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"At Miss Taylor's wedding, Mr. Woodhouse had earnestly tried to dissuade the guests from having any wedding cake at all, and when that proved vain as earnestly tried to prevent any body's eating it" ... visit the blog janeitesonthejames. It gives easy to follow directions on making this splendid and gorgeous Regency style cake. I would love to try it for the holidays. 

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Elizabeth Jenkins 1905-2010, founder of the Jane Austen Society: a remarkable life. http://bit.ly/bpJyYY

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It's better for the customer to be ignorant than the bookseller, says Rowan Pelling.

courtesy of the Telegraph

Residents of Cambridge tend to escape the worst excesses of dumb Britain. The last time I took a taxi, the driver had a copy of Dostoevsky, and I was at a drinks party on Sunday where a guest turned with a squeal of delight to the host and said: "Oh! Can I have a go on your spinet?" The last time I tried to buy a bottle of plonk in the offie, I ended up in a long conversation about Christopher Hitchens, George Orwell and the nature of polemic.

Sadly, standards are slipping. A young sales assistant at a bookshop here told me that a middle-aged man had approached her at the weekend with the words: "I know this a long shot, but do you have a book called Pride and Prejudice?"

I said that he must have been joking. She assured me he was not – she led him to the classic literature shelves where he was amazed to be shown six different editions. My husband and I haven't been so shocked since he overheard a punter ask an assistant in Borders: "Do you have a copy of Rebecca?" She replied, "Could you tell me the author's name?" On balance, I prefer the customers to be ignorant; when the booksellers are, too, you know the end is nigh.

 

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Article by Paula Marantz Cohen for the Huffington Post

Long before I began writing fiction, I was writing about literature. This may be one of the reasons why it took me so long to write fiction. The saying goes that writing a dissertation is the surest obstacle to writing anything that anyone would read, and writing about great literature (as I did in my dissertation) is bound to make writing even mediocre fiction all the harder. I suffered under this curse for many years, writing plenty of books of the academic sort -- which is to say, books that no one read.

I owe my breakthrough to Jane Austen. I had written about Austen in that dissertation and had taken great pleasure teaching her to undergraduates. This was in the 1990s, at the beginning of the great tidal wave of Austen-mania, when the first of a spate of adaptations of her novels had begun to appear on screen. It was as though her novels had been waiting for the cinematic medium to jump-start her popularity with a mass audience. Austen's simple romantic plot lines, her opulent settings and clever, highly interactive dialogue were ideally suited to movies and television. Mr. Darcy and Mr. Knightley, in their cutaways, their brusquely proper manners, and their moral high-mindedness, were ideal cinematic heroes; Elizabeth and Emma with their arch good humor and empire dresses (presented without the period's modest lace coverage to reveal ample decolletage) were perfect cinematic heroines. Moreover, Austen's plots were good in any sort of setting and time period, as evidenced by the enormous success of the 1995 Clueless (Emma set in a Beverly Hills high school).

When I wrote Jane Austen in Boca (Pride and Prejudice set in a Jewish retirement community in Florida, as the ad copy succinctly put it), I was riding the wave that these movies had set in motion. I would continue to ride it with a subsequent novel, Jane Austen in Scarsdale or Love, Death, and the SATs (Persuasion set in a Westchester, New York high school guidance office).

My editor encouraged me to continue my Jane Austen series, because, as she put it, "Jane Austen is a bestselling brand." No doubt I will, but, in the meantime, I have taken a detour into new territory.

If Jane Austen, with her elegant novelistic structure and unerring wit, was my first teacher, my greatest influence in the realm of ideas was Henry James. I always loved his fiction but I also reveled in his nonfiction: his prefaces, his essays and reviews, his journal entries and letters. I was intrigued by the complex dynamics of the James family, and saw points of correspondence to my own family. And so, when I decided to make Henry James central to my next novel, it was not by imitating his plots but by co-opting his character as I had come to understood it. Hence, my latest book-- my first thriller and my first foray into historical fiction -- What Alice Knew: A Most Curious Tale of Henry James and Jack the Ripper. Not only, as the title makes clear, does Henry James figure in this tale as a character, but so does his brother William, the eminent philosopher and father of modern American psychology, as well as their brilliant invalid sister, Alice. Placing these characters in London as Jack the Ripper terrorizes the city allowed me to make use of my knowledge of Victorian culture and of the dynamics of the James family while writing a sometimes-funny, sometimes-macabre story of murder and mayhem.

Just as my first novel, Jane Austen in Boca, stood near the beginning of a wave of Austen-mania, I believe that What Alice Knew stands at the beginning of a Jamesian tsunami. Over the years, we have seen a few of James's novels adapted to the screen or made into multi-part television series -- with dubious results. But the possibilities for adapting James seem to me unrealized. Any number of his books could be imaginatively adapted to fiction or film, and so much of his life and his character are rich in fictional potential. (Colm Toibin's The Master is one example of what a gifted writer can do in this respect). Admittedly, James does not have the crisp externality that we associate with Jane Austen. But the elements that define James -- thwarted desire, delayed gratification, and stubborn ambiguity -- are, perhaps, more suited to our present state of being than those that make up Austen's simpler, more circumscribed world. I predict that we will see more of Henry James in the coming decade. Meanwhile, I hope that readers will enjoy my contribution to what I hope to be a new literary fad.

Paula Marantz Cohen's book, "What Alice Knew: A Most Curious Tale Of Henry James And Jack The Ripper" can be ordered here.

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                   Image from PBS - article by Beth Dunn for blog.hotspot.com

With the final episode of Jane Austen's Emma aired, we've noticed that people are behaving a little bit more ... courtly to each other. Here's a handy guide to extending that exquisitely good behavior to the social media world.

It is a truth universally acknowledged... that social media is being used by more and more businesses to engage meaningfully with their customers and to drive more qualified traffic to their sites.

And while Jane Austen never blogged (she totally would have), or had a profile on Facebook, or posted status updates on Twitter, she certainly had a great quantity of wisdom to share about social behavior – what is correct, what is silly, and what is disastrous -- that is as true today as it was when young Emma Woodhouse busied herself with meddling in the love lives of all her friends.

