Inspired by a post of Tim's I was watching Sense & Sensibility. I think AA Gill has definitely got it all wrong - if he'd ever bothered to read old Janie, he would have realised that far from being on the menu, sex is the big bad villain in her novels.
It's highly ironic that her books in the 21st Century should be filtered through this kind of bodice ripping Mills & Boon perception (must be the Andrew Davies sexed-up adaptations and Colin Firth as Mr Darcy-wet t-shirt-competition-winner.)
That is to say, she is totally mistrustful of sex (along with picnics, sitting in a draft, visiting spa towns like Bath, gypsies, poor people, going for a walk when it's raining, or ever leaving the house at all) as a destructive element. For example, any male character with sex appeal turns out to be a total shark, a liar, a gold-digger, a social climber; or the type who seduces underage girls & leaves them pregnant, destitute and ruined.
In Austen's world, fancying people is not a good enough reason to become involved - in fact sexual desire is a warning sign, a red flag, as things will inevitably end in poverty, ruin or death.
The best gauge is to check whether a) they are in the same class, or a higher one and b) they possess a fortune (this goes for men as much as for women) before you even begin a mild flirtation with them.
If they have all the charm and personality, all the warmth and wit of a plank of wood, but own their own estate, they are good marriage material...
“Will you tell me how long you have loved him?”
“I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley...”
I think it was Angela Carter who said that Austen's books were written as etiquette primers for bourgeois girls on how to behave in order to bag a wealthy husband. How to look uninterested in his money so as not to scare him off...
I thought it was unduly cynical, but what I find odd about her books is that they seem to counsel girls to repress their own desire. It's lawless and doesn't recognise social boundaries and can lead to misrule. Desire is dangerous because it can lead you away from the rich dullard towards someone sexy but penniless. Maybe AA Gill wasn't so far off after all... instead of Austen's virgins being sold by their families - they were self aware, learning to position themselves in a buyer's market.
* not Austen I know - her polar opposite, Charlotte Bronte.
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7 comments:
So true liberation for an Austen heroine is to free herself from her pimp? I think the answer comes in Mansfield Park, the most recent adaptation of which starred Billie Piper, who has also played a hooker.
Character's name? Fanny Price.
You couldn't make it up.
Fear of falling - socially, sexually - I think that's the tremor in all the Austen novels; it's a fault line that continues in the next century, and highly entertaining in good hands.
I think "Sense snd Sensibility" is a less successful read for a modern audience than, say, "Pride and Prejudice" because S&S is so much more taken up with the social mores of the time. I think the story is really supposed to be about whether or not one should allow oneself to be ruled by ones emotions and give vent to them freely (Marianne) or whether one should refuse to give way to them at all (Elinor). All of which makes me think of Blackadder the Third:
Mrs Miggins: "Oh don't mind my poets, Mr B. They're just being romantic.
Blackadder: "Mrs Miggins, there is nothing romantic about wandering around Europe in a big shirt, trying to get laid.
I'm sure this is an interesting entry (as usual) but I couldn't go further than the phrase, "sitting in a draft".
Surely any of Ms Austin's heroines would have sat in a draught?
(I'm only picking up on this 'cos it's the second time I've seen this spelling in less than a week - and I'd assumed it was simply an Americanism. Clearly I must get out more).
Oh and maybe my argument would have been stronger if I'd spelled the author's name properly ;)
Tim - surely you know the famous scene in 'Emma' where she snaps and takes out Mr Bingley with an AK47?
Fanny Price! hahahaha! Excellent. I rest my case.
Arabella, I like her better now than I used to as a teenager being made to read her at school. Now I get it more, having had more experience of life. then I was with Charlotte Bronte who said in Austen's books there was 'no open country, no fresh air... I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses.' They all seemed very straitjacketed and repressed.
Marsha, ha! I haven't read Sense & Sensibility but this has made me interested.
Alan - you're quite right, and I am deeply, deeply ashamed. *Hangs head*
A A Gill keeps getting everything wrong all the time. He may be a widely acclaimed journalist but I'm sorry, his research skills are not up to scratch, he must have a good agent though that keeps him ticking.
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