Dear friends and readers,
What differentiates Robin Swicord’s Jane Austen Book Club screenplay and resulting movie from the other sequels and appropriation texts to Jane Austen’s novels that I’ve read, is the content-rich nature, intelligence and coherent working out of ideas in the film’s conversations about the books, of which there are many. In this blog I cite the conversations by Swicord and compare them briefly and generally to those in Fowler’s novel.
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Wendy Wax’s While We Were Watching Downton Abbey where characters similarly get together to discuss this mini-series may stand as more typical: a great fuss is made about what the characters are feeling and thinking about the fictional characters, but when it comes to telling, the author via her characters says out hardly anything at all, or utters the kind of statement where specific content or comments on any themes or characters is avoided (like some plague, it’s a conscious avoidance). Such books make me wonder what kinds of conversations book clubs have: I’ve seen on-line communities where real analysis of the book hardly happens hardly at all, and the one book club talk I attended, after the briefest introduction of a few issues the book brought up (already outlined as what would be discussed), commonplace notions were said generally, a quiz was worked out, and then it was time for food.
Swicord’s characters not only offer specific comments on specific content, they come up with unusual perceptive ideas (such as maybe Charlotte Lucas is a closet lesbian) and they make what is happening in the Austen novels relevant to their lives in the book and by extension our contemporary lives reading them.
I wondered if there was a general stance in the novel across these discussions, anything linking them together thematically which related to the novel or a way of reading Austen’s novels so gathered together the conversations I took down in the process of taking down the screenplay.
Standing on line waiting to see Rozema’s 1999 Mansfield Park
I really like Edmund in this movie. Have you seen it?
We see an upset Trudie on line. Man and woman to her right.
Woman taking something out of her bag I love this movie.
Bernadette: Oh, I like it, but it’s not Mansfield Park. It’s more of an interpretation. We see Bernadette with her knitting and glasses on line
We see Prudie look so looming somehow in front ….
Bernadette: – Do you know the book?
Woman: – Yes. And I happen to teach film.
Bernadette – Oh … (speaking out to space in general: – Do you like this movie? –
Prudie turns round with crying lament voice: No. Do you know it mixes up Fanny Price with the author of the book? (her arms crossed) Makes Sir Bertram some kind of slave owner.
Woman looks irritated, pulling on bag
Bernie: Well, it means well. And a little Jane Austen’s better than none at all.
Prudie: No. No. No. That is how I talk myself into everything. I’m married to a man who would cancel our trip to Paris for a basketball game, which is making me a fraud in front of my students. A French teacher who’s never been to France?
Husband of couple getting impatient, goes to get tickets, women begins to feel for Prudie as she listen to above, so makes an effort …
Woman online: The screenplay is outstanding (The thrust of this dialogue and some of it literally comes from opening phase of Fowler’s characters discussion of Mansfield Park in March, pp. 82-83.).
At coffee meeting place, deciding on how to read all six Austen books, the order especially
Six novels, six people. We’ll each be responsible for one book. Bernie walks away reveling in her scarf: All Jane Austen, all the time! It’s the perfect antidote.
Prudie: – To what?
Bernie: – To life. … (comes back and whispers conspiratorially) I get Pride and Prejudice.
Bernie: So Prudie (she’s sitting to the side in a comfortable chair, knitting), you haven’t said which book you wanna be responsible for.
Prudie: Maybe Persuasion. ‘Cause I’m increasingly drawn to its elegiac tone. (there is a posturing here)
Allegra (feels and sees this and slams down coffee cup) – Don’t think I’m doing the book club.
Jocleyn (picks up hers): – You’re doing it. You lead one discussion. Pick a book.
Allegra: Well, I just saw Sense and Sensibility, and I think, since I’m back living with my mom, I really get that whole two-women, tight-relationship, living-together- but-really-opposites thing. POV Jocelyn eating donut
Jocelyn: Is it weird living back at home again?
Prudie (interrupting teacher-like): I think what Austen is actually writing about is two sisters, moving separately toward what they each believe to be a perfect love.