 What would Jane have had to say about engaging with your customers and promoting your business on social websites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn?

•    Etiquette matters.

Although social media is famous for having somewhat loose standards of formality, propriety does hold a central place in any society, like it or not. Every social media platform (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) lays claim to its own particular cultural rules and mores. Be sure that you understand the customs and expectations of each platform before you make a gaffe, lest you cause tongues to wag, or worse, offend Society.

•    Conversation matters.

The most prized currency in any refined society is the witty, charming conversation of its habitués. Your conversation may be clever and amusing, but do stop short of being overly self-promotional. It is a delicate balance, to be sure, but eminently achievable by the accomplished practitioner. How? Strive to focus on other people, be courteous, be helpful, be modest, be kind. Avoid gossip and vulgarity at all costs.

•    Connections matter.

No, you needn’t be the cousin of every A-list blogger or member of the Twitterati.  Rather, you should strive to cultivate a true circle of friends who share your interests, whose trials and triumphs you can share, and with whose problems you can empathize. Try to make connections between people who should meet, but have not yet; be a matchmaker where one person’s needs and desires meet another person’s strengths and qualities. Create networks of friends who are sincerely glad to know each other, and give them frequent opportunities to connect and help each other. 

•      Love conquers all.

Share your passion, and those who share your passion too will find you and follow you.  Speak from your heart, do not endeavor to deceive, and all shall be well.

Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/

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by Emma Mackintosh for the County Times

‘IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.’

Welcome to the world of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as you’ve never seen it before – performed outdoors in a unique open-air theatre production.

Chapterhouse Theatre Company is bringing their special theatrical adaptation of Pride and Prejudice to Gregynog Hall this summer, providing an opportunity for fans of all ages to watch this new production at one of the most idyllic and beautiful venues that Powys has to offer.

Take a step back in time as we meet Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters. While their interfering mother engineers various courtships, sisters Elizabeth and Jane must pursue their own quest for true love.

Amongst a series of misunderstandings, mistakes and miscommunications, the two girls must fight for the men they love until Elizabeth can finally surpass her prejudices to see past the proud exterior of the enigmatic Mr Darcy.

Fans of the 1813 novel will recognise each of its separate elements skillfully adapted by Laura Turner. The production is directed by Rebecca Gadsby with music composed by Richard Main.

Gregynog House itself has a long and exciting history. It was the seat of the Blayney family from the 15th century before passing into the ownership of the Hanbury Tracy family in 1795.

The house was rebuilt in the late 1830s by Charles Hanbury Tracy, the amateur architect of Hampton Court, and later Lord Sudeley.

Famous visitors to the House have included Ralph Vaughn Williams, Gustav Holst and Edward Elgar.

Chapterhouse Theatre Company is entering its 11th season of touring open-air theatre at some of the most beautiful country houses, castles and heritage sites across the UK and Ireland.

In 2010, Chapterhouse is performing in over one hundred of Britain’s most beautiful and idyllic garden settings, such as Woburn Abbey, Savill Gardens and Fountains Abbey, the perfect venues for garden and theatre lovers alike.

Open-air theatre lends itself perfectly to pre-show picnics creating an enjoyable and memorable experience for the audience.

A wonderful opportunity for friends and family to sit back and enjoy the pleasure of each other’s company whilst indulging in a glass of chilled summer wine and watching a fantastic evening of entertainment.

This quintessential production of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is on at Gregynog Hall on August 18.

For information about booking tickets, see www.chapterhouse.org.

Whether a play seen under the stars or during an afternoon of summer’s bliss, Chapterhouse welcomes you to their 2010 season.

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by Aparna Phadke Times of India

In films, they've been muses who took on different avatars for their men. 

For the hero, the woman invoked feelings of passion, for the son she was this fountain of love, for the bahu she could either be a nasty or a loving mother-in-law - whatever role a woman played, a film is almost always incomplete without a woman's presence. Today, however, women are not only adding value to a film on screen, they are often the ones behind the scenes, calling the shots and saying action and cut. Three films Aisha, Kajraare and Peepli Live, which will be released soon, all have women as directors and NT finds out if women have moved beyond the grease paint and spotlight and are carving a niche for themselves in the directorial arena... 

'Know your work' 

She's chosen Jane Austen's book for her maiden film and the sure footedness with which she has entered Bollywood is creating more than just a buzz. Meet Rajshree Ojha, the debutante director, whose film Aisha will be released today. Quiz her on women directors carving a niche in Bollywood and she says, "Women directors have always been around. I've followed the works of Aparna Sen, Sai Paranjape, Kalpana Lajmi and I think they've made some beautiful films. But yes, today their numbers are increasing and it's a good thing." And did she find the going tough? To this she says, "I think if you know what you want, everybody listens to you. If there was any struggle it was because the Bollywood turf was new to me. Once I settled in, it was as tough or easy as it is for any director - male or female." 

'Prove your manhood' 

For Pooja Bhatt, it's her fourth directorial venture Kajraare that will hit screens soon. So, ask Pooja, is being a woman ever came in the way of her making films, and she says, "Not really. But you see like in politics, which is a male dominated profession, in films too, women directors have to prove their manhood. If they act tough they have to be ready to take names like slavedriver etc in their stride. If they relax on sets, they even might be called lazy! But, I just look at the work at hand and there's lot of it - especially if you are working on a tight budget, which I always do." And how comfortable are men while taking instructions given to the men? Any ego problems? To this she says, "If you know what you want, I guess nobody has a problem doing work for you and they even respect you." Agrees Rajshree, saying, "I've worked with Abhay Deol and I have had no problem working with him. He's been just as cooperative as any star on the sets." 

