“Jane Austen never attended services at Bath Abbey,” Mr. Darcy informed me. He was wearing a poorly-fitting imitation silk riding coat, and he carried a walking stick.“You see, she was Protestant and would not have liked the Catholic services. She wrote in Sense and Sensibility about the dangers of too much romanticism and sentiment, and undoubtedly she would have disliked the ceremony of Catholic ritual.”
I put up my hand like a schoolgirl. “Sorry,” I said. “But this was the nineteenth century, right? So this church couldn’t have been Catholic.”
Mr. Darcy looked a little hunted. “When the church was founded in 973, it would have been Catholic,” he said.
That was the wrong date, but I let it go. “Sure,” I said, “but Jane Austen lived post-Reformation. There’s no way this church was Catholic in her day, right?”
Mr. Darcy’s eyes glazed over. “Of course, madam,” he said. I was pretty sure Mr. Darcy did not know what post-Reformation meant, but he was being very polite about it.
Darcy is not high on my list of reasons to read Austen. He is outranked by her beautifully balanced sentences, each one polished until it shines like glass; her wit; her women. Austen’s men tend to be cyphers, plot devices to service the stories of other characters, but her women are all so funny, so finely drawn, so distinct, that it astonishes me every time I open one of her books.
But what is most fascinating to me about Austen is how very small her world is. Her books exist in parlors and drawing rooms, behind needlepoint samplers and hands of whist. It’s an incredibly privileged world, of course, but it is tiny, and its boundaries are iron-clad.
Austen’s critics say that this is what makes her books airless and dull. It’s what Charlotte Bronte was talking about when she observed that Pride and Prejudice is “an accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a common-place face; a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers—but no glance of a bright vivid physiognomy—no open country—no fresh air—no blue hill—no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses.”
For me, Austen’s elegant but confined houses are part of her allure. Bronte was entirely wrong when she concluded that “the Passions are perfectly unknown to her”—it’s just that Austen’s passions are subliminal. Within this tiny, highly regimented world, every little object takes on special meanings and resonances, just as the smallest action the characters perform carries enormous social and emotional significance. Think, for instance, of all the meaning carried by Lizzie Bennet’s muddy hem: it tells us that Lizzie is more worried about her sick sister than about her dress, that she is athletic and energetic enough to enjoy walking in the mud, and that she is attractively rebellious against strict social conventions, while Caroline Bingley cares more for clothes and conventions than the health of her friend. There is an entire social treatise packed into that single muddy hem.
So when I found myself in England with a few spare days on my own, I decided I would go to Bath. Jane Austen is a cottage industry in Bath. It is the home of the Jane Austen Centre, it hosts an annual Jane Austen Festival. Historically Austen hated Bath, but she lived there for years. It would be fascinating, surely, to see the actual domestic space of a writer who is so focused on small domestic details.
Of course I knew there would be Mr. Darcy merchandise all over the place. I have seen the statue modeled after Colin Firth in his wet shirt; I have seen the bookshelf at Barnes & Noble dedicated to Darcy fanfiction. But that was fine. I have nothing against women swooning over Mr. Darcy. He is, after all, designed to be swooned over; it is his primary reason for existing.
“Sir Walter Eliot,” Mr. Darcy informed me and a gaggle of Swiss tourists, “did not think highly of the women of Bath. In Persuasion he complains, ‘The worst of Bath was the number of its plain women. He had frequently observed, as he walked, that one handsome face would be followed by thirty, or five-and-thirty, frights; and once, as he had stood in the shop in Bond Street, he had counted eighty-seven women go by, one after another, without there being a tolerable face among them.’” The Swiss tourists giggled as Mr. Darcy lowered his book. “Ladies,” he said, staring earnestly into our eyes, “you are all beautiful.”
Mr. Darcy was leading the Jane Austen Centre’s walking tour of Bath. According to the Centre’s brochure, on this tour you get to experience Bath as Jane Austen lived it for the nominal price of ten pounds. What actually happens is that you go on a facsimile of the same walking tour that the Mayor of Bath’s office offers for free, only in the Jane Austen version you pay the price of a movie ticket plus popcorn to be led around by a costumed actor instead of someone who knows what they’re talking about.
