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| July reads |
July Wrap-Up
- Finished: 6
- Started but not finished: 2
- Total pages read: 1,743
- Average rating: 4.58
This was my second year of participating in Jane Austen July, and even though it wasn’t quite as fun as last year, I still had a great time. And as the average rating shows, there was nothing wrong with the books I read, as most of them were four or five-star reads. Besides Jane Austen related books, the first book I finished in July was Agatha Christie’s A Murder Is Announced (4/5 stars). I actually reviewed it as part of my June wrap-up, as I started it in June and finished it in the beginning of July. The rest of the books were Austen-related, though.
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
The main
challenge of Jane Austen July is obviously to read one of Austen’s six main
novels. My pick for this year was Sense and Sensibility, which is one of my
least favorite Austen novels. I was hoping to see if rereading and annotating
it would give me new insights into the story. I did pick up quite
a lot of things, but I still think this is Austen’s weakest plot. I didn’t care
for how passive the characters were – Edward and Elinor only get each other by
accident, and Marianne must settle for Colonel Brandon because everyone else in
the story expects that from her. Not really a romance, then, but rather the
sisters receive their happy ending when they are not separated from each other.
It’s no wonder that the film adaptations of this book change the
characterization of multiple characters to suit the tastes of modern audiences, but more on that below.
You can find a longer review of Sense and Sensibility here.
The Watsons by Jane Austen
For a Jane Austen work that is not one of her six main novels, I chose The Watsons. This is an unfinished novel with only the first four or so chapters. The Penguin edition I read also includes a paragraph outlining how Austen might have continued the story - at least according to her sister Cassandra.
It’s
obviously difficult to review an unfinished beginning of a novel, but even the
parts that do exist felt underdeveloped. This was an interesting look at how
Austen was developing as a writer. The Watsons is not as boisterous as her teenage writings in
juvenilia, but it's not as sparkling as her published later works, either. There are
a few hints of what was to come in Austen’s later works – in the ballroom
scene, for example, Lord Osborne’s behavior vaguely resembles that of Mr. Darcy
in Pride and Prejudice. All in all, The Watsons is nice piece of
literature for an Austen fanatic to read, but nothing really to write home
about.
What Matters in Jane Austen? by John Mullan
For a
non-fiction work about Jane Austen or her time, I chose John Mullan’s acclaimed
What Matters in Jane Austen? Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved. Virginia
Woolf famously stated that of all great writers, Jane Austen is “the most
difficult to catch in the act of greatness.” John Mullan takes up this
challenge and attempts to do just that via close reading of Austen’s novels.
The book is structured around twenty questions such as “how much does age matter,” “what do the characters call each other,” and “how much money is enough.” Age and money were questions that I’ve heard talked about in other Austen-related contexts, but some of the questions I had not previously considered. Especially interesting were the chapters on the importance of weather and how Austen uses card games to separate and join people in different groups.
This book is definitely not for a casual reader of Jane Austen, as Mullan expects the reader to know all the major (and most of the minor) characters and events in Austen six main novels. There are also references to Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon as well as Austen’s juvenilia and letters. But to an Austen fan interested in literary analysis, this book is a treasure trove. If that sounds interesting to you, I highly recommend this book. I gave it five stars.
Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin
For challenge
four (read a retelling of Jane Austen book or a work of historical fiction set
in Jane Austen’s time), I went for a modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride
and Prejudice, Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin. I read
Jalaluddin’s Much Ado about Nada for last year's Jane Austen July and
enjoyed it. Both books are set in the Toronto Muslim community and take
Austen’s novels as their very loose model. Unfortunately, I think I would have
enjoyed Ayesha at Last a lot better if it hadn’t been a Jane Austen
retelling. The similarities to the source material were few and far between,
and they more often detracted from the story than added anything to it.
However, I did like the positive and varied Muslim representation, and it was a
fun story with its Shakespearean “mistaken identities” plotline. Some of the
problems in the book can probably be chalked up to this being a debut novel.
The author tried to cram too many plot lines and story ideas into one book, and
in the end, the story fell a little flat. I gave this book three and half
stars, but I would recommend it to people who love contemporary romance. You
can find a longer review of the book here.
