through most of my stories is that the natural world can heal wounded spirits if you seek solace and wisdom in it, and in this story that thread is given center stage.

Heaven Can Wait

This story was written as the dénouement for a longer work on Marianne Dashwood, post Sense and Sensibility, but I came to love Gideon Hayes, Jane Bennet's original suitor, so much that I had to share it in this collection. Again, this story blends the magic inherent in nature with a character's struggle to move forward, grow, and live and love. I shamelessly borrowed the title from that cute Warren Beatty movie from 1978.

Sense and Sensibility - the new movie

I loved it last year when I watched it during the PBS orgy on Austen. I loved the cottage on the green hill and the crashing waves and darling Edward and handsome Brandon and thought Elinor and Marianne and the rest of the characters were played wonderfully.

I still think all that, but there are some things this time round that bug me that I glossed over last year in the rapture of a new good adaptation to watch. I don't care for the first meeting between Willoughby and Brandon--while it's obvious they know each other, they seem to hate each other (ala Wickham/Darcy) and I think this weakens the story because Brandon doesn't yet know that Willoughby has seduced his ward--at this point, they should just not care for each other, not actually hate each other.

The biggest part I don't care for, though, is the scene where Willoughby visits Cleveland while Marianne is ill. I know I am in the minority in feeling that Willoughby is pitiful in this scene and Elinor shows incredible compassion by pitying him and forgiving him. I wish Davies had used the dialogue that Austen created in S&S instead of rewriting it. It diminishes Elinor as a truly noble character in my opinion. Forgiveness is a rare virtue, and Davies robs Elinor of much of what Austen bestowed upon her.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the mini-series. Now I have to rewatch the Emma Thompson/Kate Winslet version.

Sense and Sensibility: via Stanza

I am the proud owner of a two-month old iPhone. We are getting along just fine, and she is enabling me to experiment with ebooks. I had toyed with getting a Kindle but put it off yet again when I got the iPhone and learned about an app called Stanza. Stanza enables you to read ebooks that are downloaded from here. Prices for books vary considerably, but the classics that I tend to read are very inexpensive. I had no qualms at paying $1.99 for Austen's Sense and Sensibility, though I already have at least two copies of the novel in my Austen bookcase.

I'm up to chapter four and I'm feeling okay but not thrilled with the experience. The novel itself is as good as ever, my eyes don't fatigue with reading the screen and the type is a fine size for me. Though I haven't tried to read more than a chapter at a time, so I'm not sure I've really put the fatigue issue to the test.

It's certainly nice having S&S with me at all times so that I can read it easily while waiting--I'm travelling this week, so I have opportunities to pass the time while waiting and Sudoku and Wordle were getting a bit tiresome. I haven't yet figured out how to earmark a page or a passage that I want to return to for whatever reason. Perhaps Stanza doesn't provide this capability--it certainly doesn't appear to. I'm not quite sure how I feel about not having the tactile feel for where I am in a chapter and book--midway through, almost through, barely started.

Now on to S&S, what strikes me most on this reading is how much of the early action takes place off-screen, so to speak. Edward arrives and he and Elinor take to each other before we barely have time to get to know Elinor at all. Mrs. Dashwood has them in love and practically engaged by the middle of chapter 3.



Austen really never gives her readers the chance to figure out that Edward is not available as we don't get to hear him directly before Mrs. D. has told us that he's in love with Elinor. I remember, the first time I read S&S, being as surprised as Elinor when Lucy told her that she and Edward were engaged. Reading it again, you can find clues, just as you can see the clues in Emma regarding Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax, but Mrs. Dashwood's matching Edward to Elinor so early in the book when our opinions of the characters are just forming gives us no chance at all. And Mrs. D. was right, of course, Edward did love Elinor, he just wasn't free to do so, honorably anyway.