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Lost in Austen
Nov. 18th, 2010 11:29 pmThis BBC ITV miniseries is a late-90s paranormal romance crossed with Jane Austen fanfic. Amanda is a working girl who loves Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth Bennet just happens to discover a door in her house that just happens to lead to Amanda’s bathtub, and decides to have them switch places. Amanda, naturally, falls in love with Darcy, despite her determination to Not Disturb The Book.
This is one of those things that, in the end, was made or broken by the ending. Unfortunately, the ending was basically why I don’t care for this kind of time travel plot. I also think that, to really make the concept work, the series needed to follow Elizabeth’s adjustment to the modern world as much as Amanda adjusting to Georgian England, especially given how much of the resolution relies on Elizabeth having changed and having found a world that suits her better. There’s also the second hand humiliation of Amanda trying to force events to go the way they “should” go, and the typical narrativelooking down on women who have romantic fantasies or enjoy romantic fiction.
However the Mrs. Bennet and Caroline Bingley in the series are basically exactly the way they are in my head, and the way I’ve wanted other things to portray them, (I’ll never be satisfied with anything else on that front) and the show also criticized Mr. Bennet for the same things that make me unable to like him. It also examines the characters, especially Darcy, when confronted with things that Austen never would have had them confront, and I am particularly fond of the running theme that even authors don’t know everything about their characters, and if the author doesn’t, a fan certainly doesn’t either, no matter how much of an expert they consider themselves to be.
I don’t think this is particularly good, and I was annoyed as often as not, but I was entertained for the most part, and found it consistently interesting, and it offered up some interesting analysis and deconstruction.
This is one of those things that, in the end, was made or broken by the ending. Unfortunately, the ending was basically why I don’t care for this kind of time travel plot. I also think that, to really make the concept work, the series needed to follow Elizabeth’s adjustment to the modern world as much as Amanda adjusting to Georgian England, especially given how much of the resolution relies on Elizabeth having changed and having found a world that suits her better. There’s also the second hand humiliation of Amanda trying to force events to go the way they “should” go, and the typical narrativelooking down on women who have romantic fantasies or enjoy romantic fiction.
However the Mrs. Bennet and Caroline Bingley in the series are basically exactly the way they are in my head, and the way I’ve wanted other things to portray them, (I’ll never be satisfied with anything else on that front) and the show also criticized Mr. Bennet for the same things that make me unable to like him. It also examines the characters, especially Darcy, when confronted with things that Austen never would have had them confront, and I am particularly fond of the running theme that even authors don’t know everything about their characters, and if the author doesn’t, a fan certainly doesn’t either, no matter how much of an expert they consider themselves to be.
I don’t think this is particularly good, and I was annoyed as often as not, but I was entertained for the most part, and found it consistently interesting, and it offered up some interesting analysis and deconstruction.