Allegra: Okay, but the point is Marianne and Elinor’s relationship…
Prudie: Maybe if you’d read the book instead of watching the movie…
Allegra: No, don’t make her do Northanger. I mean, first you’re going off to all these dances, and then suddenly it’s sort of like Nightmare on Northanger Abbey Street. Prudie making faces
Prudie: I’m afraid this isn’t the book club that I had in mind. (Clash of tone of mind) I mean, I find when someone in the group feels superior to the author, it just… It sets the wrong tone.
Never read anything by Jane Austen before. (Dumps huge book on table)
Jocelyn looks, Allegra,
Bernie (horrified) What is it? (Prudie to the side)
Grigg: Well, I went to the bookstore to buy a copy of each one of the novels, and I saw this. And I thought, “Well, maybe they’re all sequels.” So, I figured it might be a good idea to keep them all together in one book, in case I needed to refer back. (holding book up to show binder and row of titles, points) Is this the order that we read them in?
Grigg: Great. All right. – Emma. Starting in the middle. (he is far more enthusiastic than they … ) (This scene in the Swicord’s script and movie is a sum up and transference of scattered explanatory passages throughout Fowler’s book.)
The group is on porch, discussing Emma, with Allegra having begun, talking from the swing seat:
Allegra: Where’s the heat between Emma and Mr. Knightley? There’s no animal passion.
Beautiful far shot of group around book on porch fall
Allegra: Look at Frank Churchill and Miss Fairfax.
Back to close view of Allegra:You can tell they’re really in love because they behave so badly.
Sylvia uncorking bottle, looks dubious: And that’s good? (Jocelyn next to her)
Allegra shrugs slightly: Emma and Mr. Knightley, you just never feel the sex.
Camera on Grigg looking startled ….
Bernie first voice-over and then with knitting needles: Still, I think Mr. Knightley’s very yummy. Don’t you? He may be my favorite of all the Austen men.
Prudie next to Bernie: (italics for foreign language): Sans passion I’amour n’est rien.
Sylvia turns to smile at Jocelyn:
Camera back on Prudie: — That’s not Jane’s theme, is it?
Jocelyn in camera to Sylvia mouthing: – Jane?
Allegra: That’s cozy.
Bernie looks admonitory
Camera back to undercertain and then firmly squarish Prudie:
What … what we’re meant to see is not the lack of passion so much as the control of it, and the not giving in.
Camera on Bernie knitting at an angle: Apres moi, le deluge.
All giggle and camera on Sylvia and Jocelyn
Bernie leaning conciliatory: But Prudie’s right, it is in all the novels.
Camera on Grigg beginning to say something when Bernie interjects:
Bernie: Sense and Sensibility, obviously. (far shot with Pruide) Oh, and then there’s Maria’s infidelity in Mansfield Park.
Camera on Sylvia looking up:
Sylvia upset voice: I forgot there’s infidelity in Mansfield Park. (same wine glass from previous scene
Jocelyn (camera on her: Austen’s all about keeping it zipped.
Grigg at last has something to say: Yeah, but isn’t physical attraction one of the ungovernable forces? (quick shots of Bernie and Prudie from far; we see Jocelyn on other side of Grigg). You know, like gravity. That’s what we like about it. You know, downhill, release the brakes, loosen your grip, and… (whooofff …)
Partial shots of all of them there.
Allegra: Yeah. Love makes people crazy.
Sylvia (hesitating) camera on her – It does not excuse bad behavior.
Bernie nodding wisely (shot captures them all again) – I agree. And Mr. Knightley is violently in love. “Violently!” His word. And yet, he’s never anything but a gentleman.
Allegra: – Yeah, a gentleman who scolds people.
Grigg getting up and walking away: Well, not everyone. You know, just Emma, just the woman that he loves.
Prudie caught as monumental: C’est vrai. C’est typique.
By mistake as Grigg backs off we see him almost fall into Jocelyn’s lap and come off
Prudie: A man can do whatever he likes to the woman he loves.
Jocelyn close up (with glasses): I don’t think that’s what Austen’s saying.
