An Addiction To Austen (Although Alas, The Amount Of Alliteration Is Aboundingly Absent)

I just finished watching Emma. Not the really good one that everyone loves, not the Gywneth Paltrow/Jeremy Northam version that's good because it's funny. The new Masterpiece Theatre one with Romola Garai as Emma, Michael Gambon as Mr. Woodhouse, and the incredibly talented Blake Ritson as Mr. Elton. I sort of wish he could have been Mr. Knightley because I like him so much, but Blake Ritson is too young and too attractive to be Mr. Knightly. Jonny Lee Miller did a perfect job.

As you may have surmised, I know way too much about this movie, although this is mere superfluity, and you should see me on Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, which are probably tied at this point for my favorite movie. I used to really love Pride and Prejudice as THE number one on my list, but recently that's changed, and my new favorite book is Mansfield Park. A lot of people don't appreciate Mansfield Park as much as P&P or S&S, because they say that Fanny Price is an unbearable goody-two-shoes, or that she's insipid and has no personality. THESE ARE LIES because Fanny is not unbearable, although she is a goody-two-shoes. But I say that in a good way. I identify with Fanny Price. And she is not insipid, just shy, and she has plenty of personality. In fact, Fanny is supposed to have a great personality. It's just that nobody notices it except for William and Edmund.

But seriously, I am an Austen nut. And I know that SO MANY ENGLISH MAJORS become English majors because they love Jane Austen, or Shakespeare, or whoever it is they love, but I will say that while Austen may have gotten me started on the path to the English major, it was the Bronte sisters, Dickens, Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, L.M. Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott, and yes, even Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl, and Meg Murry who have kept me there.

I first read Pride and Prejudice when I was ten years old. I already had experience with difficult language, as I had been reading the KJV Bible (as published by the LDS church) and the Book of Mormon my entire life, and they use antiquated English. Because of this, I found Austen easy, even light reading compared to what I was reading with my family every night. I count this a blessing, because I was able to better understand the stories.

My tenth year was also the year that I began to dislike the race of men in general, but after reading Pride and Prejudice, I quickly found a few who remained in my imagination as the best of their sex. I had been reading about villainous Wickham, it was true, and Mr. Collins reminded me of every stupid boy in my fifth-grade class at the time, and Mr. Darcy was a little grumpy at first, but Charles Bingley seemed almost too good to be true. Mr. Bennet I liked, because he slighted his wife, and Mrs. Bennet annoyed me to no end because she was in every way the antithesis of my own mother.

I find it odd that there are no mothers in Jane Austen's world who are anything like mine. Mrs. Bennet is just... Mrs. Bennet, and Mrs. Dashwood is too emotional, like Marianne. Fanny's mother in M.F. is neurotic, and Lady Bertram, who is more of a mother to her, is also neurotic, but with the gentleness of having a nice husband and a big house and not living in Portsmouth with a drunken sailor husband. Emma's mother is dead, and so is Lady Elliott; Catherine Morland's mother is never around in Northanger Abbey but Mrs. Allen is kind of superficial and Mrs. Thorpe is very superficial. I SHOULD WRITE A PAPER ON THIS.

That paragraph was sort of a digression. My mother should feel honored that she's not being compared to any of them by me. My mother is alive, sensible, not melodramatic, and hard-working, and she only goes to the doctor when there's something REALLY wrong, not just because she has a slight cold or a sniffle. If you can't tell, I sort of love my mom a lot.

But anyway, I know a lot about these books and movies because my nine years of complete love and faith in only six books has kept me mostly sane. I mean, I knew girls who were like, OHMYGOSHINEEDABOYFRIEND in high school, even girls who went to my church and were "supposed" to be sort of "above" that kind of behavior. I kind of wonder if I would have been like that if it were not for Fitzwilliam Darcy, who existed as one of my several fictitious boyfriends during fifth and sixth grade, junior high, high school, and what I have completed of college. For those interested, here is a list:

Fitzwilliam Darcy
Edward Ferrars
Colonel Brandon
Edmund Bertram
William Price (who just really needs a woman because Jane Austen never gave him one)
George Knightley (but not John, because he's already married)
Captain Wentworth

But not Henry Tilney, because Northanger Abbey is my least favorite of Jane Austen's works. Partly because of John Thorpe, who I despise with a passion beyond any other Austen males, and partly because Catherine Morland is ridiculously stupid and partly because Henry Tilney is too smart for Catherine and he always makes jokes that she doesn't get and HOW CAN A SMART GUY LIKE HIM ACCEPT A STUPID GIRL LIKE CATHERINE. Maybe I just resent him for it. Fine, he's on the list too.

Henry Tilney
(and beginning the non-Austen boyfriends)
Edward Fairfax Rochester
Heathcliff
Gilbert Blythe
Kenneth Ford
Teddy Kent
Beverley King
John Brooke
Friedrich Bhaer
Theodore Lawrence
Calvin O'Keefe
The Wizard Howl
Thomas Schofield
James Tarleton
Domitan of Masbolle
Nawat Crow

And frankly, with the number of people on that list, I would probably have had more boyfriends than the loosest girls in my high school.

These men (although some of them wouldn't have existed in an Austen setting) are one of the reasons I probably should have been born in 1795. Another reason is that people DIDN'T DO STUPID THINGS unless they were STUPID. For example: Elizabeth Bennet spent time with  Wickham, became friends with him even, but she didn't, like make out with him and then regret it the next time she saw him, because in 1805 or whenever P&P is set, that would be one of the things that was Not Allowed. There were a lot of things that were Not Allowed in the early 1800's, such as being alone in a room with a member of the opposite gender, walking anywhere alone (unless you were male), drinking more than was appropriate, or public displays of affection. At least, these things weren't allowed among the upper middle class. But my point is, Elizabeth Bennet was smart, and she did nothing she would ever regret doing with Wickham, except perhaps believing him when he said that Darcy had victimized him. Lydia, on the other hand, was stupid, and she ran away with Wickham and got herself knocked up and had to get married, which is something that used to be looked down upon and frankly should still be looked down upon, and MTV isn't helping with that and the whole Sixteen and Pregnant thing. I've never seen that show and I never want to.

Overall, I would loved to have been born in an age when chivalry appeared in full force, minus the armor. I would read these books and think, "What happened to Darcy? Where are the men of integrity, like Edward Ferrars? What happened to men who are capable of thinking and thinking of others, like Edmund Bertram? Where are the patiently waiting men like Colonel Brandon? Where are the intelligent ones, like Mr. Knightley?

But then I remember that there are advantages to living in this day and age. Here, for your edification and amusement, is a list of fifteen things I like more about today than the world of Jane Austen

15) Naming my teddy bears Darcy Edmund Wentworth and Edward Ferrars Rochester (Darcy is purple and I have had him for eleven years. Edward is white and I have had him for fifteen years.)
14) More to read than histories, Shakespeare, and poems
13) Blogging
12) British television
11) Slightly more comfortable underwear
10) Cell phones
9) Indoor plumbing
8) Movies where I can watch men in breeches being chivalrous and imagine that they were all of them always like that all the time, instead of them probably being ordinary humans and disillusioning all my hopes and dreams
7) Paperback books
6) Washing my hair every day instead of every now and then
5) The Internet
4) Pants
3) Hugging boys, when they happen to be huggable and willing to hug
2) My religion
1) My family

These are all pretty good reasons to have been born in 1993, so I won't complain. Especially because I know that God wouldn't have put me right here exactly if he didn't have some reason for me to be right here exactly. Life is good, even if I do envy some girls their men in breeches. Like this guy. :D