emma. jane austen. (307)

i decided to read emma, because,  the movie, clueless, was loosely based on it. i i recently read as if, and didn't get any of the emma reference, so figured it was time for me to read austen's classic.

to start, i have to add that the movie did mess with my head as a i read.  i kept on trying to sort out who was who based on the movie.  though i did not see any of the characters as the actors.  i did start watching emma, the mini series, so started to see jonny lee miller as mr. knightly.  also i knew that mr. frank churchill was engaged due to a quote i read in as if, so the big surprise at the end was not a big surprise.  i was also shocked at how blinded emma was to their relationship.  i must add i knew the piano was from frank because really he ran into town for a haircut?!?!

i have to admit that it did take me a while to get into the novel.  it was quite a struggle from to read this novel, especially since all of the good stuff happens in the last fourth of the novel.  other complaints included was mr. woodhouse's neediness, poor miss taylor indeed for having to listen to him whine. how horrible that he could not be happy for her but instead lamented about she was no longer in their service.  i have no idea how anyone put up with that.  and though i might be guilty of miss bates' blabbering on and on, but just reading the descriptions of her talking, bored me.  and maybe it's just because elton was so "so sweet that he gave me a toothache" in clueless (i would listen to the cranberries all day with him), but felt bad that mr. elton married such a dreadful woman!  ps kudos to amy heckerling on the picture fiasco which was a great mirroring of the painting mix up.  also love love loved how heckerling had tai burn her belongings from elton just like harriet did with her mr. elton things.

back to the novel, so though i was bored, i have to admit that just like emma, an darted through my heart when it came to mr. knightley.  austen created the most sensitive, noble, morale, loving men and mr. knightley was rather quite knightly.  she created these moments when her leading men confess their love and her readers sit there wishing it would happen to them! i mean what a dreamboat mr. knightley was when confessing his love for emma.  so sweet was this ending to the novel that i forgave austen for how bored i was in the beginning.

i will close in saying that even though i didn't love it straight off the bat, emma is like the quintessential girl novel, reminding us how naive we were when we were young and when it came to love and life.  how often we fall in love with men we can not have, and at the same time can be blinded to affection of someone else.  or we try to give someone advice and we really should just keep our noses out of their business.  i guess its best to say that, emma reminded me of how when i was younger, i though i knew everything, but really i was just clueless.  

glover's mistake. nick laird.

i found "glover's mistake" at the san juan capistrano library.  the cover caught my eye, loved the sea foam green and the illustrations.  and of course, the chicago tribune's praise had me excited to read it. the tribune claimed that it was "the kind of book jane austen would've written if she'd been male and hipper---and had internet access."  sounds amazing right?  but it wasn't.

i ran into the same problem that i had with "wuthering heights", i didn't like any of the characters.  perhaps a better comparison would be my dislike of the characters in zadie smith's "nw" because smith and laird are married.

"glover's mistake" is the tale of a love triangle:  david is in love with this old art teacher ruth but she falls in love with his roommate james glover. initially, i felt bad for david because he tried to date ruth but was unsuccessful.  david did not aggressively pursue ruth and as a result their relationship went straight into the friends zone.  ruth then meet james through david and is instantly attracted to him.  i felt bad for david because it is obvious that he was going to suffer.  he lost the woman he loved to his roommate. my sympathies did not last long because it turns out david was a jerk and a little bat shit crazy. david sabotaged their relationship,  going so far as creating a fake email to tell

ruth about james' infidelty (james did have a one night stand but in his defense he was a virgin prior to dating ruth so i think he should be forgiven).  david also made james insecure about ruth's lesbian past and friendship with an old lover.  quick note:  i couldn't decide if glover's mistake was the infidelity or his insecurity about ruth being a lesbian.

but even with david's evilness, i couldn't cheer for james and ruth.  their relationship did move way too quickly.  they got engaged after a couple of months of dating (or was it weeks).    there was an age difference which didn't bother me but i was concern about their difference in terms of life experience. it was her second marriage and his first real relationship.  i mean ruth had a list of lovers of both sexes and james was virgin.  (i would like to add that i think the best kind of guy to fall in love with is the kind like james.  the kind that was dorky or fat in high school who then grow up to be handsome.  all of these good looks and no conceit).  also they didn't seem to have much in common other than sex.  i mean if laird gave david and ruth's relationship some depth i would have wanted to see their love win but since he didn't i couldn't decide if i want david or them to win in the end.  and that is ultimately the problem with the book, i didn't know whose team i was on.  the thing about love triangles is that you should want to choose a side (see: team jacob or team edward) but here both sides sucked so i didn't become invested.

granted i have only read one jane austen book but i totally became invested because i cared about the characters.  at first i was on team wickham and then of course team darcy.  but the point is that i chose a side.  so sorry chicago tribune but this was not like an austen novel.  