Far shot showing them all with Sylvia doing something for Grigg
Jocelyn close up: Actually, Emma stops being crazy when she falls for Mr. Knightley. It’s the event of the book. Love is an act of sanity.
Bernie knitting away
Grigg begins as voice-over: One thing that I noticed about Emma is the sense of menace.
Camera then captures Sylvia sitting by Grigg’s side:
Grigg: The gypsies, Jane Fairfax’s boating accident, Mr. Woodhouse’s worries.
Prudie intervenes with condescension: Austen’s entire thesis is that none of these things are real, Grigg.
Photograph of Grigg and Sylvia listening
Prudie: I mean, Emma, she acts on the basis of her fantasies (her hand over her neck)
Allegra making fun: Yes, Grigg, I’m afraid you’ve just entirely missed the point.
Prudie looks a little disconcerted:
Jocelyn: You know, I’ve read that the Emma plot, the humbling of the pretty, know-it-all girl is the most popular plot of all time.
Allegra looks alert.
Bernie (wry and knitting): Yes, universally satisfying.
Allegra: Okay. Well, what bothered me was how Emma kept forcing her friend Harriet on Mr. Elton. And then she finds out who Harriet’s father is, and suddenly, “Ew!” She’s lucky to get the farmer. (back and forth for shots from far
Prudie (square one shot): I think Jane was being ironic there. I think some readers might miss that.
Allegra: – Emma’s a snob.
Jocelyn: – Please. (Now Grigg near Jocelyn who is higher up in frame) People are instinctively drawn to partners who are their near equal in looks. The pretty marry the pretty, the ugly the ugly. To the detriment of the breed, in my opinion.
Grigg laughing
Bernie looking up God, you’re such an Emma. Isn’t she? You’d love to pair up the whole world, from dogs to people.
Sylvia looking down. Put me together with Daniel
Sylvia: Austen has a way of making you forget that most marriages end in divorce.
Bernie: Well, she’s all about the weddings, Jane.
Jocelyn: Yeah, “Jane.” Did you catch that?
Sylvia: Oh, Prudie?
Jocelyn (mocking deep voice): “Jane and I, we know our themes.”
Allegra: And why did she have to speak in French?
Jocleyn: And if so, couldn’t she do it in France, where it’s less noticeable?
Bernie I feel for Prudie. She’s married to a complete Neanderthal. (In Fowler’s novel Emma is the first novel discussed, in March, and this dialogue is found across several conversation pieces, pp 14-15, 20-21, 28-29, 32-33, with some direct transferences and some differences in what is said & emphasized, very clear in the book how what is said comes of out a character too; all 3 interspersed with pasts of the characters and the present story lines, plus a feminist consciousness raising group where girls discussed experiences of rape.)
Continued in comments:
Mansfield Park: Sylvia passionately defends Fanny Price:
The play rehearsed in Prudie’s school is a mirror of Mansfield Park and Lovers Vows; and Prudie and Trey rehearse love scenes together; but Prudie going for Trey a twisted mirror of Persuasion (she’s looking for another mate, a false second chance). She almost goes to bed with Trey, so she stands in as modern instances of both Fanny Price and Maria Bertram.
Northanger Abbey: Provoking anxiety disquiets Sylvia
Mysteries of Udolpho in effect defended
Pride and Prejudice: again Grigg and Sylvia
Sense and Sensibility, The whole group, intense subtext between Grigg and Jocelyn, as they argue over their relationship through the book:
Persuasion: on the beach, Grigg’s sister first thought his girlfriend, an analogy for Eleanor Tilney and reader of Jane Austen; Sylvia’s husband wants to return and talks with Bernadette
Most moving is the reconciliation of Dean and Prudie in bed — he simply reading the whole of the novel all night.
As movie moves to final gathering in elegant clothes at dinner, no surprise Patrick O’Brien novels will be coming next, all 20 of them.
I omit the characterization of the characters as comments on the books and themes as that is done in all the appropriations. The interwined general stance of the conversations in book and film seems to be how much in the books can be transferred to readers’ lives and how readers use them to think about their lives.