Three cheers to women 

From the road rarely taken, to a road that's being walked on often by women directors, B-town's certainly changing. In the recent times, Farah Khan, Zoya Akhtar, Nandita Das, Meghna Gulzar have all made films that are not gender specific. But, not as much as it should. This is the view held by Peepi Live director Anusha Rizvi. The director has gone on record to say that till date Bollywood has had very few female directors, which is a cause for concern. But, also giving the audience something to cheer about, she says, "Women filmmakers have proved themselves time and again. I believe that the decade ahead will belong to women directors!" With none other than Aamir Khan supporting her venture under his banner, Anusha has all the reason to feel optimistic. But, will other producers be this open to women directors? Says young producer Amita Pathak, who produced the film Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge, "For the producer, a project should make sound business sense. If the script gives me this confidence, I will not see if a man or woman is the director. I will just see if it's an able person directing the film." 

Read more: When women call the shots - News & Interviews - Bollywood - Entertainment - The Times of India 

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THE only thing missing was Mr Darcy emerging drenched from the water.

A celebration of Regency music right out of a Jane Austen novel took place at Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal's Georgian water garden yesterday.

Visitors to the Ripon tourist attraction stepped back in time to the 18th century for a celebration of music and dance.

The Arbeau dancers performed the light and lively dances enjoyed by Jane Austen's characters in Regency England on the lawns in front of the Banqueting House throughout the day.

Visitors relaxed on the laws as the acclaimed early chamber music group Arioso played on period instruments.

The Banqueting House, which is sometimes overlooked by visitors, provided the perfect setting for the Regency-era event.

It stands in tranquil seclusion overlooking the canals and moon ponds of the water garden.

It was designed to impress promenading visitors who were keen to enjoy the garden fashions of the day.

Visitors enjoyed picnics or treated themselves to cream teas which were served throughout the day.

Fountains Abbey, which was Yorkshire's first World Heritage Site, has the largest abbey ruin in the country. 

The site's 800 acres contains 10 historic buildings spanning 800 years of history.

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Going to see New Orleans musicians tonight on the five year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Dr. John and the Lower 9-11 band and the Blind Boys of Alabama. Been lucky enough to see and listen to these NoLa greats in New Orleans - happy they are down the street from my home tonight of all nights. 

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By BARBARA STEWART Published: November 5, 1995 for The New York Times

YOU want to talk about Jane?" said Barbara Crafton, an Episcopal priest and writer from Metuchen. She could have been referring to an admired elder sister. But the Jane she means is Jane Austen, dead nearly 200 years.

The fans of Jane Austen, unlike those of, say, Ernest Hemingway or Anthony Trollope or the Beastie Boys, call her by her given name. Janeites know they are taking liberties. In Jane Austen's day, the late 1700's and early 1800's, a lady's given name was used only by her family and very close friends. Jane Austen's fans consider themselves intimates -- of Jane Austen and of her characters, who they know in their heads are fictional and in their hearts are real.

Thus, the Jane Austen Society of North America, founded 20 years ago by J. David Grey, a high school English teacher who lived in Spring Lake, consists largely of people who aren't professors or academics, but simply fans. The first little gathering of Janeites has grown to a society of 2,800 across the continent. Mr. Grey, who died at 57 in 1993, was not strictly an academic but an amateur in the finest sense of the word, a man who loved Austen's works simply for themselves.

The society he founded has no New Jersey chapter per se, and members from the state attend meetings mostly in New York or Philadelphia. But that doesn't make them any less devoted.

This has been a good year for Janeites. The movie "Persuasion" received great reviews, as did "Clueless," a ditsy up-to-date rewrite of "Emma" populated by Beverly Hills teen-agers with cellular phones and slick cars. "Sense and Sensibility," starring Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant, is to open in December, and the BBC is producing a new version of "Pride and Prejudice."

Jane Austen, who died before she was 40, completed six novels, all about love and marriage. The heroines are smart young women. The other characters are ladies and gentlemen, including buffoons, pretentious people and the Oxford version of beer-swigging college guys. The language is elegant. The wit is arch and crackling, but not vicious.

Love, hate, irritation, longing, the chasing of attractive men are conveyed in beautifully formed sentences, full of implication. There's no hitting, no kissing. There's lots of concern about money, and appreciation for rolling green lawns and hedged-in gardens and parlors with pianofortes. The big historic events -- the Napoleonic Wars, the slave trade, Dickensian poverty -- do not brush the novels' surface. The novels, all of them, end with appropriate marriages. The plots are getting the young women there.

"She's coming back," said Natalie Fine, 73, an Austen Society member who lives in a retirement home in Monroe Township. "She talks about three or four ordinary families in a village. It's the people; it's the words. It doesn't need sex or violence."

Certainly, many writers have fan clubs, or literary societies. But Janeites do it with a single-minded ardor the other societies lack.

Ms. Crafton joined the Jane Austen Society of North America after seeing a T-shirt on a parishioner: "I'd rather be reading Jane Austen." She, like 400 others, travels annually to a distant city to spend four days talking, listening, watching plays and movies about, eating the food of, wearing the ball dresses and dancing the dances of Jane Austen and the 18th century. If the characters in "Mansfield Park" ate roast duck for breakfast, so do the Janeites. They are willing to listen to a lecturer read from a list the price of the Austen bed linen.

What Ms. Crafton likes, she says, is the wit of women. Of women on the page and at the banquet table.

"The company of women is so droll," she said. "We get so satiric when we get going. That's what reading her is like: being with great women. Like a great, great lunch. Life is so tawdry and rude and coarse, and this is so civilized."

The Janeites are homemakers, English teachers, proofreaders, librarians, the occasional lawyer or public relations executive. Most are women -- normal women, by all accounts, except when it comes to the novels. One reads a bit of an Austen novel each night before going to sleep, like a devout Christian with the Bible. Another knit herself a sweater with the names of the novels and characters, making sure she would sit on "Pride and Prejudice." The Janeites look forward to newsletters on the health of the cats at the old Austen house in Chawton, England.

"It's like a big family reunion," said Florence Spencer, 68, of Monroe Township, who traveled with Mrs. Fine recently to join 400 others at an Austen convention in Madison, Wis. "There's something about her that the people who like her are people you like."

AT one convention, she said, a speaker, referring to characters in "Sense and Sensibility," announced, "I don't think Elinor should have married Edmund," and 150 heads in the room nodded. "The next hour we spent pairing up people who should have married." People who exist, of course, only on the pages of Austen's novels and in the minds of her fans.

