Art Boy is out of town, leaving me all alone (come and get me, brigands!), so last night I kicked back with an enormous [vice redacted] and watched "Northanger Abbey" on Masterpiece Theatre -- or "Masterpiece," as it is now apparently called. Once Gillian Anderson's unbearably awkward introduction was out of the way, I rather enjoyed it. It's short (2 hours) and so necessarily a bit broad in its insights, but that's appropriate for Jane Austen's most melodramatic book. And I found it charmingly modern -- lots of sexual overtones and gothic-fantasy sequences.
This morning I dropped by the applicable Republic of Pemberley discussion board to see what people thought and found largely positive responses, although there are some detours to discuss grammatical issues raised by the dialogue and share a link to the somewhat inevitable Very Secret Diary of Henry Tilney. I am torn between being annoyed at the ongoing trendiness of Jane Austen, and charmed at the ongoing geekiness of the Internet.
Sebastian has interrupted me with a series of hideous sounds before I am able to bring this post to any kind of conclusion. Sorry, gang.
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7 comments:
Oh, I had meant to catch that one, because Northanger Abbey might be my favorite Austen novel. Sunday night soccer is messing up my PBS-watching schedule.
Did you know? The three main female characters in Wuthering Heights have the same names as the three in Northanger Abbey (unless I'm utterly wrong about Eleanor being Nellie's full name). When I brought that up in an English class in college, the prof said the Brontes were big Austen fans and might have chosen those names as an inside joke.
What a fantastic bit of trivia! I hope you got super mega points for spotting it. I love it.
They seem to be rerunning Northanger Abbey quite a bit, so maybe you'll get lucky.
I would like to second Sebastian's opinion on the increasing popularity of Jan Austen.
Hik, hik, ack!
I thought Masterpiece Theatre was only on Sunday nights. Do they show it more often now that it's all hip and has younger hosts and less syllables? If so, please don't tell Christy.
The magic of a DVR is being able to watch Masterpiece [Theatre or no] any day of the week!
I am distrustful of this so called "time shifting." It seems like one false move and we'll all be trapped in the world of Jane Austin forever! In fact, my father is probably working on just such a scheme at the moment... Sigh.
Vibes are still widely accepted. Especially by us who lived through the 90's.
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