And this actor is playing a very specific version of Mr. Darcy. He is not, especially, Austen’s Darcy, who is famously awkward and impolite. After all, the most famous line said by Austen’s Darcy is the one Elizabeth overhears when she first meets him: “She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.” What kind of man says that out loud? A rude one, that’s who.
The Jane Austen Centre’s Darcy is the Darcy from really bad fanfiction, the kind that only gets a few pity kudos on AO3 because it’s so out of character. He is polite. He walks on the street side of the sidewalk, holds up traffic so that old ladies can cross the street, and addresses every woman he sees unfailingly as madam. You can just imagine the actor going over his script, breaking it into beats and scribbling down all the synonyms for polite he can think of. “What’s my intention for this part? To be polite. To be courteous. To have . . . etiquette. To compliment them.”
And then, running out of words, he would start over again. “To be polite. To be courteous.”
The Centre itself is in a townhouse in which Austen herself never lived, but which is roughly contemporary with Austen’s life. It contains facsimiles of period furniture which she never touched, but which are roughly contemporary with her life. And it contains Mr. Darcy. Everywhere, Mr. Darcy. Or rather, an actor playing a character who bears little to no resemblance to Austen’s Darcy, but who is wearing a facsimile of an outfit roughly contemporary with Austen’s life.
And yet everywhere we went that day in Bath, there was not a question in anyone’s mind who the polite man in the poorly-made Georgian riding coat was meant to be. Everywhere we went, someone would cry, “Mr. Darcy!” and he would stop and pose with his walking stick while the camera shutters clicked, nodding politely to everyone who greeted him.
The Jane Austen Centre is not alone. The Wiki-How for “How to Find a Modern-Day Mr. Darcy” (yes, it exists and the illustrations are amazing) advises: “If your date opens doors for you (chivalrous), truly listens (thoughtful), is concerned about your needs (kind), and appears in most respects to be a thoroughly modern gentleman, he is very much a modern-day Mr. Darcy.”
In Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, Darcy is “all gentlemanly solicitousness” from the very first page. And in Me and Mr. Darcy, our heroine swoons over Darcy’s “impeccable manners” and “chivalrous” behavior, explaining that he is the perfect man because he is “respectful and knows how to treat a woman.” Popular culture has performed one of its great switches: it has replaced Austen’s rude and awkward little nerd with a dashing romantic hero of impeccable social graces. Is it the repression that did it? Did the fact that it would never occur to Mr. Darcy to be vulgar, because one simply isn’t in Austen’s world, convince everyone that he is a model of courtesy? Have we chosen to ignore everything that goes on beneath the surface in Austen’s elegant but confined houses to simply revel in the elegance?
To see Jane Austen’s writing desk, you have to go to the British Library in London. It’s in a glass case in their Treasures of the British Library display, across from one of Shakespeare’s folios and a few cases away from some Beatles sheet music. It is a very small desk, and foldable, designed to be easily stowed away, which it must have been often; Austen wrote in her parlor and would hide her writing whenever callers stopped by. At the British Library it is open, with very small spectacles pinned to one corner and the tiny notebook that held the first draft of Persuasion lying on top of it, splayed flat so you can see Austen’s fine, precise handwriting. Under the shadow of that desk, the disciplined confinement of her novels acquires visceral force. This much space was she permitted, and no more.
In the display case next to Austen’s desk is Dickens’s first draft of Nicholas Nickelby, in a notebook that dwarfs Austen’s entire desk, with generous margins and looping, scrawly handwriting. It is impossible for me to imagine what Austen might have done with that kind of freedom, that kind of certainty of her own right to take up space.
As Mr. Darcy pointed out Putney Bridge to us, explaining that it was just like the one in Florence, two teenage girls walked by and looked him scornfully up and down. “You’re not the real Mr. Darcy,” one of them yelled.
Mr. Darcy turned pale and clutched his walking stick, but he said not a word. It would have been rude.
Huh, I’ve been to the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, but I have very little memory of there being this much Darcy-centric stuff involved. I’m not generally anti-Darcy, but I guess it didn’t register with me, for some reason.
