Time being what it is

[vr_trakowski]

I watched Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility today; I've seen it before, but not recently.  I hadn't so much as forgotten that Hugh Laurie was in it as that he simply wasn't on my radar at the time. 

It's been so long since I read the book that I don't know how accurate the movie is, but aside from completely failing to show any attraction in Marianne to Colonel Brandon, it's fun.  Though I did keep thinking that Elinor and Colonel Brandon would be a better match. 

It's sobering to reflect, though, that for women of that class there was nothing but marriage.  It's their defining thought.  I don't know enough history to know if the same was true for the other classes, but it gives me a nasty feeling.  I know I'm very lucky to live in this time, and place, where for me marriage never became more than a "maybe someday, if the opportunity arises".  It was never a necessity.  

Of course, the idea of being married to someone I do not love, or to someone who does not love me, is one of my personal nightmares.  But that's rather beside the point. 

Comments

[fex-84.livejournal.com]

It is so very true what you said about women condition and marriage at that age. I remember watching a movie two or three days ago, it was around the same period, with very young Colin Firth and Annette Bening and I thought extactly the same thing: God, I'm very lucky to live in this time! Then, in that movie it was also clear how wealthy people had combined marriages (is it combined even an english word? lol, sorry) but lived very different lives then... like, I have a husband and then a couple of lovers and if I fell in love with a man poorer than me then I could marry a rich one and have the poor one as my lover or something... it seemed, from that movie, that their lifes were very faked... all appareance to society.

And about not having Hugh Laurie on your radar... hehe, you know, I watched 101 Dalmatians with my little niece and I hadn't realized that Hugh Laurie was one of the bad guys! LOL! And guess who was the other bad guys? The actor who plays Ron Wesley's father in Harry Potter! It was funny!

[anamin.livejournal.com]

It's sobering to reflect, though, that for women of that class there was nothing but marriage.

And ironically enough, Jane Austin herself never DID get married.

Though I did keep thinking that Elinor and Colonel Brandon would be a better match. Trufax. Edward seemed bumbling and idiotic, and wouldn't stand up to his sister. I think Col. Brandon was much more worthy of Elinor, poor guy.

It's a classic. I love throw it in every now and again.

[snowydragon1776.livejournal.com]

Yes, only British tv loving fans knew who Laurie was back then ;-)

Eh I didn't like this adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. There is a newer one that is a little better. This book and Emma seem to have horrible adaptations. *sighs*

[katrinb.livejournal.com]

"And ironically enough, Jane Austin herself never DID get married."

Though the Addison's disease that probably killed her was possibly exacerbated by stress induced by financial difficulties...again, demonstrating how very much women need an option to support ourselves without a husband. (And I love my husband, and admittedly am dependent on him financially at the moment - but only because the job market sucks right now for everyone, not just women.)

S&S is probably Austen's least romantic novel. I read a study of it once which suggested that Marianne's marriage to Col. Brandon was a defeat, not a victory - that she had been annihilated, essentially, as herself and made into someone quite different, more conventional and conventionally successful, but basically dead emotionally. I don't know that I believe that - Brandon was too worthy a man to be made happy with an emotionally dead wife, and Austen wouldn't have rewarded him so poorly (she generally did reward her good characters well). And I do think that Marianne eventually comes to realize his worth, and his real heroism, compared with Willoughby's poetic but false appeal. But both marriages in this novel are more of an emotional compromise than the sunny joyous unmixed blessing of the Bingley and Darcy marriages in P&P.

And I do think Edward is probably the least convincing Austen hero ever. Though in the modern era, we're more likely to blame him for not dumping Lucy than to praise him - while in his own society, dumping her, whether she and he really loved each other anymore or ever had or not, would've been the action of a graceless, selfish cad. He does deserve more credit for that than he generally gets. But he's still a wimp, and rather dull. Brandon is a much more heroic guy, really, and once Marianne realizes that, I can really see her genuinely loving him with all her force.

[vr-trakowski.livejournal.com]

I was amused all out of proportion to spot Mr. Laurie in a music video a few years ago. Not where I expected to see him.

"Combined" is English, but I don't think it's the word you want in this context..."open" maybe? Though they wouldn't have called it that then. Yeah, marrying for wealth and/or name, and then screwing around on the side. The Regency period was all about appearances, at least for the upper classes.

[vr-trakowski.livejournal.com]

Yeah--I don't know much about her, but I wonder if she deliberately avoided it in the end. Was she making enough money from publishing to support herself?

[vr-trakowski.livejournal.com]

I guess I need to re-read the book--I probably have a copy around here somewhere. :D I can't remember what the characters were really like in the book itself, I was just going off the chemistry (or lack thereof) on the screen.

IIRC, though, Emma Thompson wanted Hugh Grant for the role in part so she'd get to kiss him--and then it never showed up on screen. I think I saw a screencap of it, though. :P

ETA: Better still!

[vr-trakowski.livejournal.com]

I haven't even read Emma yet. Nothing about her seems to appeal!

[snowydragon1776.livejournal.com]

I've read everything by Austen multiple times.
Emma is actually her most complex character you definitely have to read the book to understand her though. NONE of the adaptations are even halfway decent.

[katrinb.livejournal.com]

She always deliberately avoided marriage _with someone she didn't love_. However, as a girl from a relatively poor gentry family (some of her brothers were very well off, but she and her sister Cassandra were never wealthy enough to live the standard gentry life - but because of their breeding, couldn't do anything else), she had not enough dowry for most men of her class to even consider marrying her, no matter what they felt for her. It's thought (though not known, since Cassandra burned the crucial letters) that she may have been in love in her youth, but the man's family separated them because of her lack of money.
She was proposed to late in her life (she wasn't old, mind, just in her thirties - she died in her early forties) by a relatively wealthy male friend whom she liked but didn't love, accepted him in the evening, but had rethought it in the morning and turned him down gently.

[vr-trakowski.livejournal.com]

One of these days, then. I was rather taken aback by the sarcasm of Northanger Abbey--not at all what I'd come to expect from her.

[vr-trakowski.livejournal.com]

Brave woman. I figure she'd be both amused and appalled to see what's been made of her writing since then.

[snowydragon1776.livejournal.com]

Well, Northanger Abbey was meant to be a sarcastic poke at all those Goth Victorian novels.
It was her first novel and is considered the least great of all of her novels.
I appreciate it for poking fun at those novels, but is probably my least favorite of her works.

[vr-trakowski.livejournal.com]

It does feel a little clumsy compared to the other stuff. Having read it once, I don't know as I will again!