Cecilia by Frances Burney
For the book by a contemporary of Jane Austen, I chose Frances Burney’s Cecilia. I read Burney’s Evelina several years ago and loved it, so I was excited to start Cecilia in July. This book has 940 pages plus a foreword and appendices. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to finish it in July, and I’ve barely reached the midpoint of the book. Full review will come in early September when I finally finish the book, but so far my feelings are conflicted.
Cecilia is a story a young and naïve heiress who in the first
half of the book is taken advantage of by her profligate guardian, Mr. Harrell.
The book is way too long, and it could easily have been condensed into half or
even one third of the length. In addition, Mr. Harrell is so despicable and
Cecilia so naïve that for several times I’ve seriously considered DNFing this
book. Now that we’ve finally got rid of Mr. Harrell, however, I’m hoping the
book will get better in the second half, although the story is still too long
and too slow.
Sense and Sensibility Adaptations
For challenge
six, I watched two direct screen adaptations of Sense and Sensibility, the 1995
movie adaptation and the 2008 BBC miniseries. It was interesting to see how
they changed the story and the characterizations to suit modern tastes. Both
the movie and the miniseries give Edward and Margaret more personality than the
book, and interestingly, both decided to enhance their characterization with
the help of the other – in the movie, Edward teaches Margaret how to use a sword
and sends her the atlas; in the miniseries, he helps her ride a horse.
Marianne’s and Colonel Brandon’s relationship is made more palatable for modern tastes as well, although both of them also make Colonel Brandon much older than the thirty-five he’s in the book (Alan Rickman was 49 years old and David Morrissey 44 years old when the adaptations came out). The movie admittedly shows this only towards the end, where it seems to hint that Marianne will fall in love with Colonel Brandon. In the miniseries, however, Marianne admits that she enjoys talking with Colonel Brandon from the start (albeit only because he’s the only person at Barton Park worth conversing with).
I thought the miniseries did a great job at setting up Marianne’s storyline, but it didn’t do as well with Elinor’s. I was disappointed at how little space the miniseries gave to setting up Lucy Steele as the jealous and cunning character that she is. The 1995 movie adaptation did a better job with Lucy’s characterization, and the little trick Lucy does with Edward’s handkerchief was easily the best scene in the entire movie. The miniseries made Lucy a lot more innocent-seeming than the book (and the movie).
The most conspicuous changes are probably in the pacing of the adaptations. The first episode of the three-part miniseries dramatizes about 20% of the book, the second episode reaches the midpoint of the book, and the third episode takes up the whole latter half of the book. Similarly in the movie adaptation the first half of the book takes up the majority of the movie. That means that a lot of the set-up for Marianne’s illness and Edward’s problems with finding a living are rushed over, but at the same time, I don’t remember the movie or the miniseries skipping over anything important. That seems to indicate that there are some pacing issues in Austen’s novel, although I didn’t notice them as I was reading the book.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries
The last
challenge was to watch a modern screen adaptation of a Jane Austen book. This
year I decided to watch The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a 2012 YouTube series that
translates Pride and Prejudice to modern audiences. This was my first
time watching the series, and it was great! There were several
laugh-out-loud moments, and a couple of episodes that left me sobbing
uncontrollably. I especially loved what they did with Lydia’s arc. She had more
depth and character development here than in Pride and Prejudice, and that made
Lizzie’s story arc stronger as well. Highly recommend if you’ve never watched,
and I’m definitely going to watch the series again.
August Hopefuls
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| August hopefuls |
After the
hectic month of Jane Austen July, I’m going to relax and read a little less.
Besides Burney’s Cecilia, which I will continue reading until early September,
I started one book at the end of July that I will finish in August: Madeline
Miller’s Circe. I read The Song of Achilles a few years ago and
loved it, and I’m enjoying Miller’s other ancient mythological retelling as
well.
I will also start Thea Guanzon’s fantasy novel The Hurricane Wars, and reread Thomas More’s Utopia. It’s been decades since I read Utopia, so it’ll be nice to see how I feel about the book as an adult.
After taking the photo of the books I’m planning to read, I visited the library and picked up two books that I will try to read in August: Astrid Lindgren’s Ronia, the Robber's Daughter and a nonfiction book about medieval craftsmen in Finnish, Perhe ja verstas by Maija Ojala-Fulwood.
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If you want to see more about my Jane Austen July experience, you can find my July reading wrap-up here:
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