But the emphasis in the book is on the characters and their stories and the comments on Austen are more general, not tied to the stories in the way of the movie. Further in the book there is a considerable difference about what’s said about Mansfield Park; Fowler does not care for Mansfield Park or Northanger Abbey and this is disguised in the film by having the conversations so rooted in the characters’ personalities or lives. She also has little overt discussion of P&P and Persuasion — they are paralleled by events. The script has far more direct commentary on Austen’s novels than Fowler’s novel, which is more indirect and you are allowed far more complicated story and switches back and forth in time. But both move back and forth: the script moves forward with occasional flashbacks to time that is not so long ago, but there is a constant intertwining of juxtapositions and montage — reminiscent of Howtidi’s Death Comes to Pemberley; the novel is an multi-level intertwining of different times and kinds of texts.
I found also that both the movie and book presented contemporary and insightful readings of Austen’s books indirectly. Some of these reveal how far we’ve come today from Austen’s point of view, and how much we can see in her books she does not appear to have been conscious of. Many of the readings and commentaries are far more satisfying than academic literary criticism because less disingenuous.
Ellen
Reveries Under the Sign of Austen, Two 
Sylvia removing something from oven. MP is the third book read in the novel and Prudie leads the conversation; May, p. 81)
Northanger Abbey; it is the fourth novel in Fowler’s book, and they gather at Grigg’s in June, p 119, with a lot of talk about Mysteries of Udolpho as in the movie — movie close to book at times)
House all swathed in sheets, dark night, the group enters to tempest and gothic sounds
Two in restaurant:
Sylvia; I’m trying to diet. My husband is bringing a date to my fundraiser.
Grigg looks up at waiter puzzled
Sylvia: Yeah, re-reading Pride and Prejudice again, I keep thinking, “You know, courtship is easy.” – Where’s Austen’s novel on divorce?
Grigg: – I wouldn’t say it was easy. Depends who you’re courting, I guess. – Does Jocelyn ever go out with anyone? …
Two in car arguing about merits of characters in science fiction versus in Jane Austen:
Grigg: Okay, so Elizabeth Bennet is real and people in science fiction aren’t. Is that it?
Jocelyn: Science fiction books have people in them, but they’re not about the people. Real people are complicated.
Pride and Prejudice: the fifth novel read in Fowler’s book and Bernadette central, July, p 157
Prudie: starting as an overvoice from Scene 82: For such a famously romantic story, Pride and Prejudice is a parade of bizarre marriages.
Bernie: I’ve had every marriage in this book. (Camera now on them all at table) My first husband was a politician. He was embarrassed by every move I made. (Allegra looks sour). He said I was rude and loud. “Stop pointing your breasts everywhere,” he’d say to me. I was 17. I was Charlotte Lucas. I married the first man who looked at me.
Prudie: Tout le monde est sage apres le coup.
Bernie: hmmm.
Dean looking.
Prudie: You don’t see your own marriage until it’s too late.
Bernie looks at Dean who gets it and looks away.
Allegra: So, um… I actually thought that Charlotte Lucas was gay.
Sylvia looks exasperated, Bernie looks down, Prudie a bit stunned?
Allegra; Really, I think that when she tells Lizzie she’s not as romantic as she is, I think that’s what she means.
Prudie: Charlotte Lucas is not gay. She’s not. She just… She just has no options.
Sylvia (pointed): Wait. Austen meant Charlotte to be gay or Charlotte is gay and Austen is not aware of it?
Allegra eating strawberry looks delighted.
Further shot includes Bernie.
Bernie: I just love the idea of a character having a secret life that the author doesn’t even know about.
Sylvia: You know, frankly, I kind of admire Charlotte for looking at her situation and deciding to marry Mr. Collins. (Bernie makes a face) I mean, yes, yes, she knows he’ll never be the “love of her life,” but that’s okay. (As she says this, we see Jocelyn come in tired, and Grigg behind walking in.) That is exactly the reason that Jocelyn would hate her. Jocelyn has contempt for anyone who settles for anything less than the perfect love. You know, it’s probably why Jocelyn has never married.