ETA: I was not particularly impressed by the rest of the Centre, either. It was… fine?
same! I remember there being TONS of Mr. Darcy stuff in the gift shop but the rest of the center being low-to-moderate on Darcy? I was there ~5 years ago though so it may have changed.
also, #TeamWentworth
#TeamWentworth forever!!
It really frustrates me how much Darcy merch focuses on his proposal to Elizabeth at Hunsford. The words are nice but he *immediately* spoils any pleasant feelings the reader might have about it by being the rude guy that he is (at least at that point in the novel) and telling Elizabeth to her face that he’s in love with her against all his better judgement and the opinions of everyone he knows. If we want to talk heartfelt romantic proposals, it’s all about Frederick’s (secret!!) letter to Anne.
And they forget that she turns him down because he’s such a jerk about it!
I was there in late 2014, and I also don’t recall it being Darcy-centric, but either way definitely not worth the money I spent on the admission…
But when I was there, the girl giving the introduction asked our group if someone had read Persuasion, and nobody raised their hand.* So maybe they changed the focus of the centre because they thought people actually were only interested in Pride & Prejudice/Darcy?
*Might have been the language barrier, though – I didn’t realise what she had said until after she had continued speaking, and didn’t answer the question myself, even though I have very much read the book; it is, after all, my favourite Jane Austen book and the main reason I went to Bath at all.
(Edited because I forgot how to html)
yeah, I would’ve been there summer 2013, and I remember there being more about Persuasion and trying to illustrate the social orders of regency era Bath, but that could have changed.
I was just there this past June! And yeah, there was a ridiculous amount of Darcy stuff in the gift shop but my tour group did not get the intro from a ‘Darcy’; an ‘Anne Elliot’ did the intro and then we were left to our own devices.
I agree with your assessment of it being ‘fine’ . We had a nice time and it was interesting to see the clothing and the descriptions of social rules of Bath, but we mostly just went to tick it off our list and had a much better time having tea at the Pump Room and visiting the Fashion Museum and the Roman Baths (both of which were excellent!).
Also, BATH BUNS. I think I ate six of them in the three and a half days we were there.
“Is it the repression that did it?”
No, pretty much just Colin Firth. (And don’t kid yourself that fanfic rewriting unpleasant but attractive characters into marshmallows doesn’t get lots of kudos.)
Love the ending. “YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD!”
Loved this, especially the part about modern pop culture changing Darcy from “a rude and awkward little nerd” into some great romantic hero. I laughed aloud at that, and I agree! I ended up writing my thesis on something similar, the role of costume design and modern Austen adaptations in completely changing popular perception of the original text. Sidebar: when people wax on about Mr. Darcy, I want gift them a copy of Persuasion and say “get back to me about your favorite Austen man after you read this.” #teamwentworth #butreallyteamannelbr
I’ve been to the Jane Austen Centre in Bath as well, and I don’t remember much about it except I was underwhelmed. It was not the highlight of my trip, although I am glad I went. The best part was the little cafe upstairs, and the scones, tea, and rose lemonade. The scones were better than I was expecting from a little museum cafe (all I remember from trips are the meals I eat, let’s be real).
Teamwentworth solidarity!
I think (because I know I did this when I was a teenager) people read old literature expecting it to be staid and boring, so they miss all the examples of people being anything but staid and boring. I know the first time I read Austen when I was young, my brain glazed over. It took coming back to it when I was older to realize, oh wow, this is funny, and arch and even subversive. I think your thesis sounds really fascinating!
I tried reading Sense and Sensibility right after watching the movie when I was in high school and could barely make it through. Then in my senior year English class I read Age of Innocence, followed by Emma and could suddenly see all the delightful satire that Austen included. (I still haven’t tried wading back through Sense and Sensibility)
I always liked Darcy BECAUSE he was rude and awkward, rather than super polished and polite. I do not care for the revisionist version of Darcy at all, because it basically takes away everything that was special about him and turns him into a very boring, very standard type of hero.
But Wentworth is BY FAR the superior of the two.