"You know these people," Ms. Fine said. "You meet them in your everyday life. You meet somebody and say, 'That's Emma's father' or 'That's Anne Elliot.' "

That is one reason some academics take a dim view of Janeites, said Claudia Johnson, a Princeton University professor who likes them. Some academics think Janeites are soppy, sloppy readers who reduce proper, elevated literary criticism to literary gossip about fictional characters. Furthermore, they regard reading as sociable, not private, as proper academics do.

"To them she's a living presence, not a dry academic subject," Ms. Johnson said. "But they can be very knowledgeable readers with an incredible eye for details."

And even academics seem to melt a bit in the face of some Austen heroines. "Elizabeth Bennet," said A. Walton Litz, a Princeton University English professor and author of a book on Austen, "is as free a spirit as ever walked into a novel. She is about as attractive a character as ever appeared."

Hollywood, having left Edith Wharton since "The Age of Innocence," will surely drop Jane Austen, too. When that happens, her real fans, the ones who feel they know Anne Elliot of "Persuasion" as well as their college roommates, will still be getting together for cream teas, debate on the type of silk ribbon Emma once bought at the village store, and recreating, for a few emphemeral hours, a world of order, courtesy and understated loyalties and love.

"She shows," Ms. Johnson said, "that adventure is very interior. You don't have to go out and travel. You simply have to be alert to your own life."

 

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From The Financial Times - ft.com (The Short View column - Gilts’ trip by James Mackintosh)

Jane Austen would not be happy. Her lovestruck souls and her social climbers alike relied for their livings on government bonds earning 4 per cent. On Tuesday, Britain's 30-year gilt yield dropped below 4 per cent, reaching levels seen on only two occasions before. The 10-year gilt – the benchmark and continuation of the consols Lizzie Bennet’s inheritance would have been in – plunged to its lowest yield on record. Consols themselves last had a lower yield than the 10-year back in 1947, and before that in the Great Depression.

Britain is not alone: government bond records are tumbling worldwide. US short-dated bonds and German Bunds are at record low yields, while the 10-year Japanese yield is close to 2003 lows. The spread of Irish yields over Bunds has passed its previous high, as worries about the eurozone periphery intensify.

Bond markets could be forgiven for pricing in a recession after yet more gloomy news on US housing. Optimists have little left to cling on to. There was an inkling of good news in the better-than-expected Richmond Fed manufacturing survey on Tuesday, but those keeping faith in recovery also point to the fact that the yield curve has not inverted – 10-year bonds still yield 2 percentage points more than two-year bonds. Given that the 10-year yield has dropped below the two-year (and the three-month) before every recession since the second world war, perhaps a double dip is not looming.

Unfortunately, a quick glance at Japan suggests that once short-term rates hit the floor, the yield curve may no longer be a valuable indicator. While it warned of the recession that followed the bursting of Japan’s bubble, it missed the three recessions since.

“A large income,” Mary Crawford said in Mansfield Park, “is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.” Japan’s experience suggests little happiness ahead for investors pinning hopes for growth on the yield curve.

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Anais Nin by R.S. Butler FIRST PUBLISHED ON LITKICKS (2002)

Anais Nin was born February 21, 1903 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris, France and died January 14,1977 in Los Angeles, California. She moved to the United States in 1914 with her mother, singer Rosa Culmell and two brothers, Thorvald and Joaquin. Her father was Joaquin Nin, a Spanish pianist and composer, who abandoned the family after leaving his family at various intervals in his career to tour Europe and Cuba, when Nin was eleven. Shortly afterward, on the boat Monserrat, Nin began her childhood diary, "Linotte", written as an extended letter to her papa. 

Anais wanted to be an artist from the very moment she could speak. She loved books, stories, artists, musicians, fine music, good food, and grew accustomed to being surrounded by the sounds of late night bohemian laughter from her parents dinner parties heard from the downstairs parlor before the two were separated. Anais was a model for her father's early photographs at this time and used to steal into his study when he was away and read all his books voraciously. She was seriously ill as a child and nearly died twice from various internal organ afflictions. If not for a kind Belgian couple and the care of three Belgian nurses, Ana's Nin might never have made the impact on literature and the feminist movement that she did later on in life, from her work spanning her Diaries written in the the tumultuous 30's to her eventual critical success in the socially aware 60's and 70's. 

In New York, Ana's loved writing in her diary, dreaming, philosophizing, and recording her thoughts and reflections as she grew into a beautiful young woman with grand dreams and a host of insecurities. She wrote about her ideal "shadow", a muse, her "prince that will come one day", and about her many concieved shortcomings. She had an active imagination and preferred rainy days of reading curled up with a wonderful book or her diary at the little windowsill seat - and she loved to dance and had a connection to nature heavily influenced by poets like Byron, Blake and the New England Transcendentalists. Her Catholic faith wavered in and out due to philosophical doubts about the meaning of life and suffering, caused by her anguish over her beloved war torn France and the deep rift felt inside her since being uprooted. "I envy those who never leave their native land." she wrote in Linotte, "No one but God knows my bitter sorrow. My dreams are always about Papa. He comes back, I kiss him, he presses me to his heart. That moment is sweet, but afterward sadness comes again with the truth and my heart weeps and weeps again." Her father had let them all down, especially Anaos, and she felt abandoned and unloved in the most important of ways for a child. Gradually her idealized image of him began to fade, though she would have a lifelong fixation on him explored in her writing -and in her myriad of sexual and romantic unions. She was consumed by a tireless examination of her search for the ideal father figure in many of her lovers discussed in psychoanalysis. 

After living in New York for nine years, at twenty Anais married Hugh Guiler (later known as engravist and filmaker of "Bells of Atlantis" and "Jazz of lights" Ian Hugo), a banker in the twenties and thirties, and moved back to Paris with him. Nin began writing short stories (later published as Waste of Timelessness) with publication in mind, but felt torn between her duties as a conservative banker's wife and her desire for artistic expression. Nevertheless, it was around this time that Nin published her first work, D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study (1932), which was well-recieved.

