Mansfield Park at 200

[neadods]

I'm taking another run at Mansfield Park, and this time I think I'll actually finish it. That is one of my goals, this being the 200th anniversary, although it's a pity that the Shepard Annotated won't come out until *next* year. I like his annotations and would find it a help getting me over some of the hurdles.

Mansfield is also the theme of this year's JASNAcon (technically the Annual General Meeting, but I know a convention when I go to one!) I hadn't planned on going and it's a good thing because the thing sold out in *a day.* For one of the "problem" novels! I'll have to be fast on my feet when the Emma and Northanger anniversary ones roll around, because I don't want to miss those!

The JASNA News that announced the sellout had a cover with quotes from Austen's family regarding Mansfield. It makes me feel a bit better knowing her mother considered the heroine insipid, one of her brothers essentially called it boring, and one of her nephews only liked a single character in it.

Comments

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

What do you find the hurdles? I did it for A level, and so ended up studying it pretty intensely.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

The argument over the green goose and Henry Crawford's throwaway line about "what the heck is up with America?" for the two biggest; there will doubtless be more. The JASNA summer meeting included a lecturer claiming that Crawford was referring to the war of 1812, but I'm still completely at a loss over what makes a goose green or why you'd argue about it. Presumably it's food related, but beyond that...

I am finding the way smoothed appreciably by a BBC abridgement that was part of a CD collection I picked up at the last JASNAcon. It's not helping with the finer cultural/historical details I don't know, but it did pull forward enough of the humor for me to see it sparkling from the text now.

... it occurs that I need a Jane Austen icon. I'll be in Bath later this year; perhaps I'll take a photo of that new waxwork, which is on my Must See list.

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

Oh, I know those two.

There were two times of year when one killed geese; one was in the late summer/autumn when they had been feeding on grass (and were therefore "green" geese) and one was for the Christmas period when they'd been fed on corn, and the colour of the flesh was different. The only significance (we were taught) about it was that Canon Grant was just absolutely food obsessed and quite prepared to make his wife's life a misery over not having quite got things right (presumably in this case having had the goose killed either when it wasn't quite fattened up enough or having waited until it was a little too old (and so tough) in the hopes of getting it fatter - it's a character note, showing that while he's not as bad as the Admiral, still Mary Crawford's cynicism about marriage (and whether married couples can be happy) is based on acute observation of the married people she knows.

The "this business in america" is the equivalent on flicking on something nondescript but businesslike when the boss is about to catch you goofing about online - Canon Grant is too close when Henry's just made an indiscreet remark about him, and he converts it on the fly into "Say something vague which he might have an opinion about while I think what to do next" - the contemporary equivalent was, "Awful news from the Middle-East, isn't it - do you think there's ever going to be a solution ?"

[neadods.livejournal.com]

and the colour of the flesh was different

How fascinating! Here everything with wings gets stuffed with marigold to turn it yellow at all seasons. I have no idea when that started, but the concept that flesh should change colors is lost.

the contemporary equivalent was, "Awful news from the Middle-East, isn't it - do you think there's ever going to be a solution?"

Ah! I could tell from context that he was covering his ass, but how or why America I didn't know.

Thank you. There will doubtless be more questions... (There already are, I just can't remember any other than those two.)

I don't think it's just Mary's cynicism about marriage - Henry gets that speech about how everyone who gets married was taken in over the real character of their spouse, and has witnessed the same things Mary has. It goes a fair way to handwave his own rotten behavior in my eyes, especially his flirting.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Where ARE my manners? Thank you. Help is appreciated.

[melusinehr.livejournal.com]

Mansfield is definitely my least favorite of all of them. I did like the movie adaptation with Jonny Lee Miller; it turns Fanny into a much more interesting and thoughtful character.

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

You are prepared for long screen in defence of Fanny Price, incoming, aren't you?

In my view Mansfield Park suffers from having been written by a woman in the first place and by Jane Austen in the second, in that it colours how everyone approaches it, namely as a light romance with a happy ending (on which basis, obviously it's going to suffer compared to something like P&P). However, as a psychological study in growth, a novel whose emotional climax is when Lady Bertram rises from the sofa, falls on Fanny's neck and exclaims, "Now I can be comfortable" it's quite something else, and quite daring and experimental, at that.