I like Darcy as a character, but I just can’t get into him as this great romantic hero. I’ll admit when I first watched the 1995 version (before reading the book), I was 15 an ATE IT UP. But I’ve re-read the novel several times since, and each time I find it harder to see him as the revisionist version, as you said (I love that, by the way!). I mean, Colin Firth’s Darcy will always hold a special place in my heart bc Colin Firth, but I think of him as almost a different character entirely at this point.
I have a type in real life that runs toward at least slightly nerdy and/or socially awkward (I used to like rude, too, but as a grown up person I no longer believe that if someone is rude to everyone else but nice to me then that means he really loves me) so that may also inform my opinion a teeny bit. But I think you are right about the whole Colin Firth thing. I honestly don’t really remember his Darcy that well, but I never forget Colin Firth in general.
Last weekend, I convinced (blackmailed?) my 16-year-old brother into watching the A&E ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (aka the Colin Firth one) with me.
1) He watched the WHOLE THING.
2) We spent 5 hours giggling at how incredibly not-smooth Darcy is. Rude and awkward little nerds turn out to be very entertaining, no matter your age and gender.
3) Afterward, he admitted P+P was ‘okay’. But he laughed his ass off during Darcy’s first proposal, so I know he definitely enjoyed himself.
A+! I recently watched that adaptation all the way through for the first time, and there was a LOT of giggling. Sometimes all-out laughing. It is so funny and so good.
Make him watch The Lizzie Bennet Diaries! It’s a pleasing way to spend your weekend. That Darcy is the most awkward nerd of all, I love it.
Seconded! Lizzie Bennet Diaries is wonderful.
I’ve sent about a zillion links in attempts to convince Future Mr. Mad Editor that this is exactly the perfect honeymoon. We will be going. There will be a cottage. We may even go to town.
It is the best city in the entire world, it would be the perfect place to go for a honeymoon, can you maybe tell it is my hometown?
omg DO IT, we went this summer and had an amazing time there and you should totally go!!
I live here and I have delighted in catching street names and places that crop up in the books, but I haven’t made it to the JA centre. I may not worry.
I blame Colin Firth as he was my first Darcy adaptation. He is so seemingly polite and charming himself that I find he overwrites what I actually know about Darcy.
[CRASHES INTO CONVERSATION]
I met Colin Firth one time (and blogged about it for funsies). And even though he’s been in lots of other films, every time I look at him I STILL see Mr. Darcy.
I owe that adaptation a rewatch. I haven’t actually watched it straight through for several years now.
WAIT TELL US MORE OR LINK IT PLEASE
Coliiinnnnn
it’s here: http://the-toast.net/2015/02/18/meeting-mr-darcy/
I would read things about meeting celebs in odd ways ALL DAY. Amazing!
the kind that only gets a few pity kudos on AO3 because it’s so out of character
….
ouch.
I’ve been to Bath twice, and it’s a gorgeous place. But I don’t get why it’s the place for Jane Austen. She hated Bath. When I visited the centre (this was about 7 years ago I think), there was a not-specifically-Darcy guy in period dress, whose idea of flirting was showing off his tongue ring and lurking near the wax figures in order to startle people who were touring the centre. He was slightly icky, and nothing I associate with the men of the period at all (not even Wickham!). I remember being really disappointed with the centre just because they didn’t have much that was actually hers.
Although I prefer Austen to the Brontes, I have to say that in terms of tourism, the Brontes have her beat. You can go into their parsonage house in Yorkshire, and it’s all ‘oh, emily died on that couch’ and ‘charlotte died in that room’, and they have a ton of their clothes, drawings, books, etc. And the scenery is fucking spectacular.
The buses are nightmare, though. You have to change at Keighley.
I drove! Well…my British friend drove! Yeah it’s really not easy to get to, even with a car. Good point.
🙂 I live in Leeds, so only up the road, but we’ve only been to Howarth once and I’m always embarrassed that for some reason I remember the bus station at Keighley much better than Howarth itself!
You can take the amazing old steam engine to Haworth from Keighley though – that’s the best way to approach it!
I know someone who went there to see their books for academic purposes and she told me they had her sit at the kitchen table they’d sat at as she leafed through the books they had read with their very own eyes and notated with their very own hands.