Then she met self proclaimed gangster-poet Henry Miller, a struggling Brooklyn writer in Paris, through her lawyer. Miller and especially his wife, the mythic June Mansfield Miller, enchanted Anais by their 'hard' bohemian living and their associations with the creme de la creme of Paris' underbelly (including actor and creator of theatre de cruelte, Antonin Artaud). "Henry came to Louveciennes with June." she writes about her first meeting with June in the unexpurgated diary Henry and June, "As June walked towards me from the darkness of the garden into the light of the door, I saw for the first time the most beautiful woman on earth. A startlingly white face, burning dark eyes, a face so alive I felt it would consume itself before my eyes. Years ago I tried to imagine a true beauty; I created in my mind an image of just such a woman. I had never seen her until last night. Yet I knew long ago the phosphorescent color of her skin, her huntress profile, the evenness of her teeth. She is bizarre, fantastic, nervous, like someone in a high fever. Her beauty drowned me. As I sat before her, I felt I would do anything she asked of me. Henry suddenly faded. She was color and brilliance and strangeness." 

Anais felt that becoming aquainted with members of Montparnasse's underworld of prostitutes, thieves and drug addicts was going to liberate not only her writing but her sexuality and her mind. Nin began examining her 'suburban' existence more closely and felt she had to reconcile her life as an artist with her bouts of depression and feelings of isolation tucked away in the beautiful prison house of Louveciennes. To resolve her inner turmoil between her married 'proper' life and her burgeoning bohemian tastes, her cousin Eduardo recommended she enter therapy with the prominent Parisian psychoanalyst Rene Allendy. This later led to analyzation and tutorship with former Freud disciple, Otto Rank (Art and Artist). Eventually, Nin studied under Rank, working in his practice in New York City in the mid to late 1930s. 

She also became deeply influenced by writers like Lawrence, Proust, and in particular Djuna Barnes' novel Nightwood. Nin channelled her evolving psycho-sexual impressions of the vicious circle/love triangle between her, Henry and June into the surrealistic prose-poem House of Incest and in her Diaries. She also worked along her compatriates on a dollar a page erotica, later the poetic, emotive bestselling Delta of Venus and Little Birds.

In the mid-to-late 1930s, Nin, Miller, Lawrence Durell and other writers in the Villa Seurat circle who experienced difficulty finding publishers founded Siana Editions (Anais spelled backwards!) to publish their own works. Nin in particular could find no one to publish House of Incest (1936) or Winter of Artifice. In 1939 these books were well-received in Europe. However, when Anais eventually moved back to New York City in 1939 with her husband, she found American publishers and the average reading public closed off to her work. Miller achieved critical and commercial success decades before Nin, despite her initial efforts to edit, support and publish him along with her own work. After several years of trying to place her works with American publishers, Nin bought a second-hand printing press with a loan from Bookseller and founder of New York's famed Gotham Book Mart and with the help of Anais' latest paramour, Peruvian political activist Gonzalo More, she began to typeset and print her own books. Nin's work eventually caught the attention of critic Edmund Wilson, who praised her writing and helped her on the road to obtaining an American publisher. 

It was Nin's Diary, however, that brought her the greatest success and critical acceptance that she was to recieve. Nin never intended the two hundred manuscript volumes for publication, and many, including Miller, Rank, Alfred Perles, Durrel and Allendy, tried to convince Anais that her obsessive diary writing was destroying her chance at writing the great American novel. However Nin decided she had to "go her own way, the woman's way" and continue her li felong odyssey of self exploration and reflection through the Diaries. To reconcile fiction and fact Nin eventually began rewriting diary entries into her fiction and vice versa, protecting those who wanted to maintain their privacy (usually lovers) while still writing in her preferred medium.

Nin was involved in the some of the most interesting literary and artistic movements of the 20th century including the outskirts of Paris' 1920's Lost Generation, the psychoanalytic and surrealist movements of the 30s and 40s, the Beat movement of the 50's in Greenwich Village, the avant garde crowd in 60's California and the women's movement of the 70's. She maintained relationships (and kept two bi-coastal "husbands" in the later part of her life) with many vital artists and writers over her lifespan and was in great demand as a lecturer at universities across the United States until she died of cancer in 1977.

 

Give me a little leeway on the writing - I wrote this when I was still just another punk kid at Emerson College. ;) Nocturne-17 was my username named in honor of my favorite Chopin nocturne. I was R.S. Price then. 

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by Pradeep Sabastian courtesy of the Deccan Herald

''What is interesting about the film is that it is a Victorian style romance, the kind I just love.''

That sounds like a smart sound bite coming from a Bollywood actress, and then you realise Sonam Kapoor (unwittingly) ends up sounding more like her clueless Aisha character - because Jane Austen isn’t a Victorian novelist! It’s obvious that the movie takes its inspiration from Hollywood recycling Austen (Alicia Silverstone in Clueless and Gwyneth Paltrow in Emma) than from any original literary source.  

This reminds me of something director Rajiv Menon went out of his way to point out when he South-Indianised Austen’s Sense and Sensibility in Kandukondain, Kandukondain: that his inspiration was the book, not Emma Thompson’s movie adaptation. 

As proof, he said, he had scenes in the movie that are only found in the book. Menon’s Kandukondain I think is the best Jane Austen Indian mash-up so far. If you haven’t seen it, or only dimly remember it, it’s worth discovering.  

Menon transplants the story of two sisters —one sensitive, the other tempestuous—so fully into a South Indian ethos, that it becomes his own story. In the acclaimed Hollywood adaptation of Austen’s witty, romantic classic by Emma Thompson and Ang Lee, Emma played the older, sensitive sister and Kate Winslet the impassioned younger sister. Here Aishwarya Rai plays the younger sister, Tabu the older. Their suitors are played by Mammootty, Ajit and Abbas. With a lovely soundtrack from AR Rahman, the film is an irresistible musical as well.  

Young, gorgeous and pampered sisters Sowmya (Tabu) and Meenakshi (Aishwarya ) want for nothing except the true love their hearts crave. 

