Profound changes in attitudes to marriage, money, sex and social etiquette create an array of pitfalls for Austen updaters such as Joanna Trollope
Informality
To the fan of the original Sense and Sensibility, it is a little shock to be told that Austen's Mrs Dashwood has become "Belle" Dashwood in Joanna Trollope's newly published updating. A little later, we find that the modern version of Colonel Brandon is called "Bill". Naturally, these characters must be given the forenames that Austen never revealed. In this little matter we see the lost layers of formality on which the drama of Austen's dialogue depends. Marianne's sisters think that she must be engaged to Willoughby because he calls her by her first name. When everybody's first name is available to everybody (a man calls his mother-in-law "Abi"), how can surprising familiarity be signalled?
Engagement
The plot of Sense and Sensibility (1811 version) requires Edward...
Informality
To the fan of the original Sense and Sensibility, it is a little shock to be told that Austen's Mrs Dashwood has become "Belle" Dashwood in Joanna Trollope's newly published updating. A little later, we find that the modern version of Colonel Brandon is called "Bill". Naturally, these characters must be given the forenames that Austen never revealed. In this little matter we see the lost layers of formality on which the drama of Austen's dialogue depends. Marianne's sisters think that she must be engaged to Willoughby because he calls her by her first name. When everybody's first name is available to everybody (a man calls his mother-in-law "Abi"), how can surprising familiarity be signalled?
Engagement
The plot of Sense and Sensibility (1811 version) requires Edward...
- 11/2/2013
- by John Mullan
- The Guardian - Film News
Gwyneth Paltrow has been stealing literary thunder at a public event. How are plainer writers to take it back?
What's a jobbing author supposed to do when overwhelmed at a library book signing by the fragrant Gwyneth Paltrow? After an attempt to claim that she was an up-from-size-zero Gwynnie herself had failed, novelist Christina Oxenberg knew what to do: first waft "stinky steak sandwich" fumes in her direction, then take to one's blog to let off steam.
The signing in question, the ninth East Hampton Library Annual Authors Night fundraiser, had been hailed as New York's literary event of the summer and was crammed full of the great and good from literary circles including Robert Caro, Pulitzer prize-winning biographer of Lyndon Johnson, heavyweight economist Joseph Stiglitz and acclaimed New York novelist Jay McInerney.
All were eclipsed by Gwyneth's glow, and her crowds of fans, as she signed copies of It's...
What's a jobbing author supposed to do when overwhelmed at a library book signing by the fragrant Gwyneth Paltrow? After an attempt to claim that she was an up-from-size-zero Gwynnie herself had failed, novelist Christina Oxenberg knew what to do: first waft "stinky steak sandwich" fumes in her direction, then take to one's blog to let off steam.
The signing in question, the ninth East Hampton Library Annual Authors Night fundraiser, had been hailed as New York's literary event of the summer and was crammed full of the great and good from literary circles including Robert Caro, Pulitzer prize-winning biographer of Lyndon Johnson, heavyweight economist Joseph Stiglitz and acclaimed New York novelist Jay McInerney.
All were eclipsed by Gwyneth's glow, and her crowds of fans, as she signed copies of It's...
- 8/15/2013
- by Liz Bury
- The Guardian - Film News
More Dickens and even more Shakespeare, but also new novels from Toni Morrison, Hilary Mantel, Zadie Smith, plus exciting new voices – 2012's literary highlights
January
10 Charles Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood, starring Matthew Rhys and Tamzin Merchant, begins – and, unlike the book, ends – on BBC2.
13 Michael Morpurgo's much-loved children's novel War Horse, a long-running favourite at the National and on Broadway, gets the Hollywood treatment. A tearjerking saga about a young soldier and his horse – it was only a matter of time before it was Spielberged.
16 Ts Eliot prize. Despite withdrawals from the shortlist over objections to a hedge fund's sponsorship of the prize, the Eliot remains the UK's premier poetry award, and its eve-of-event reading is always a treat. This year's shortlist includes Daljit Nagra, Carol Ann Duffy and John Burnside.
20 Release of film of Coriolanus, an Orson Wellesian effort directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes,...
January
10 Charles Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood, starring Matthew Rhys and Tamzin Merchant, begins – and, unlike the book, ends – on BBC2.
13 Michael Morpurgo's much-loved children's novel War Horse, a long-running favourite at the National and on Broadway, gets the Hollywood treatment. A tearjerking saga about a young soldier and his horse – it was only a matter of time before it was Spielberged.
16 Ts Eliot prize. Despite withdrawals from the shortlist over objections to a hedge fund's sponsorship of the prize, the Eliot remains the UK's premier poetry award, and its eve-of-event reading is always a treat. This year's shortlist includes Daljit Nagra, Carol Ann Duffy and John Burnside.
20 Release of film of Coriolanus, an Orson Wellesian effort directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes,...
- 1/6/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
.An English village provides the severest test of .love thy neighbor... Author Joanna Trollope is a descendant of Victorian author Anthony Trollope. Not only did Ms. Trollope inherit her ancestor.s ability to tell a good story, she has a gift of characterization. Whether in print or on the screen, each of her people becomes real to readers and to audiences. As Anthony Trollope dealt with manners and customs of his time period, so Joanna Trollope tackles the problems of the modern age, but in microcosmic format, a village becomes the paradigm for the rest of the universe, as one person struggles with decisions that can mean personal growth, but with a price. In A Village Affair, the audience...
- 6/17/2009
- by June L.
- Monsters and Critics
After your favorable response to our first article on the subject, we decided to take another look at the (often) behind-the-scenes women who love and support the higher-profile women in their life.
Most of them are not yet as well known as Portia De Rossi (wife of Ellen DeGeneres) or Tammy Lynn Michaels (partner of Melissa Etheridge), but we thought you'd like to get to know a little more about them.
Melanie Goldstein (fiancée of actor Kirsten Vangsness)
Just this week, Kirsten Vangsness, the out star of the CBS crime drama Criminal Minds, announced her engagement to longtime girlfriend Melanie Goldstein, an assistant editor on Fox tv show 24.
Goldstein proposed to Vangsness in November, but the couple only recently shared the news with family and friends.
They told People.com that they plan to marry this Spring at the Texas home of Goldstein's parents, with Vangsness adding, "and since it's...
Most of them are not yet as well known as Portia De Rossi (wife of Ellen DeGeneres) or Tammy Lynn Michaels (partner of Melissa Etheridge), but we thought you'd like to get to know a little more about them.
Melanie Goldstein (fiancée of actor Kirsten Vangsness)
Just this week, Kirsten Vangsness, the out star of the CBS crime drama Criminal Minds, announced her engagement to longtime girlfriend Melanie Goldstein, an assistant editor on Fox tv show 24.
Goldstein proposed to Vangsness in November, but the couple only recently shared the news with family and friends.
They told People.com that they plan to marry this Spring at the Texas home of Goldstein's parents, with Vangsness adding, "and since it's...
- 3/5/2009
- by karman
- AfterEllen.com
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