Like, I might have died of jealousy at that moment. I’m just a pale ghost now, whispering her regrets into the internet.
So I studied abroad in Bath, and at one point one of my housemates ran in breathlessly and declared “THERE ARE A MILLION MR DARCYS OUTSIDE.”
Turns out that they were filming a period piece in the square near our house, and there were, indeed, many handsome men dressed in Edwardian clothes.
Anyway, this makes me miss Bath a lot.
ME TOOOOOOOO. I even took the Jane Austen seminar. A+++.
Hiiiii fellow ASE-er! I did not take that seminar and have indeed never read any Austen, but everyone in my house did watch the 2005 Pride and Prejudice there together, so that counts for something?
Amazing.
WikiHow is so weird sometimes!
Mr. Tilney would be a more appropriate tour guide, surely? Plus, he gives fashion advice.
I would sign up for that tour, but only if a) he helps me pick out some muslins and b) it’s the Wishbone variety of Mr Tilney. JJ Feild is cute and all, but I accept no substitutes.
Hehe, one of my favorite Chicago theaters did an adaptation of Northanger Abbey and the Tilney (who I’ve seen in a bunch of their shows) has imprinted on me a tad, but it is hard to beat Wishbone.
#teamtilney
*swoons*
Oh he would be peeeeeeeeerfect~! I’ve always loved her sarcastic notes about him falling for Catherine due to her admiration of him – and how even if this is unbelievable, at least people will give her credit for being original.
Northanger Abbey is one of my favorite Austen’s, though P&P is high up there.
I would 100000% take a tour of Bath led by Mr. Tilney
I’m now trying to persuade my Austen-loving mother that the perfect celebration for my 21st would be driving London to Bath (entirely for Persuasion reasons because we are both committed to Team Wentworth), via Chawton and Winchester… Please help me convince her?
The one thing that makes that Jane Austen tour semi-worthwhile is that they point out the building where the letter scene in Persuasion took place. It is now a coffee shop and not very atmospheric looking, but you can still go in and pretend to be Anne Elliot if that’s your thing.
Even if Austen hated Bath, it is still a beautiful and charming city and totally worth spending time in. You don’t have to take an Austen-specific tour.
I agree! Bath was so lovely, my favorite part was splurging on afternoon tea at some tucked away place in the Royal Crescent. It was summer and they sat us out in the garden and I could have happily lived in that moment forever. I think the best bits of Bath were just wandering around the city with an acquaintance who lived there and showed us all her favorite things/places.
That’s what we would do too! Not keen on the centre at all…
Well, Bath itself is great – the Jane Austen Centre is just not the best part of it. The exhibition really is pointless if you already know how people lived in the Georgian era.
But! There are other great things to do, if you’re an Austen fan or not. You could save on the money for the centre and just visit the tea room upstairs; it’s really nice. You also don’t have to pay for their walking tour; take one of the free tours, they also show you the walk where Anne and Wentworth discuss their feelings.
You can have a look at all the different houses Jane Austen lived in; you can visit the Roman Baths (the museum is interesting, but I strongly recommend a visit to the actual spa/thermal bath), all the while imaging Anne and Jane walking through the streets (and probably wishing to be somewhere else 🙁 ).
I also recommend the Fashion Museum – definitely worth the entrance fee. And! Nearby is the most wonderful tea room, Bea’s Vintage Tea Rooms, furnished like a 1940s tea room, with very nice waitresses and great food. Not kidding, I spent a week in Bath and I went there three times.
And you know, if you actually go there, and afterwards (or while you’re there), watch Persuasion, you can actually yell loudly and proudly, “I was there! Right at this place!!” This is probably the best part of visiting Bath.
Thanks for all the tips! Yeah we’d definitely skip the centre, and we aren’t really into guided tours so it would be more about wandering around and just being there for us. We went years ago and it was lovely but I don’t remember much – we’ve been talking about going back for years and this reminded me…
We’ve decided to definitely do a day trip to her house and Winchester, because it’s only about an hour’s drive, probably in March/April. And we’ll get to Bath one day…
Bath is really, really lovely! Echoing the reccs for the Fashion Museum; also, climbing to the top of Bath Abbey (it’s a tour you can take!) was one of my favorite things we did, as well as just wandering the city and taking it all in.