ETA It's also an "era on the cusp of change" novel; Fanny and William representing the up-and-coming professional middle-classes (as do all their siblings) and Sir Thomas, Tom, Mr Rushworth etc an increasingly beleaguered landed gentry. Of course there are going to have to be compromises and cross-pollination if Mansfield Park - the place - is going to survive at all (Sir Thomas having to dash out to deal with Antiguan affairs is presumably due to the fallout from a) the abolition of slave-trading in the British Empire in 1807 (slaves would not be emancipated until 1833, but it probably didn't look like that in 1812 or whenever, especially not to the slaves) and b) Haiti). Tom's son or grandson will probably have to marry an American heiress, a la Downton, to keep the place running at all.

(Wuthering Heights a study in psychological compulsion and mutually self-destructive incestuous sexual obsession suffers the attentions of the "a woman wrote it it must be a romance" Fairy even worse. But MP still gets it.)

The trouble with that is that it doesn't dramatise well, which is why so many MP dramatisations get Fanny so horribly wrong.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I have always found it hard going because Fanny herself is not someone I could empathize with and I couldn't find any of the humor in it at all. Now, with the radio adaptation flagging where to look for the funny (which is a lot easier to find) and the discussions of the themes from A Jane Austen Education and even Bitch In A Bonnet I'm grasping the under themes of social change, rationality vs self interest, introvert caught up in class distinctions, etc.

To be honest, I still want to poke Fanny - passive protagonists will never be my cuppa, you should hear my Hamlet rant sometime - but I'm finally getting what Austen aimed for, I think.

[melusinehr.livejournal.com]

Having read your previous comments, I am happy to accept a defensive screed! When I say least favorite, that doesn't mean I dislike the book - I've read it multiple times. My understanding (though you may be able to correct me on this) is that Austen was deliberately writing a character whose personality was the opposite of Elizabeth Bennet, and that she herself was very fond of Fanny. I haven't read enough non-Austen novels from the time period to be able to judge how innovative Austen was being in MP (I can get a much better sense from Northanger Abbey).

I don't think that the movie is an accurate version of the book by any means - though I would argue that at least in terms of the events, it's closer than the Keira Knightley P&P - it's clearly trying to remake Fanny as someone that contemporary audiences will admire as a romantic heroine, and I agree with you that Fanny isn't meant to be that. But I do also appreciate that it brings the issues regarding the slave trade into greater focus (if, again, from a contemporary perspective) than is clear from the book.

ETA - A large part of that was in my head last night when I posted my first comment but I was having trouble expressing it, and stuck to the shorter version. Sometimes I should sleep before commenting.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I have yet to see what I consider to be a definitive P&P on screen. I did like the Keira Knightly version for two reasons - it drew a nice visual distinction between the Bennett lifestyle and the Bingley one, and let's be honest... Keira's only truly pretty feature is her "fine eyes."

But the dialog kept making me flinch with its Austen For Dummies "As you know, Bob" exposition.

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

I liked the Elizabeth Garvie & David Rintoul 1980 version, and also the Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth 1995 version, but haven't seen either for a good while. At least they had enough time to do justice to the story. My favorite filmed Austen is probably Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds 1995 Persuasion.

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

Seconded on the Persuasion

[melusinehr.livejournal.com]

Thirded on Persuasion. And now I know what movie I'm watching tonight.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I am, as usual, the only one with love for Northanger, aren't I?

[melusinehr.livejournal.com]

Was there a movie of Northanger? I missed it somehow. I like the book, because Henry Tilney is the best, but I don't usually reread it unless I'm on an Austen binge (unlike P&P and Persuasion, which get read individually once a year).

[neadods.livejournal.com]

There have been two; one in the 70s and one... late 90s? Early 00s? Something like that. They're both pretty cheesy, but that suits the text, at least from Catherine's point of view.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I've liked bits of all of them - and all of none of them. I really wish I could put them in a blender!

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

Oh, I really didn't like what they did to the story in the Keira Knightley one - messing things up with Lady Catherine arriving in the middle of the night, and such.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I won't defend what they did with the story - but then, I'm not going to defend Colin Firth's wet shirt scene either. That scene rather pissed me off, because it turned "Hey, I really misjudged this guy, way to screw up Lizzie" into "Hel-LO, let me lick you dry." So not the point of that scene!

I wish I could take bits of all the P&Ps and put them in a blender. As I told RedPanda - I like bits of all of them but not all of any of them.

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

And while we're at it, here's the Austenite version of "It's Raining Men":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOFps_Naytg