Jocelyn’s hand on Sylvia’s shoulder makes Sylvia jump.
Jocelyn: My apologies, everybody.
From one of women: – Hello. – Hi.
They sit down on either side of Bernie:
Sylvia sitting: We ran out of donut grease. (? — surely Jocelyn says this.)
Grigg puts hand out. (The men come across better in this scene.) – Grigg Harris.
Dean: Oh, Dean Drummond. – Wait, Grigg… Grigg from the book club?
Prudie: You’ll notice that Jane, she never shows what happens after the wedding. Maybe Elizabeth and Darcy start hating each other. (Camera glancing over others as Prudie talks and back to Prudie too.) Maybe Lizzie went off to Pemberley, and she turned into this crazy person, like her mom, because our mothers are like time bombs. They just… They tick away inside of us.
Sylvia teacherly: Let’s not give Mrs. Bennet more importance than she deserves.
Prudie banging on her ice
Grigg: – You know, I mean, what about the father?
Prudie (not listening) – What father? You know, my mom showed me a picture of a guy in uniform. Well, maybe she made him up. Or maybe she bought it at a garage sale. And I kept it in my room, this… I kept it in my room.
Bernie grave, Allegra uncomfortable, Jocelyn holds her chest.
Dean leaning over his arm around her, whispers (far shot): Let’s not do this now, okay?
Prudie gets up and off to bathroom, he follows but Allegra too and gets there first, as door slams.
Allegra: Dean, I got it.
Bernie whisper to Sylvia& Jocelyn (?): I’m worried about her, I should drive her home. (We see them in car in later juxtaposition.) (Now in the movie, the characters turn away and imagine a sequel; the situation at the dinner made to mirror P&P, while in the book Fowler again resorts to a quotation but not from Austen rather a historical explanation of dances at a ball, p 158, what is happening and Bernadette’s life provides parallels to P&P, contemporary descriptions of country dancing, p 165, pp 174-75, 182, 191-92; finally talk of Charlotte reflected and transferred above, pp 170-71; Grigg and Jocelyn’s fight in the car includes talk above and parallels again made with P&P, pp 173-4, Sylvia’s anger at Allegra dumping Corinne, p 180; talk with outsider who thinks Austen wrote National Velvet; Prudie’s first French quotation, p 185, all interspersed with Bernadette’s life and parallels), ends on summary of ending of P&P and ad for mysteries [feels bitter this], p 200)
Sense and Sensibility, in the movie the characters discuss S&S while Allegra (allusion to Marianne here) in hospital: in the book S&S is the second book the characters discuss, but also with Allegra in April):
Overvoice from previous scene links in, it turns out to be Allegra: Austen sets up this juicy triangle between Elinor, Edward and Lucy Steele. And then at the end, she practically has to whip a rabbit out of a hat to make Lucy Steele run off with Edward’s brother?
Grigg (loud sitting near Allegra) – Yeah, that requires some hand-waving.
Jocleyn looking down at book with eye-glasses: – I think the ending’s well-plotted.
Grigg (far shot) To me, the part that seems forced is Marianne ending up with Colonel Brandon. – Anyone else feel that?
Quick shot of Jocelyn and then onto
Bernie doing something with something around Prudie’s neck (turns out to be she’s showing her how to knit: Bernie: – Oh, I have no problem with that. He rides up on a big stallion, sweeps her into his arms. I’m there.
Again Grigg objects (it’s his own feelings coming out as well as a man’s reaction): From the time Colonel Brandon meets Marianne,he just lavishes all this attention on her. And meanwhile, she’s throwing herself at Willoughby.
Allegra seen from the side: Willoughby is a player.
Grigg: Women never go for the nice guy.
Jocelyn: Please. Men say that, but you get to know some of these men who complain the most, you find out they’re not as nice as they like to think they are. (deep looks down)
Sylvia surveys them, then far shot:
Sylvia: Okay. You know what struck me?
Is that Colonel Brandon is only a few years younger than Mrs. Dashwood. Well, why does he take up with the daughter and not the mother?