While Sowmya grudgingly places family responsibilities ahead of romance, Meenakshi yearns for a white knight who will come to her “just like a storm.” Three different coincidences bring the girls three very different suitors and a tempest of romantic complications. Manohar (Ajith), an aspiring filmmaker, falls for Sowmya but will wed her only after directing his first film. 

Commando Major Bala (Mammootty) woos Meenakshi despite physical and emotional war wounds and competition from Srikanth (Abbas), a charismatic poetry-quoting businessman.  

But in a cruel interplay of destiny and betrayal, the family is stripped of their house and belongings and is forced to set out to the city to build a new life. Menon, a cinematographer turned director, makes films sparingly. He made Minsara Kanavu in 1997 and in 2000, Kandukondain. Since then he has not directed any films. Menon always gets everything right in a film: the script (which he works on carefully) casting, sets, the ‘look’ of the film, and of course, the acting, direction and music. 

(An important aside to note is Menon’s refusal to dub the film in Hindi or English for wider distribution. He insisted the language remain Tamil because he wanted an audience to hear it in the original). 

The film is rich in emotion and character. The plot is both moving and witty. The cinematography by Ravi K. Chandran is ravishing. 

What is also worth checking out is Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, a movie I have always thought should have been subtitled: “An Anthropologist Among School Kids.” 

Heckerling’s savvy, witty, astute, deft social observations of these teenagers are deadly accurate. The movie is an entertaining chunk of sociology which sympathetically records how these kids speak, what they think, their dress codes, secret adolescent rituals, mores and beliefs and their sinfully rich lifestyles.   

My favourite bit from the movie: Alicia (playing the airhead Cher) is riding with her smart  college–going cousin and his radical, feminist, arty  type girlfriend who has been pontificating:  “Like Hamlet says: To your own self be true.” And Cher from the backseat says: “Hamlet didn’t say that.” Arty Type turns around, dripping: “Excuse me but I think I know my Hamlet.” Cher: “Yeah? and I know my Mel Gibson and he never said that. That Polonius guy did.”          

There’s a burgeoning Jane Austen industry out there now. Becoming Jane, a movie about the one lone (and failed) romance in Jane’s life and how this led to her famous wit  and ironic style. The Jane Austen Book Club, a book and a movie about a book club group whose lives begin resembling the Austen novels they are reading. 

And then there’s the unexpected success of Quirk Books’ Austen mash-ups like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and Mansfield Park and Mummies.  It seems none of us can get enough of Jane Austen. 

The latest Austen reworking is Allegra Goodman’s The Cookbook Collector, another contemporary take on Sense and Sensibility.  

But as culture critic Laura Miller recently asked in Salon: “Ask not what zombies can do for Austen, but what she can do for the zombies”. She goes on to note: “…the vast majority of the Austen mash-ups involve injecting some action element from contemporary pop culture into Austen's stories in order to make the novels more interesting. 

This seems to work for quite a few readers, but those of us who find Austen's books sufficiently interesting on their own are left to wonder when the favor will be returned. We’ve been shown what zombies and monsters and bare-knuckle brawlers can do for Jane -- when do we get to see what Jane can do for them?”

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by Laura O'Brien courtesy of the Sacramento Press

Are you a fan of Jane Austen or of great literature in general? Then don’t miss the unique opportunity to study Austen’s novels this fall at the Central Library branch of the Sacramento Public Library in downtown Sacramento.

Grab a copy of “Emma,” download the study questions from the library’s website, and join in the fun this Sunday.

The wildly popular 12-part series How Austentatious! began in June and continues through November.

Each month, presenters discuss one of Austen’s novels over the span of two meetings. Remaining for the fall are “Mansfield Park” in September, “Northanger Abbey” in October, and “Persuasion” in November.

The series will conclude with a birthday tea in honor of Austen on Dec. 12. Registration is not necessary for the series but is required for the tea.

Friends of the Central Library is the sole sponsor of How Austentatious! Most of the presenters and all the discussion leaders have donated their services.

Although the series is not being promoted as academic, “people do refer to this as ‘the Jane Austen course,’” Librarian and How Austentatious! organizer Stephenee Borelli said. “I think the quality of it is worthy of a classroom.”

Borelli said she knew How Austentatious! would be popular but still was surprised when 225 people overflowed West Meeting Room at the Central Library for the series-opening presentation on “Sense and Sensibility.”

Attendance at subsequent meetings has ranged from 150 to 200 people. Recognizing the need for a larger meeting space, the library made available the Tsakopoulos Library Galleria for some of the remaining sessions in the series.

How Austentatious! is part lecture and part book discussion.

“I simply created a series of programs that I would want to be a part of as a participant,” Borelli said. “Something that is fun and informative at the same time. Almost like an annotated edition of a classic. A program that would answer the questions one might have as they read.”

Former California State University, Sacramento, Professor David Bell introduces each book. Borelli took Bell’s graduate course on Austen in 2007 while pursuing her masters degree in English at Sac State. Bell retired in May after 37 years teaching in the English department.

Bell and other Austen aficionados give presentations in the first half of each two-hour meeting. The audience is broken into smaller 15-person discussion groups for the second hour. Several of Bell’s former students are serving as leaders of the discussion groups.

Library patron and How Austentatious! participant Steve Barclift said he has appreciated the context the series provides on life in the 18th century.

“Most of us are not familiar with the setting or the kind of lives that these people led,” he said. Presentations on income and inheritance and modes of transportation, for example, exposed the differences between the lifestyles of Austen’s characters and ours, Barclift added.

Needlework expert Vima de Marchi Micheli gave a presentation on lace and embroidery.

Other presentations have included two talks by Rachel Dodge on etiquette and locales in Austen’s novels. Like Borelli, Dodge took Bell’s Austen course and earned a masters in English at Sac State.

Presentation topics also have afforded participants opportunities to literally step into the shoes of Austen characters.

Former Lawrence Livermore physicist Ed Ratcliffe’s talk on carriages was followed by the chance to actually ride in one. How Austentatious! also offered a lesson in English Contra dancing.

