I actually performed the unthinkable with Austenland - I watched the film first. I know, I know. Please don't revoke my Pretentious Reader Licence. In my defence, I didn't know it was a book until I was half-watching the credits after the movie, and then I got super excited about it because I LOVED THAT FILM.
Plot summary: Jane is a young New York woman who can never seem to find the right man-perhaps because of her secret obsession with Mr. Darcy, as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. When a wealthy relative bequeaths her a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-obsessed women, however, Jane's fantasies of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman suddenly become more real than she ever could have imagined. Is this total immersion in a fake Austenland enough to make Jane kick the Austen obsession for good, or could all her dreams actually culminate in a Mr. Darcy of her own?
Normally I'm not that fond of Pride and Prejudice-derived TV shows, books or films, especially American-made ones. They never seem to get the tone right somehow, or it's dumbed down so much I can't watch it without cringing. I only watched Austenland because my sulky objections were drowned out... and then I ended up loving it and naturally changing my contrary, cynical ways forever more. Or for the succeeding five minutes, whichever.
Thing is, because I'd seen and loved the film, it took me a while to get into the book. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it, but they're almost identical. Normally this is a blessing as I'm the first to complain when a film takes too many liberties, but that's usually when I've read the book first and often with a gap of a few months.
When you see the film only a few weeks before reading the novel, it's difficult to concentrate when you're reading a word-for-word account of what you've already watched on the screen. There's no problem with Shannon Hale's writing or prose at all... it's just that I'd already been there once.
However, I did eventually get into it and I put down the novel smiling like a child (albeit a child who is ill-advisedly allowed to read adult romance and has an obsessive understanding of Jane Austen). It's just such a lovely, uplifting book that restores your faith in happy ever after.
The ending is a little bit OTT, but I suppose we're not exactly going for hyper-realism here, are we? Or at least, I hope not, because I can't imagine who would ever go play dress-up in an English mansion where men pretend to fall in love with you. Ugh. I'll stick to 2015, thanks - the men are awful and do nothing but whistle as you walk down the street, but at least they're honest in their misogyny...
The one thing that annoyed me is how profoundly American this book is. If you're going to set a book in England, at least try. I know that the main character, Jane, is American, but that's not an excuse. They keep referring to the BBC drama (the one with Colin Firth) AS A MOVIE, for God's sake.
Plus she can't quite get that English half-playful, half-sarcastic, Bennett-esque banter right. She tries, and it's obvious what the author is going for, but most of the time she's just downright nasty to the Darcy knock-off.
Anyway, I loved this book and it pretty much put me in a good mood for two days straight. There's a fun twist, cute romance and and it's just generally lovely. I also highly recommend Austenland, the film version, although perhaps don't watch them too close together :)
When I read the blurb of The Marriage Plot in The Works, I knew I just couldn't resist it, despite never having read Middlesex or The Virgin Suicides. A book based around the dissection of my favourite author's works? Yes please.
Plot summary: Brown University, 1982. Madeleine Hanna, dutiful English student and incurable romantic, is writing her thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot – authors of the great marriage plots. As Madeleine studies the age-old motivations of the human heart, real life, in the form of two very different men, intervenes.
Leonard Bankhead, brilliant scientist and charismatic loner, attracts Madeleine with an intensity that she seems powerless to resist. Meanwhile her old friend Mitchell Grammaticus, a theology student searching for some kind of truth in life, is certain of at least one thing – that he and Madeleine are destined to be together.
But as all three leave college, they will have to figure out how they want their own marriage plot to end.
While this is very much a book about books, Madeleine's thesis about Austen and Eliot doesn't actually feature much. There isn't really an over-arching plot at all - instead it's about people, finding religion, literature, bad decisions, mental illness and a whole host of other issues. Not a whole lot actually happens as such, but it's worth reading just for the lovely prose and detailed conversations about books.
Not that I've read any of them. It's mostly about incredibly obscure philosophical 'greats,' which can make it a little difficult to follow at first. This didn't affect my enjoyment though - I'm happy to sit back and 'listen' to people who love literature as much as I do, even if it's about unfamiliar works.
She'd become an English major for the purest and dullest of reasons: because she loved to read. The university's "British and American Literature Course Catalog" was, for Madeleine, what its Bergdorf equivalent was for her roommates. A course listing like "English 274: Lyly's Euphes" excited Madeleine the way a pair of Fiorucci cowboy boots did Abby.
... the magesterial presence of all those potentially readable words stopped her in her tracks. She could scan book spines for as long as an hour. Her cataloging of the family's holdings rivaled the Dewey decimal system in its comprehensiveness.