Bernie with roll: Yeah, why not Mrs. Dashwood?
Grigg taking one (Jocelyn seen looking on sullen): Maybe Mrs. Dashwood won’t give him the time of day.
Everyone is realizing the subtext
Allegra (quietly): – The book is about the young people.
Sylvia: – Yeah, because Jane Austen thinks that nothing interesting can happen to a woman over 25.
Prudie (talking meditatively) When actually, a novel about a woman seducing a slightly younger man just yields so much more.
Bernie looks up at her
Sylvia (laughing) oh, Well, then maybe Mrs. Dashwood should go for Willoughby.
Prudie (slightly belligerent) Why not? (Pause) It’s a long, hot summer.
Bernie (new subtext to Prudie, taking off her glasses): Maybe Mrs. Dashwood has more sense than that.
Allegra: Okay, can I just point out, she’s hardly in the story.
Jocelyn: Sex is messy. Maybe Mrs. Dashwood prefers a more well-ordered life. (refers to herself)
Grigg (licking his fingers): Maybe that’s why she’s such a minor character.
Jocleyn more gently: – I think if you read Austen’s novels…
Grigg (deep voice, some resentfulness coming out, sudden concise tone) – Oh, I have. You wanted me to, and I did.
Jocelyn: I think you’ll see she always writes in favor of order and self-control. – Nothing unwise.
Allegra intervenes: – Nothing in haste.
Grigg: Okay, so, this is… This is (holds up his copy) what, this is a rulebook?
Bernie: We could do worse.
Grigg: I think Jane Austen wrote about women falling in love because she was lonely.
Jocelyn (roundly); Oh, you couldn’t be more wrong. Austen lived a very full life. (Camera on Grigg) She could’ve gotten married anytime.
Bernie: – She almost did.
Jocleyn: – That’s right. – But she decided not to.
Grigg; – Why, too messy? Too out of control?
Camera goes round to them all watching the two and listening and knowing
Prudie speaks: His name was Harris Bigg-Wither, and they were engaged for one night.
Allegra (laughing at name): “Oh, Harris Bigg-Wither!” I can’t believe you know that.
Grigg: I understand why Colonel Brandon goes for Marianne. And it’s not ’cause she’s young. (pointed at Sylvia) It’s because she’s generous (accent heavy) with herself. She’s willing to risk her heart. No rules, no fear.
Jocleyn whispers: – And Willoughby tramples her.
Grigg answers: – She just picked the wrong guy.
Prudie looking out: No rules, no fear. (soft) I like that.
Jocelyn gets up annoyed, Grigg watching her … (Again in Fowler’s book some of this is there; there is more distance as it’s late in the book and the characters more inter-involved, pp 43, 46-7, 48-51, 5-58, some of it called “Austen-bashing,” Willoughby more concentrated on, complaints about the ending; an ironic book, not JA’s fault “love went bad,” the interspersed story in the book is Corinne and Allegra. What is not in JA; ends on some publication devastations for Austen, pp. 43 & 77.)
On the beach with Persuasion, August, end up in Sylvia’s house:
Daniel: Oh, come on, this is my favorite Austen. So far. (He makes the pages whizz and addresses Sylvia) It’s all about mistakes and second chances.
Sylvia retreats physically, tries to look smaller
Sylvia (without looking at him): Yeah, you can stay.
Scenes at homes:
Prudie: Would you do me a favor? Would you read this? Please. Right now.
He’s actually at his desk watching on his computer, swivel chair
Dean: Isn’t that what your special little book club’s for?
Prudie: I really want you to read it. (close to tears, yet another paperback edition) Please, Dean.
He sighs, opens, it has her notes on yellow pages – “Sir Walter Eliot…
Dean: – Prudie.
“…of Kellynch Hall in Somersetshire was a man who… “for his own amusement, never took up any book but the…”
Dean: Emits a “no” and Come on, you’re really not gonna read all of this out loud. He moves forward, giving in: One page.