Contributing to the popularity of the program may be the ease of accessing program materials from the library’s website, including podcasts of each presentation as well as Bell’s study guides for each novel.

Interested individuals also may subscribe to a monthly e-mail featuring books and websites related to the Austen title currently being discussed in the series.

Borelli first pitched the idea for How Austentatious! to her supervisors two years ago, but at that time the library deemed the program too time-intensive.

She received a green light on the project and approached Bell to garner his involvement in it in June 2009, the same month Austen fan Rivkah Sass was hired as the new director of the Sacramento Public Library.

Sass previously worked at the Omaha Public Library, which held an annual birthday tea in honor of Austen.

Apart from the novels, film and television productions may be credited with attracting some modern Austen fans.

Barclift had not read any of Austen’s novels before attending his first session of How Austentatious! He and his wife own a copy of the movie “Sense and Sensibility” and have watched it four or five times, though.

An indicator of the age of series attendees, Bell said he thought most How Austentatious! participants “were Austen readers before the movies came out.”

The recent tide of screen adaptations of the novel began with the movie “Sense and Sensibility” in 1995 featuring Emma Thompson, followed by the BBC TV miniseries “Pride and Prejudice” in 1996.

“That was enormously popular because so many of the ladies thought Colin Firth was particularly sexy,” Bell said.

Borelli acknowledged the romantic appeal of the novels to readers.

“It’s escapism,” she said. “I hope that I can also take it seriously.”

Although the popularity of Austen may be due in part to readers enthralled by the happy endings in the novels, there is more meat to the books than courtship.

“That was the convention: that [the books] would end happily,” Bell said. “The important thing to keep in mind is that there is a lot of variety in Austen’s novels. No two novels are the same. There are very few good marriages portrayed in the novels….If the heroines learn anything in surveying the marriages around them, it’s they’ve got to be very careful in choosing their partners.”

Bell attributed Austen’s enduring popularity to her mastery as a writer.

“It’s a wonderful combination of her greatness in developing characters and constructing plot that is so enthralling, along with a style that is accessible to modern readers.”

The willingness of guest speakers to donate their time was a testament to their enthusiasm for Austen. “These are professionals that are very passionate about their topic. We’re lucky to have them,” Borelli said.

“I love teaching Austen, talking about Austen. It’s just the greatest pleasure for me,” Bell said.

“I just really enjoy being able to provide this to people,” Borelli said.

Borelli is an amateur costumer and gave a presentation on textiles at the first meeting discussing “Emma” earlier this month.

She has been hand-stitching Regency-period outfits for the How Austentatious! fashion show on Oct. 24, one week before Halloween. Attendees are invited to come in period costume. “It is sure to be a blast,” Borelli said.

Borelli sad she’s “kind of geeking out about it.” She and her husband will model her creations at the fashion show.

“People don’t want [the series] to end and are just really happy to be a part of this,” Borelli said.

She said she hopes the popularity of the program incites library users to find more library programs of interest to them.

“The Sacramento Public Library system has so many wonderful programs to offer in addition to this.”

Borelli has surveyed How Austentatious! participants to determine desired topics for future programs. Possible subjects have included Mark Twain, Dickens, the Bronte sisters, and even James Joyce’s “Ulysses.”

Another possibility is Diana Gabaldon, author of the “Outlander” series. The seven-book series is set in 18th- and 20th-century Scotland. “Outlander,” the first book in the series, is nearly 900 pages long.

“Part Romance, part time-travel fiction, part historical fiction, it is not scholarly. It is pure fun,” Borelli said. “I would call that one 'How Outlandish!'”

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It is thrilling to see a great writer's creative process at work, argues Ceri Radford.

Jane Austen's writing desk                         Photo: Stuart Freedman 

 

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IF Jane Austen submitted her original manuscripts to one of today's publishers, her poor punctuation would almost guarantee a rejection. While renowned for a delicate prose style, Austen's handwritten draft of two chapters of the novel Persuasion shows she was a devotee of long sentences unfettered by commas. The public were deprived of, or perhaps saved from, her freeflowing style by editors at publisher John Murray.

Manuscripts for Austen's other novels have not survived, so it is impossible to know whether she was responsible for the jarring commas in her most famous line in Pride and Prejudice: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." Austen's neat, closely written handwriting will be revealed in November at the British Library's Evolving English exhibition.

The show's curator, Roger Walshe, said that Austen's writing was eccentric even by 19th century standards. "Austen hardly punctuates at all, so what you get is a much more urgent form of language, which becomes more restrained when it is edited," he said. "There tends to be an awful lot of clauses and sub-clauses. There is the odd comma, but they aren't always in the most rational places. There are no paragraphs."

Mr Walshe compared the draft with a film script: "It's like she's telling a story rather than writing one. The amazing thing is that there are so few corrections. You can imagine her thinking through a scene and then rushing to write it down. That's possibly why the dialogue works so well, and why (film adaptations) are so successful. There is a real sense of urgency - more so than the slightly more restrained form you get from the novels."

Austen also underlined words to give an emphasis lost when her work was printed. Only two chapters of Persuasion survive as manuscripts, both heavily rewritten by Austen before publication.

"The suspicion is that she didn't see her manuscripts as valuable," Mr Walshe said.

