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

[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.