Prudie nods head: “There he found occupation for an idle hour “and consolation in a distressed one.” He puts hand on his hair, she on his head and he hears those words
Back to beach:
Overvoice of Daniel (as we see Grigg with dogs on rocks, and Allegra, Samantha and Sylvia walking along) – So I’ve been trying to figure out that moment in Persuasion when Wentworth and Anne just began (camera shows he is talking to Bernie who is nodding wisely) to stop hating each other.
Bernie: Hmmm. Maybe it’s when they went with everyone to Lyme. After Louisa Musgrove fell. After Wentworth used her to make Anne jealous.
Daniel: You think he was using Louisa?
Bernie: Yeah. That’s one interpretation.
Daniel rocks slightly looking away: – I think the guy was just trying to feel… –
Bernie: Valued again.
Daniel: It was a bonehead move. I mean, he knows he’s nothing without Anne. He loved her then, he loves her now. (POV on Sylvia with daughters, very moving as we know he is talking of himself)
Bernie gets his attention: I like how Austen always lets the men explain themselves. Darcy writes a letter to Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, and Frank writes to Emma.
Daniel: Yeah, in Persuasion, everything hangs on Wentworth leaving her that note – when everybody’s talking all around them.
Bernie: – Yeah. Yeah. Sneaky.
They laugh
Daniel: Nay, smart guy. Perfect timing.
Bernie: Yeah. Let us never underestimate the power of a well-written letter. (we hear sea gulls, dogs …
Grigg: I’m gonna miss this.
Back home with Prudie and Dean in bed:
Overvoice Dean: “All of the ladies were contented to pass quietly and carefully down the steep flight
INT SCENE 100: Dean and Prudie’s house in their bedroom
Dean reading aloud, his elbow holding up his head, Prudie laying there a ilttle higher looking triumphant: “excepting Louisa. “She must be jumped down them by Captain Wentworth. “She was safely down and instantly, to show her enjoyment, “ran up the steps to be jumped down again.
“He advised her against it, but no…” (his voice lost, fades as woman singing gets louder) (In Fowler’s book, what talk there is occurs on the beach, directly and comments relating to Persuasion; “why should unhappiness be so much more powerful than happiness,” p 228 or how it’s about “earning your place,” p 236, scattered comments on all the novels, pp 234-35, 238, “Is Anne Elliot really the best heroine Austen ever created?, p 243; we hear more history of Sylvia, Allegra’s fall linked to Louisa’s, “making a big deal out of nothing,” she “gashed her head,” Sylvia is “too subdued, too reticent” &c&c; here and there the narrator comments on Persuasion, p 217 — the death of Richard Musgrave. There is little direct discussion.)
End scene of group elegantly dressed, all the men and women together in couples:
Voice-over turns into Grigg and camera on Grigg: Hey, has anyone read those Patrick O’Brian novels?
Daniel: – British Navy.
Grigg: – Yeah. Jane Austen’s navy, 1805.
Allegra: Yeah. But aren’t there, like, 20 of them?
Grigg (soft voice) – There’s more of us now.
Ellen, I see you’ve been writing about The Jane Austen Book Club movie – did you ever see the article I wrote in Jane Austen’s Regency World Magazine about my visit to the set when it was filming? Since the article was published in 2007 I don’t think it’s digitalized and online, but some nice people have put it onto their blog site, and I think it can be read off there.
http://becomingjane.blogspot.com/2007/08/jane-austen-book-club.html
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I saw the article. If Diana has an attachment of that or anyone knows if it may be found on-line I’d be grateful for the full article. I thought it full of good information about the movie making itself at the time. I regret not having saved the newsletter.
Jane Wettstone: “I just rewatched this movie. Appreciate this post. Love this movie.”
Sarah M. Fredericks: “I loved this movie. Happy to say that my husband has read P & P and Persuasion.”
Book ends with a retrospective epilogue in which everyone is more or less themselves and okay enough; summary of 6 book’s stories, and then after a selection of Austen’s gathering of opinions, Fowler gathers remarks from famous critics and Austenite ones. There are footnotes and a set of questions submitted by each club member.
A curious book, endlessly self- and Austen-reflective.