Don't you love the way Jane Austen's novels still inspire our modern perceptions of romance? Don't you just love Sandra Bullock and pre-botox Meg Ryan? I think our Jane would have approved of these two modern feisty, independent heroines. And the heroes are nothing to sneeze at either. Of the two choices this week, which film is the most romantically inspired by Jane Austen?
Lake House or
You've Got Mail? You decide. You tell us.
Most Romantic Jane Austen Inspired Film
The Lake House, loosely based on
PersuasionCaution: Hanky alert. This time travel movie is about second chances. As in
Persuasion, the two characters yearn and long for someone who is out of reach. It is 2004 and Alex, played by Keanu Reeves, arrives at his new lake house. He begins to communicate with Kate (Sandra Bullock), who lived in the house in 2006. Through an unexplained alchemy, Kate and Alex discover that the Lake House's mailbox acts as a time travel communication channel through which they can correspond. As they exchange letters they fall hard for each other. Kate recalls the exact day and time she lost
Persuasion on a commuter train. Using this information, she tries to meet Alex in real time. He finds the book but they miss each other by seconds. The final scene of this film is reminiscent of the pivotal scene in
Persuasion, where Captain Wentworth informs Anne by letter that she pierces his soul. The passage that Alex marks for Kate in Persuasion is one of my favorites: “…there could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved." The film suffers from a lapse in logic, as most time travel tales do, but the pairing of Bullock and Reeves is irresistible and wholly romantic.
You've Got Mail, loosely based on
Pride and Prejudice
I'll watch any film with Tom Hanks in it, even
Turner and Hooch. In
You've Got Mail he reteamed with Meg Ryan, playing the wily Mr. Fox to her feisty Kathleen. He is the owner/manager of a Barnes & Noble type chain store that opens just around the corner from a small book shop owned by Kathleen. She dislikes him on principle, knowing that these huge chain conglomerates put local book stores out of business. Joe in turn regards her as a shrill, royal pain in the arse. Though this engaging cinematic couple spar verbally whenever they meet, they unknowingly become email pals, where they express their true feelings and allow their personalities to shine. Kathleen has read
Pride and Prejudice about a hundred times and each time worries that Elizabeth and Darcy are not going to get together. In the end, all is right with the world and Elizabeth and Darcy once again get together, as do Joe and Kathleen. This movie is a remake of that wonderful 1940 classic,
The Shop Around the Corner. It also brought Ryan and Hanks together in multiple scenes, which
Sleepless in Seattle failed to do.
Update: I forgot to add the poll! Here it is:
Yes, this 1996 video is rather old, but it is of Gwynneth - Mrs. Chris Martin, mother of Apple and Moses, and editor of Goop! - who discusses Emma with Charlie Rose for41 minutes. She is joined by director Doug McGrath. 
17 days and counting until the release of Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict, the highly anticipated parallel novel to Laurie Viera Rigler's bestselling Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict. This time out we experience Jane Mansfield's story, a Regency Miss who takes a fall from her horse in 1813 England and wakes up in 2007 in the body of LA singleton Courtney Stone. Don't miss out on all the transitional hilarity as Jane must deal with iPods, TV and all sorts of modern contraptions! Pre-order your copy today to assure delivery on June 25th. Vic and Laurel Ann were honored with advance copies and can share that Rude Awakenings is fun and quirky and hilarious! 
The Lake House, loosely based on Persuasion
You've Got Mail, loosely based on Pride and Prejudice
The Grand Sophy will be reissued by SourceBooks in July. Look for our reviews and special promotions to celebrate this event. The novel is one of Heyer's best and the plot is full of fun twists and witty dialogue. When Lady Ombersley agrees to take in her young niece, she expects to meet a meek and well-mannered young girl, not the lively, well-traveled sophisticate who lands on her doorstep with a dog, birdcage, and monkey in tow. Sophy, who takes the ton by storm, quickly discovers that the Ombersley family is dysfunctional at best. Her cousin Cecelia is in love with a talentless poet, her other cousin Charles is a tyrannical stuffed shirt, and her younger cousins are in desperate need of some fun and freedom. By the end of the novel, Sophy has set everyone on the right path (well, sort of), including Charles, whose heart she has stolen.
Zombie infestations have reached our friends down under. The NZ Herald interviewed Seth Graham-Smith (at left), Jane's co-author of the recent bestseller, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Here are a few quotes from the newspaper's interview with the author. (Drat, we wish he'd answered our questions when we sent them in several months ago. He actually gives good interviews.)
How does he feel about writing a best seller? "Grahame-Smith is unrepentant. "I do feel like I did her a favour because becoming a zombie was probably not as poor a fate as being married to Mr Collins."
Read our reviews of the novel in the links below:
Enchanted Serenity of Period Films has an extensive update for readers interested in news on the upcoming BBC/WGBH production, the Cranford Christmas Special, to air in December 2009 in the UK. Dame Judi Dench returns as Miss Matty and is joined by many other prominent British actors. Let's hope it hits PBS also this year.
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J. D. Salinger is fighting back, according to this article in the Celebrity Cafe: "Unlike Jane Austen, who can’t be around to fight off the droves of copycat authors who mooch off her story to write spin-offs and sequels, J.D. Salinger is still around to fight for his book’s good name."
In another development, dashing Mr. Darcy and sweet Buttercup from Princess Bride, er, Colin Firth and Robin Wright Penn, were in Cannes promoting A Christmas Carol, a CGI film that stars Jim Carrey. Colin plays the role of Fred and Robin plays (I imagine) the fiancee Scrooge gave up for love of money.
You can read an excerpt from the new biography/cultural history Jane’s Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World online at theage.com. The new book written by award-winning biograper and Oxford and Columbia University Professor Claire Harman traces the growth of Jane Austen’s fame starting with her first experiences as an author to her rise in world wide popularity in the 1990’s. The article entitled, For the Love Austen, focuses how “the acknowledged mother of the genre” influenced the modern romance novel.
The main reason, however, for Austen's mass popularity is the one from which critics tend to avert their eyes: the love stories. The Mills & Boon formula of girl meets boy, both meet obstacles but come together triumphantly in the end, owes its neatness and directness to Austen and her streamlining of the romance plot she inherited.
We all enjoy Austen for different reasons, but romance is a big one. When men claim they read Playboy for the articles, women can counter and say they read Austen for the historical references to the Napoleonic wars! ;-)
Forget lippy Lizzie Bennett and mooning Marianne Dashwood; Persuasion's Anne Elliot is a complex, clever woman with a past who deserves a far more glorious place in the literary hall of fame. In her tentative, subtle and brilliantly funny journey back to the man she loved and lost eight years before, Anne gives us hope that love is not just for pretty teens; that second chances exist; and that ordinary lives really can be transformed by intelligence, independence and decency. Strike a blow for the quiet one in the corner and help crown Anne our romantic queen.
Gentle readers, As we announced in our previous post, Laurel Ann and I have been twittering away. As we explore ways to conduct tweetversations with our readers and each other we'd like to direct you to a few twitteriffic sites:
Vic and Laurel Ann are now Tweeting about Jane Austen on their respective blogs Jane Austen's World and Austenprose! Yes, it is official. They have moved one step further toward Austengeekdom, all in the name of technological progress and their favorite author. Now you can have all Austen, all the time, at all hours and from anywhere!
A collection at the University of Delaware offers descriptions of these two books:
