I’m on a Jane Austen email loop, and a few weeks ago someone posted this great JA quiz from BBC Mastermind. Since I know many Regency fans are also Janeites like myself, I thought this might be a fun way to celebrate Friday! I’ll post answers in a couple of days. (Note: I’m a dedicated Janeite, and couldn’t answer all of them)
1) Which is JA’s heroine’s had lived in the world for 21 years with little to distress or vex her?
2) Name Mr. Rushworth’s country house.
3) Which card game did Mrs. Jennings arrange for old friends while Marianne awaited word from Willoughby.
4) What was the maiden name of Mrs. Norris, Mrs. Price, and Lady Bertram?
5) Which bone did little Charles dislocate allowing Anne to avoid meeting Captain Wentworth?
6) Which manufacturer made the mysterious piano sent to Jane Fairfax?
7) What was the name of Col. Brandon’s ward over whose seduction he fought a duel with Willoughby?
8) Which of JA”s heroine’s prefers cricket to books, particularly books of information?
9) Which play does Tom Bertram 5 times propose to put on before agreeing to Lover’s Vows?
10) Which material does Mr. Tilney claim to be an authority on?
11) What does Edward Ferrars say he takes more pleasure in than a watchtower?
12) To what does Sir Walter Elliot attribute Anne’s improved compexion, claiming it has done away with Mrs. Clay’s freckles?
13) At the Box Hill picnic, which 2 letters of the alphabet did Mr. Weston claim were the most perfect?
14) In which town did Mrs. Bennet’s sister Mrs. Phillips live?
15) In which frigate, captained by Frederick Wentworth, had Richard Musgrove served?
16) In what capacity did Wickham’s father serve old Mr. Darcy?
As my own bonus question–which JA heroine do you think you most resemble? (A long time ago, I took a quiz on this topic, too. It was lots of fun, but alas now I can’t find it! The quiz said I’m most like Marianne Dashwood. So watch out if I take it into my head to give a dramatic reading at the Beau Monde soiree next summer!)
Sometimes as a parent, I need to read books like this one: Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls by Rachel Simmons, which addresses the covert bullying many girls partake in lieu of more overt, physical bullying which is more common in boys. Simmons explains that in many segments of our society where girls are still expected to be “nice” (while boys are encouraged to be competitive), girls do not develop healthy ways to be competitive or healthy and straightforward strategies for resolving conflicts. Instead, they develop alternative forms of aggression: manipulative “friendships”, shunning, gossip, etc.., often carried out under a veneer of “niceness”.
Although many of the cases described are saddening, Simmons doesn’t demonize the aggressors, pointing out that roles often change and that the aggressors’ behavior is rooted in insecurity and the fear of being excluded themselves. There is a high price paid by those who are part of the “in” clique.
On a personal level, I found Simmons’s insights useful, along with some of her suggestions for parents and schools. It also shed some light on behaviors I’ve seen in adult groups that are predominantly female. Not everyone outgrows this stuff.
As a writer, I also found the book interesting in light of fiction and character development.
Diane’s recent post, Mansfield Park Revisited had me thinking about how Jane Austen depicted alternative female aggression in her books. Clearly, it’s not a new phenomenon. Ladies of the gentry and aristocracy were certainly expected to be “nice” so alternative aggression likely flourished. One can see it in the relationship between Caroline Bingley and Jane Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, in the friendship of Catherine and Isabella in Northanger Abbey and definitely between Fanny and Mary in Mansfield Park.
Here’s an image from the infamous scene with lesbian undertones in the 1999 version of Mansfield Park. Although I’ll agree with critics that I never saw anything like that in the book, it does fit in with the model of manipulation, the pressure for the victim to tolerate behavior that makes her uncomfortable, with the underlying threat of loss of friendship.
My second full length Regency romance, The Incorrigible Lady Catherine, was the beginning of my “Three Disgraces” trilogy with heroines who met at boarding school and who, for various reasons, didn’t fit in and formed their own defensive alliance. So I’ve played with this issue before in my writing, although at the time of writing, I certainly didn’t understand the aggressors as well as Jane Austen must have.
Have you read other books, romance or not, where the concept of alternative aggression was used effectively?
To celebrate the recent release of The Incorrigible Lady Catherine in paperback, I’ll give away one copy to a random commenter. Comment by next Thursday (1/17) and I will announce the winner on Friday (1/18).
Last week was shoe-shopping; this week my activities were more nature-oriented: a hike (in more practical shoes) at the nearby Waterman Nature Center and reading my latest research find, A Selborne Year: ‘The Naturalist’s Journal’ for 1784. It’s one annual installment of the journal kept for 26 years by Gilbert White, curate, gardener and naturalist, who lived in Selborne, a village in Hampshire not far from where I am setting my current work-in-progress. The edition I own has lovely illustrations by Nichola Armstrong.
I like incorporating glimpses of nature and seasonal details into my writing. So A Selbourne Year is a positive treasure-trove. Here are some typical entries:
Apr 3. Rain. The ever-green trees are not injured, as about London. The crocus’s are full blown, & would make a fine show, if the sun would shine warm. (On this day a nightingale was heard at Bramshott!)
July 10. Grey, & pleasant. Gale, sun. The hops damaged by the hail begin to fill their poles. Thatched my hay-rick. Cherries very fine. Grapes begin to set: vine leaves turn brown. The young cuckow gets fledge; & grows bigger than it’s nest. It is very pugnacious. Cool.
This is just the sort of detail I love!
I find it interesting that Jane Austen had so little detail about the English countryside; perhaps she expected her audience to be too familiar with the subject to find it interesting. But it goes along with the general lack of descriptions in her books (we only know Elizabeth Bennett has “fine eyes” for instance, but her hair and eye color are left to the imagination). No matter; Austen’s characterization and dialogue are brilliant enough to stand on their own.
It is possible to go to the opposite extreme, I suppose. Friends and I were discussing Tolkien over beer (I love having friends with whom I can discuss Tolkien over beer!) and one said his descriptions of various imaginary settings went on too long. Those long descriptions always worked for me, though, because I like to visualize settings as I read. Tolkien’s description of Ithilien made me yearn to go there, although I would settle for the New Zealand film locations.
In my own writing, I try to strike a balance. I know too much description wearies some readers so I use it in service of the characters and the story. In my current mess-in-progress, the hero has spent much of his life in India and war-torn Spain and Portugal; a green and fertile England holds a special meaning for him. However, he may just enjoy hearing a bird sing; my heroine, the daughter of a naturalist much like Gilbert White, will know if it’s a lark or a thrush.
How much descriptive detail do you like in stories?
I’m absolutely the worst self promoter in the world because Hidden Paradise has now been available on amazon for two days and I somehow missed my own release date (which for the rest of the world may be September 25 or October 1). So today it’s all about the book. First, here’s the booktrailer in which I make my debut as a porn voiceover star:
This was made on iMovie which comes with the standard Mac bundle of software and it’s an extremely nifty little program. All sorts of visual effects and you can fade music in and out and I recorded the voiceover with the puter’s inbuilt mic when the guys next door weren’t using their power tools.
10. There’s stuff about Jane Austen in it. Really. (As well as the sex.)
9. There’s a lot of stuff about paint analysis (well, it floats my boat).
8. People dress up in Regency clothes (and have sex).
7. They eat authentic Regency food (and have sex of no particular historical period).
6. There’s horseback riding and boxing (and … you know).
5. Also country dancing (and, you guessed it).
4. Glimpses of downstairs life among the team of hot footmen (no, not like that, though probably it should have been, but you do get that elsewhere).
3. It’s funny sometimes (even during the sex. Did we mention the sex yet? Oh yes, we did).
2. And sometimes it’s sad (by the way, did I tell you that…)
1. Because you know you want it real bad.
And now the contest: I’m giving away two signed copies (US only) if you enter with a coherent sentence about … just about anything, and I’ll pick names and announce on Sunday. So if you’re not planning to visit on Sunday, leave an emasculated version of your email, eg riskies at yahoodotcom so I can contact you. Usual restrictions apply.
Welcome to our new home! We expect our new home to be ever more comfortable. I watch a lot of HGTV – House Hunters, Property Virgins, Property Brothers, Love It or List It – so I see lots of new homes. Let me assure you, the Riskies have moved in to space that is more “open concept” and all of our appliances are stainless steel and our counters, granite….Or the Regency equivalent.
And who better to invite to our new home but Jane Austen, who will stay with us until her birthday December 16. In honor of Jane, we thought we would each take turns discussing What Jane Austen Has Meant to Me.
There will be prizes – including a grand prize of a $50 Amazon gift card! My prize today is the British Library Writers Lives edition of Jane Austen by Deirdre Le Faye. Eventually we will be using Rafflecopter for giveaways, but I don’t quite know how yet, so I’ll randomly choose a winner from the comments on this blog.
I’ve mentioned before that I came late to loving the Regency, not until I started writing in 1995. I’d read Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility in some English class along the way, but it wasn’t until my writing pals Helen and Julie introduced me to Georgette Heyer and Regency Romance (the Signets and Zebras) that I began to really fall in love with the Regency.
One event clinched it.
Helen, Julie, and I went to see the 1995 Amanda Root/Ciaran Hinds movie Persuasion, which had been a BBC TV production in the UK but released in theaters in the US. It was this movie adaptation of a Jane Austen book I’d never read that made the Regency come alive for me.
From the country house of the Elliots to the chic rooms in Bath to the simple seaside abode of the Harviles, the Regency world the move depicted seemed so real to me. Maybe it was because the whole movie was filmed on location, but, even so, the details were not prettied up for film. The livery of the Elliot footmen looked a bit shabby, as it would have for a baronet whose fortunes were dwindling. Skirts and boots got muddy during country walks, as they would have in a time without paved walkways. The dancing was boisterous but not polished and practices, as professional dancers would have performed. The hero and heroine were attractive but not “beautiful people.”
The Regency people in the story also acted in ways I believed were true to the period. The emphasis on status, on honor and obligation seemed genuine to me. There were bored privileged young women, proud impoverished ones, scheming social climbers. There were also “normal” people, like the Musgroves and the Crofts. And Ann and Wentworth, of course.
Jane Austen may have been exploring the role of persuasion throughout the story, but she also crafted a lovely, satisfying romance, with familiar Romance themes. Persuasion is both a reunion story (Ann and Captain Wentworth were once betrothed) and a Cinderella story (Ann, the put-upon sister finds great love in the end). The conflict was poignant – Ann regretted breaking her betrothal to Wentworth; Wentworth remained bitter that she threw him off in order to seek better prospects.
There’s a lovely villain in Ann’s cousin, William Elliot, who becomes intent on courting her, and more complications ensue when Wentworth considers himself obligated to marry the injured Louisa Musgrove. The steps Ann and Wentworth each make to find their way back to each other are subtle, but very satisfying and very typical of romance novels of today.
After seeing the movie, I had a picture in my mind that was my Regency. I read Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice and all of Jane Austen’s books, even Lady Susan. The social attitudes from Jane Austen’s books seeped into my brain, as did the language, the rhythm of the conversation.
So you might say Jane Austen helped create my Regency world!
Have you seen this version of Persuasion? What do you think of it? Comment for a chance to win today’s contest.
Holiday Giveaway! And also remember to enter the Harlequin Historical Authors Holiday Giveaway. Today’s day is Sarah Mallory’s. For more details, go here.