i must add i am not giving up on laird, just like i didn't give up on smith, i still plan on reading their other works to see what the hype is about.

and one last thing, i did find ruth's art intriguing.  i wish the "republic of women"  really did exist, it would be an interesting piece.  i like the idea of ruth creating "artefacts" for a lost female

only civilization, i especially would have liked to have seen the menstruation headdress.  as i read, i was reminded of judy chicago's "dinner party".  i should google, maybe laird based is ruth's art on something in real life.

pride and prejudice. BBC mini-series and 1995 film.

since this is a blog about my library use, i decided i can blog about DVDs I check out from the delano branch. i am sure if francie nolan could check out movies, she would have.

so after reading "pride and prejudice", my colin firth obsession caused me to request the DVD. and i will say, oh so glad that i did. simply for the bath scene. (sorry if this post reads like a "the scarlet letter" book report from "easy a". lol)

but seriously BBC did an excellent job with their adaption. every character looked just as i had imagined. though at the risk of sounding shallow, they could have cast a prettier jane. but i read her mom played jane in the 67 bbc production so that is sweet. also found it funny that anna chancellor missed out on firth twice (she was his fiancée in "what a girl wants". lol)

mrs. bennet was perfect. her voice was so annoying which matched her annoying character. i really felt bad for mr. bennet for having to be married to her. and she was seriously too much for me, playing proud mother to lydia after being bed-ridden by her scandal. also it was horrible how she was okay with her brother footing the bill for lydia's marriage. such poor manners! alison steadman did well because i disliked mrs. bennet equally in both the book and on the small screen.

the only thing that i disliked was the double wedding at the end. that was way too cheesy for my taste.

i also checked out the 2005 movie with keira knightly. which i did not like at all. i will say that i thought keira knightly did well as elizabeth. i actually liked her more than jennifer ehle (ps doesn't ehle remind you of meryl steep?). there was a boldness and fierceness that knightly embodied that ehle didn't. but that is where the praise stops. also i could have done without knightly smiling in this movie, it was not cute.

their darcy was attractive but he was no colin firth. and he butchered the proposal scene. his delivery was too fast paced. and the whole rain did not add dramatic flair, it's was only excessive. another bad scene was the dancing scene when it cuts to jane and darcy alone in the room then it cut backs. there could have been a better way of displaying their attraction. and shame on the writer/adapter for not including a line about elizabeth's "fine dark eyes"! i also missed miss bingley's teasing of his admiration for those eyes. they could have cut that scene of elizabeth spinning after finding out charlotte was engaged to make room for those lines. also they could have left that last scene on the cutting room floor. way too cheesy, i actually preferred the double wedding ending!

last but not least, i missed crispin bohman-carter's voice!

pride and prejudice and zombies. jane austen and seth grahame-smith.

this book has been on my bookshelves for a couple of years. i attempted to read it before but couldn't focus because my mind was constantly wondering how much of jane's original work was in it. (i hadn't read "pride and prejudice" at the time). so i put the book down and picked it up after i read the original. (ps there are some spoilers in this post.)

initially, i was impressed with grahame-smith's giving zombies killings and burnings as the reason for the militia being stationed in meryton. austen had them there just for kitty and lydia's amusement and i guess to introduce the wicked wickham.

when reading the original, i couldn't stomach wickham and lydia's return to netherfield after their marriage. lydia was so obnoxious and wickham a phony. i absolutely hated lydia; showing off her ring, taking jane's spot, and talks of helping her sisters marry (i will start a list of characters i dislike and lydia will be number 1). we all knew wickham was a sleazeball cos he had a gambling problem, but lydia was horrible simply by nature. i was upset with austen for not giving them an unhappy ending (i mean darcy did need a labor of love and sorting out lydia and wickham was a challenge). and i guess wickham having to spend the rest of his life with lydia is punishment enough. but i needed more . . .

so i absolutely loved it when grahame-smith had darcy give wickham a good ass whooping in his version. in my eyes justice (or karma) was served when wickham ending up an impotent cripple and lydia having to spend the rest of her life with him. those twos got the ending their horrible scandal deserved.

i also enjoyed the showdown between lady catherine and elizabeth. though i would have been happier if she "finished her", to steal a phrase from mortal kombat. but lady catherine did get her just desserts in austen's version.

at first i didn't like the charlotte-turns-into-a-zombie storyline. it was too far fetch that no one noticed her change. however her marriage to mr. collins made sense given her illness and his oblivion to life would have caused him not to notice. so given that text, her illness made sense. though it was sad she had to die.

i will say that i could have done without all of the ball and intercourse jokes. i mean it was clever cos they were words austen used but grahame-smith gave them their modern slang definitions. but it was out of place, i was too frat-boy humor for my tastes.

