Austenalia

I recently went on one of my Jane Austen jags. First, I watched all of the Austen-related DVDs I own (my collection is far from complete, but I'm working on it):

Pride and Prejudice (Jennifer Ehle)
Sense and Sensibility (Emma Thompson)
Emma (Kate Beckinsale)
Mansfield Park (Frances O'Connor)
Persuasion (Amanda Root)
Bride and Prejudice.

I identify the lead in each of the direct adaptations, because there have been multiple versions filmed of them - and one day I do intend to own all the more recent ones, at least, that can be found on DVD. I'll probably skip the 1940 Greer Garson Pride and Prejudice because it took so many liberties with both characters and plot.

Then I went back to the books. Most of them, anyway - Emma, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility. I ran out of steam before I got to Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice. Maybe later this year.

I must admit that I haven't read the juvenilia, or the unfinished works. I'm a fan, but not a scholar, I guess, in this instance. The novels are enough for me, at least for now.

I doubt that a year goes by in which I don't re-read at least one of Austen's books. And I know I'm not the only one who is absolutely captivated by Austen, whether it be for her complex and believable female characters, her sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle satirical view of the society she lived in, the window she creates into a world where women's fates depended on whether or not a man would marry her - and what kind of man he was, the choices and strategies of her heroines as they thread their way through the complex web of social conventions and strictures around them, or something else all together.

For me, it's all of these, and probably much more.

Jane Austen rocks.