Winchester is INCREDIBLE. I spent some time there last year, and it’s all just stunning- like something out of a fairy tale, or something (I was also there at the holidays, which might have added to that impression). I hope your trip is wonderful!!
Agreed there is lots of lovely stuff in Bath that is better than the JA Centre – there’s also a lovely American Museum just outside town with loads of proper old quilts, and the small but quite cute Herschel Museum for science fans, which is actually in the house Herschel lived in.
My husband and I went to the Assembly Rooms (and the Fashion Museum) on a particularly quiet weekday afternoon, and it was totally deserted so we waltzed around for a few turns. ^__^
Every time I watch Persuasion now I get all happy noticing places we walked/ate/etc. I love it.
Wasn’t any of this Darcy shite when I went to the JAC 4 years ago — they must have realised they needed something to distract from the total lack of anything there with a direct connection to Austen. Smart move really.
Well put.
Weird they have so little. Did the Austen’s do a massive purge or does some crazy Austen groupie have her letters, hatpins and dying couch?
I know her sister burnt a lot of their correspondence and letters so it’s possible that there’s just not much out there left.
(oh and #teamtilney)
I can’t think of the JAC without being sad for a very materialistic reason. When I went to England with my English department in undergrad, I went to Bath for a day trip and returned to the rented flat with many, many souvenirs for my mother and myself. Unfortunately this was the time of my life when I was drinking heavily, and I was so hungover the next morning that I forgot all the souvenirs while quickly packing to take a bus to Stratford.
Ughghghgh I am still full of regret. Someone comfort me and tell me that all the gifts were cheesy. Please?
All the gifts were certainly cheesy and no one missed them but you. All is well. 🙂
Thank you, my dear 🙂
BATH
I’m so excited I only skimmed the article and then went straight to commenting.
I love Bath. I went there on my first ever holiday alone, and it was wonderful. And the Jane Austen Centre was one of the few decidedly not wonderful things. So disappointing! Nothing I didn’t know before, nothing actually Austen-ish. And the exhibition is in the cellar, after an introduction you’re being led down there and then can’t even go to the bathroom from there because they hang a rope in front of the door so nobody who hasn’t gotten the introduction yet can enter. And I paid how much for this?!
The good things were the guy dressed as Mr Bennet (he was pointed out to us by the guy who led the free walking tour I took part in, who’s friends with him) – he sews his costumes by himself and is very polite; and, as someone else has pointed out above, the tea room upstairs.
The free walking tours are superb! And the guides also point out points of interest for Austen fans.
(Also, the bridge is called “Pulteney Bridge”, not “Putney”.)
When I was studying in Bath, the Fashion Museum had an exhibit of costumes from Austen adaptations as well as clothing from the period. The audio tour was narrated by Harriet Walter (the completely terrible and perfect Fanny Dashwood in the 1995 Sense & Sensibility) and it was spectacular. I remember they had a bit about Darcy’s shirt being sold at auction for some incomprehensible amount of money, and talked about how the costumes from Gwyneth Paltrow’s Emma had much bolder and brighter prints because Hollywood.
Ahahaha I was just here a few months ago and there was much giggling about how the sign in the entryway says “Welcome to the Jane Austen Centre” above a picture of Colin Firth Darcy. I bought some underwhelming “Jane Austen Blend” tea and a Pride and Prejudice mug anyway though because I am a suckerrrrr.
This makes me so sad! One of my life goals has been to go to the Jane Austen Festival because a) Austen, b) I loved Bath the one day I spent there, and c) it’s on my birthday weekend. But this makes me think I may need a new life goal.
Perhaps not. I think the Festival is quite the to-do, but the Centre itself may be underwhelming for the ardent fan.
Well on the plus side, the bit where everyone dresses up Austenly and wanders around the road in a parade looks pretty fun! And the (great!) bookshops tend to have events to that might make up for the centre being not so great.