 

From The Australian Times

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"Emma Dorfman’s one of the chosen elite. A shy 15-year-old who most days shuttles between bullies at school, a pushy mom and a fantasy life inspired by Jane Austen, she’s not exactly sure she wants to be “monetized.” But Thackeray Walsh has special plans for her and Emma may be forced to trade her split reality for something doubly scary…and far more adult." Playing at the New York Fringe Festival right now. From REDIFF.COM: "I've always found Emma Woodhouse to be one of Jane Austen's most exuberant, winsome creations.  Especially in comparison to Austen's other popular heroines -- the levelheaded Elinor Dashwood (Sense and Sensibility) or a self-respecting Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice).   A patronising child-woman, Emma is good-naturedly meddlesome with too much privilege and too little vocation. But for all the advantages bestowed upon her, Emma is a restless creature who offsets her longings and loneliness with her preoccupation at playing cupid... ...Not so surprisingly, there have been several cinematic interpretations of this 19th century heroine essayed with marvelous distinction by the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Beckinsale  and Romola Garai .  Circa 2010 is a brand new era altogether. And voicing one's opinion or opting for a live-in is no biggie for the fairer sex of Highbury or Delhi. Matchmaking, even so, hasn't lost any of its credibility amidst all this progress and forms the singularly retained essence of director Rajshree Ojha's adaptation of Austen's frothy classic.  And so Emma becomes a Beetle-steering Aisha (Sonam Kapoor and fashion wears the face of feminism. Considering her sleekly-documented reputation as a star with a penchant for haute couture and vintage pieces, Sonam Kapoor is tailor-made to portray a dazzling cross between Cher Horowitz and Blair Waldorf... ...Boys aren't a neglected lot in this relentless chick flick. To begin with, I cannot imagine a better Knightley than Abhay Deol... Long before Ojha conceived the idea of a modern-day remake, Hollywood writer-director Amy Heckerling humorously reworked Austen's book to helm Clueless around a spoilt, wealthy girl from Beverly Hills, high on Alicia Silverstone's breakthrough performance and a still-popular lingo of 'As if's and 'Like, ever'.  In its source material, Emma shares an unusually close bond with her father who cannot bear to see her out of his sight even for a day. Because of her confined, sheltered existence she's perpetually on the lookout for new endeavours and matchmaking fits the description perfectly. If one tries to dissociate Aisha from Austen and perceive it as a standalone rom-com, far less faults are to be found. There's much too freshness in its texture, expressions and candour to not be endeared. For those who've read the book, a lot of missing sub-text in the film needs to be drawn from memory. For those who haven't, focus on the glamour.  Beautifully shot (Diego Rodriguez) and packaged (Shruti Gupte) with a fabulous soundtrack (Amit Trivedi) and superlative ensemble cast (including an excellent M K Raina, Anuradha Patel), Aisha, quite often, gets caught up in a self-created tangle of brand-led vanity to ever let one get acquainted to its leading lady.  Yes, I love her clothes (styled by Pernia Qureshi). I love her makeup. I love her black nail polish. I love her hair. I love her heels (also the subject of an amusing episode in the movie). I love her life. I just don't care enough about her. Except that I really want to." (Excerpted review by Sukanya Verma)

 

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It seems we may have won the vote to read Mansfield Park for September's Austen in Boston book club. Perhaps
Emma for October? Meetup is tentatively scheduled for September 11 at Nantasket Beach. More details to come. Happy reading!

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Omelette Arnold Bennett - The Delicious Miss Dahl 

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 If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then I will never know happiness. For I am possessed by a fever for knowledge, experience, and creation.

                                                     Anais Nin

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http://gallery.me.com/retrofocus#100100 this link actually works.

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"You, and those like you, take your fill of pleasure on earth by making the life of such as me bitter and black with sorrow; and then it is a fine thing, when you have had enough of that, to think of securing your pleasure in heaven by becoming converted!" 
- Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 45

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Very hot bubble bath with a good book (hardcover Secrets Of Rome) & exceedingly chilled Italian champagne. The taste of fruit is still in my mouth. Annihilated after a hot day in the Italian sun walking through grand palazzos and the ruins of the past. The air chokes me. I hide in the room, a tiny, lovely oasis. He reads about Caesar, I read about the ancients & a 1960s murder on Via Puccini. I can smell the sweet magnolia trees through the balcony windows wafting in from the Borghese gardens, a few paces from where I sit, writing to you. 

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http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=k_OAJW_fdvs

A video from day one...

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This morning we landed in Rome. It's been a whirlwind ever since.

It's past midnight and I'm sipping Carpene Malvolti prosecco bellinis from the chic little wine bar Gran Caffe Roma on Via V. Veneto & eating complimentary Peyrano chocolates from the hotel. We drove from the airport to the hotel, spying the coliseum and the baths of caracalla which I captured with my tiny spy video camera. I want to have a slow food, slow pleasure kind of trip here. This is all an experimentation, an adventure, a letting go, and a following of some creative pull at my dusty writer's hand, my photographer's eye. I have loved the possibilities of a digital world in the early days of the internet so I (for better or WORSE) have decided between the 'living simply in the moments kind of moments' I'm going to tweet, poster-ous post, 'tumbl', facebook my time in Rome. For myself because I love history, I've always wanted to keep a true travelogue of sorts & because my memories meld all together some times & I want some small record of the moments which stood out to me or changed me. I want to know I was alive. I dreamed. I even managed to chase a passion or two in my life. And finally, I have a friend or two who have requested a "what's it like to be in Italy in 2010 when you are plugged in globally, live with mobile phones, iphone applications, internet, cameras & video? What's it like to wander down a charming, beautifully lit, slightly overwhelming Roman cobblestoned street? What is it like to be an American in the Eternal City? What makes you return again and again? What do you see there? And how will it change you?

 

 

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We've just arrived! I'm going through so many emotions right now. First, we eat!

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So I'm flying to Rome for the 7th time in 12 years on Friday & 2010 is the year I will be finally, completely 'plugged in'. I bought my $60 international iPhone plan so I don't return home with a $1,000 bill updating on facebook, "I'm in the coliseum" or tweeting, "I'm walking in the footsteps of Caesar" or talking to someone back home in between the penne alla arrabiata and the prosecco while staring at the Pantheon on my iPhone. We'll be re-watching the ROME series on Itunes on the laptop in the room at the Grand Flora at night and listening to audio guide tours on our iPods of the Roman Forum and the Vatican while we're there on the very spots and watching Rick Steve's video podcast tours of Naples, in Naples and I'll use my nano video iPod to take in the moment movies files to upload to a myriad of social networking sites of the view from the Amalfi Coast or a Neapolitan making the perfect espresso in some family run bar/cafe. Plugged in, tuned in, uploading, downloading, hooked into two worlds: the ancient and the 21st century. It just keeps getting easier. And yet I just keep feeling hungrier. 

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