Sound familiar to anybody? The Marriage Plot could only be written by somebody with an intense love of books. There's a lot to relate to in here.
Books aside, the remainder of the plot focuses on relationships. Madeleine, for reasons completely absurd to me, is drawn to Leonard... who doesn't really care about anything, too busy with his manic depression. He's a very unlikeable character who causes no end of problems, but I assume that's kind of the point. Mitchell, Madeleine's friend, is desperately in love with her and so runs off travelling to avoid his problems. If I were her I'd stick with my books, I think.
The story loosely relates to the title, but only vaguely. Mitchell wants to marry Madeliene, who wants to marry Leonard, who isn't marriage material. Straight out of an Austen book, only with more sex. Unless you're Longbourn, anyway. It's kind of... real, though. The characters are all flawed and not exactly likeable, but somehow that adds to the appeal. It seems like this actually could happen, and to real people.
Like I said though, it almost doesn't matter. The writing is too great. It has a slightly formal style and passes on a lot of academic knowledge, so it does require your full attention but is worth every minute. It feels natural, somehow.
He'd turned eighteen in August and the Disease, as though waiting for him to reach legal drinking age, began to flood him with intoxicants. Two things mania did were to keep you up all night and to enable nonstop sex: pretty much the definition of college. Leonard studied at the Rockefeller Library every night until midnight, like a yeshiva student davening over the Torah. At the stroke of twelve he headed back to West Quad, where there was always a party going on, usually in his room.
The ending isn't very good at all though, which is probably the only fault of The Marriage Plot. It tries to be clever and tie in with the title but it's overly twee and incredibly unsatisfying. It's too flat. It actually took the rating down a whole star - what can I say, endings are important.
To conclude, Jeffrey Eugenides is a hugely talented author. The prose flows beautifully and he manages to get inside the head of a bookish 20-something woman perfectly - and I'm a damn expert. Read this for the experience, but don't expect to be blown away by the story.
Most of us, at one point or another, read to escape. Sometimes it's from something serious, other times it's just a minor annoyance; regardless, books create a perfect little bubble to hide from the world. The mark of a truly great book is one that doesn't only shelter you from your troubles, but actually brightens your spirits throughout. Emma is the perfect example. I had an awful, awful weekend, which I won't bother going into, just suffice it so say I pretty much just wanted to curl up into a ball and die. But Jane Austen creates such a perfect world in Emma, with loveable if slightly flawed characters, that you can't help but feel slightly cheered by the end.
Quick-witted, beautiful, headstrong and rich, Emma Woodhouse is inordinately fond of match-making select inhabitants of the village of Highbury, yet aloof and oblivious as to the question of whom she herself might marry. This paradox multiplies the intrigues and sparkling ironies of Jane Austen's masterpiece, her comedy of a sentimental education through which Emma discovers a capacity for love and marriage.
Dear Miss Austen,
Although I appreciate we have had a rather turbulent relationship, I am now ready to reestablish our closeness. It pains me that we lost touch, but after reading the disappointing Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park right after Pride and Prejudice (which I adored), I erroneously convinced myself that you were a one-trick pony and that the remainder of your books just weren't worth reading.
For that, I apologise. I now realise I was deceived. I have owned every single one of your books for a good while, but earlier in the year I finally started Persuasion. In all honesty (because we're such good friends I feel we can be candid), I only picked it up because it was short. Despite my dubious reasoning, I loved it almost as Pride and Prejudice.
Unfortunately, it only led to further confusion about your writing ability that I 
vowed to resolve. So, timidly albeit, I picked up Emma, and it is this book that has prompted me to reevaluate our relationship. I know that it's one of your most criticised novels, but I actually liked Emma. The character, I mean. She's a bit silly sometimes, but she always means well and accepts when she's been accidentally rude. I heard that you wrote her character in response to critics claiming that Fanny from Mansfield Park was too much of a prude. I fully agree with your judgement - Emma is much more interesting than Fanny.
I particularly enjoyed the ending to Emma - it enabled me to pretend my own troubles didn't exist. You wouldn't understand, as it involves alcohol and psychotic ex-girlfriends, but I appreciate the help all the same. I haven't read a book in a long time that I felt so connected to.
So this short note serves to declare my undying love for you (in a non-Sapphic way, as I'm sure your family wouldn't approve) and to apologise for any offence I may have given you. Cause, you know, you're fully able to be insulted by a 22 year old who was born 172 years after you died.
Best wishes,
Miss Whitehead