it was a fun read. and a nice twist on everyone's beloved classic. so check it out, but don't expect too much. it is still a great work but that is because he didn't butcher austen's story and kept majority of the story intact.

ps i would love to see a movie adaptation but then colin firth may be too old to be karate-chopping zombies.

pride and prejudice. jane austen. (56)

before i start, this is not the bookcover i checked out. the one i checked out was old, blue and plain. i choose this cover because it shows my newest obsession thanks to "pride and prejudice" . . . colin firth.

i have to say that at first i didn't care for "pride and prejudice." maybe i was blinded by my pride, there were times when i found darcy's and elizabeth's conversation hard to follow, were they flirting with each other?!?!
or maybe i was unjustly prejudice against it, the brönte sisters didn't win me over with their "great" romances, so jane austen didn't stand a chance. i wasn't completely invested in elizabeth and darcy's romance, maybe because i knew it would sort out from. so my anticipation resulted in impatience and so the book moved too slowly for me. i mean it was like get on with it already. and stop with the weird stares, darcy!

however, like elizabeth's feelings toward darcy did a 180. so did mine. i read "pride and prejudice and zombies" immediately after and found mr. darcy, oh so more romantic on my second reading. (the zombies didn't help, but the re-reading of austen's text did.) then i checked out the BBC mini-series and of course after watching colin firth in that bathtub and diving into the lake, i was smitten, with firth and "pride and prejudice".

that lake scene is not in the book. but it sure is in the mini-series. and i mean he doesn't even get close to naked but watching him walk around wet afterward, sure is sexy!

prior to reading the book, i had never seen the mini-series, only knew colin firth played darcy. yet as i read, i visualized firth as darcy, even more random it was firth as mark darcy from bridget jones' fame that i actually imagined.

nonetheless, it resulted in me being obsessed with colin firth afterward. the embarrassing kind of obsessed. i.e.:

a. watching "what a girl wants" (yes, starring amanda bynes) not only once but twice (abc family and MTV randomly aired it)
b. watching "love actually" (it's the only firth film i own) and fast forwarding to watch his scenes
c. watching the mini-series twice in 1 week (i wanted to get my viewing worth before returning it to the library)
d. buying "fever pitch" on ebay (i had no idea it existed until i amazoned "colin firth dvd", okay maybe amazoning "colin firth dvd" is the embarrassing part)
e. borrowing "a single man" from friend (though this isn't that bad)
f. buying the pride and prejudice BBC companion novel cos he was on cover
g. buying "the king's speech" book cos he was on the cover (in my defense it was only $1)
h. contemplating buying the episode where he proposes in the mini-series so i can have it on my kindle to watch whenever i want

sad, i know. i realize that i am not actually in love with the colin firth but it's the lloyd dobler effect that chuck klostermann writes about in "sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs". (women love john cusack because we are in love with his character lloyd dobler from "say anything".) colin firth has the mr. darcy effect. and i know, he is 20 years my senior and happily married with a family but in a perfect world, we would have a "lost in translation" friendship. we'd meet in some hotel bar (maybe at the four seasons), i'd take him karaoke-ing (in k-town) and wear a pink wig. we'd end the night at some random taco truck and when we'd part, he'd whisper something in my ear that only i could hear and would never share with anyone . . . okay, i'll add:

i. making up fantasy about hanging out with him in LA ala "lost in translation"

oh and i have to share one last "pride and prejudice" purchase! this adorable tank that i got at uniqueLA. i was a little tipsy when i bought it and had this longest discussion about "pride and prejudice", colin firth, the bbc version, the keira knightly version and the zombie novel. ps this doesn't get a letter cos its not embarrassing.

sorry i know this a book blog, so some thoughts on the actual book. i had seen bits and pieces of "becoming jane" so got that storyline confused with the book. but i guess if austen wrote about her life than this makes sense. i now want to read her memoir.

this too was on flavorpill's 30 before 30. though i am not sure if it would make my list. i did admire elizabeth for her boldness and unconventionality; not accepting mr. collins' proposal, standing up to lady catherine (at dinners and the proposal inquiry) and of course landing darcy. and she does have a great cinderella story, a girl without strong social relations marrying a man having ten thousand a year! and it is a reasonable love story. although i love romances (and romantic comedies), i am also very skeptical of them. (i have also never been in love so that is probably where my doubts spring from.) however, with this romance, elizabeth's love for darcy grew throughout the book so their love was "real" because it wasn't based on an instant attraction but something that strengthen as elizabeth learned more about the real darcy. (though austen still has a place for love at first sight with jane and mr. bingsley). so i take that back. maybe it will make my 30. i need to read more of her works to decide.

ps i also hated how lydia and wickham were saved from their mess. but will get to that in my "pride and prejudice and zombies" entry.