The worst movie Darcy I’ve ever seen, in case you’re wondering, is Laurence Olivier in the 1940 production. It was a terrible movie overall, so I’m not sure how much even he and Greer Garson could have done (although she was, iirc, quite charming). The costumes were decades off, the adaptation was ridiculous, and Darcy was…shy. Like, ever so slightly socially awkward, but mostly he was kind of quiet and really fairly polite most of the time. No pride, improper or otherwise.
Did I mention that the costuming was terrible?
Did you know Aldous Huxley wrote the screenplay? Author of “Brave New World” Aldous Huxley. Everything about that movie was totally bizarre.
…wat
The costumes were actually purposely off! That still bugs me, but in some ways I like it as a relic of that Old Hollywood ‘who gives a shit about accuracy’ attitude (although lbr, that’s still a thing today). The director and designer wanted to ride the coattails of Gone with the Wind’s success the year prior, hence the huge hoop skirts. They also incorporated a lot of 1930s/art deco design in the trim + color palette, which I also kinda dig from a fashion history perspective. But I’m still not super fond of this adaptation, even if I hate the costumes less. The screwball comedy vibe will never work for me when it comes to Austen.
Also, the Lady Catherine de Bourgh…thing…was ridiculous and stupid and terrible. If you don’t like the plot of Pride & Prejudice, folks, don’t make that movie! Make a different movie!
I totally agree. The Lady Catherine thing was the last straw. I honestly rage quit watching it halfway through the first time I started it, and didn’t return until years later. Then I had to write a paper on it, which turned into a lot of rewatching and the anger eventually morphing into resigned distaste.
That’s kind of funny, because from everything I have ever heard about Laurence Olivier, he sounds like he really was very very awkward and Darcyish. (well, maybe more openly obnoxious about it than Darcy).
Maybe he just refused to be a proper Darcy for this film, or the writing was so bad he couldn’t do anything with it. Or [speculation involving Gone with the Wind and his and Vivan Leigh’s torrid love affair].
“Popular culture has performed one of its great switches: it has replaced Austen’s rude and awkward little nerd with a dashing romantic hero of impeccable social graces.” YES. THIS. I love this whole thing (I really enjoyed Bath for the Austen stuff, but definitely preferred the Pump Rooms and the Roman Baths to the Jane Austen Centre).
However, I did get my favorite-ever cameo necklace at the gift shop, so I guess it wasn’t a total loss.
Bath is my hometown, so this article made me want to cry a little bit and then move back immediately. A friend of mine actually was one of these costumed guides over the summer, although she would have been a lot better at it – she has an English degree and loves Jane Austen, so going on a tour was less “here is a Lizzy Bennettalike” and more “LET ME TELL YOU ALL THE THINGS”. Which I at least thought was an improvement.
One of the many amazing things about living in Bath is reading Persuasion and particularly Northanger Abbey, and being hit with the most incredible ‘plus ça change’ as she bitches about carriages going too fast up Lansdown Hill and all the teenage girls blocking up Milsom Street to look at things in the windows.
I have a deep love of Bath Abbey because there is a 1700’s flagstone/grave of a woman names Agnes Bushell near where the choir sits and omg Bushell is MY name.
It always irks me that people often treat Jane Austen like some kind of 19th C Rom-Com chick-lit thanks to various adaptations of Pride and Prejudice. She’s a satirist and under the veneer of polite, exquisitely crafted sentences, she’s often pretty damn brutal. Not that there’s anything wrong as such with rom-com or chick-lit and we could/should maybe have a conversation about how society denigrates genres regarded as feminine, etc, and yes I get I’m playing into that right now but seriously the fact is it’s still so reductive to see her in that light so there.
My graduation present from my parents back in 2009 was a one-week trip through the south of England with my mother. Because I’m such a huge Jane Austen fan, we did Winchester, Chawton, Bath (and Chipping Campden, Stratford-upon-Avon, London and Hay-on-Wye in Wales). The Jane Austen Center in Bath was very much underwhelming, but by a lucky chance we got to Chawton exactly on the 200th anniversary of Jane’s arrival there, so there was a lovely big celebration with tiny local school children performing country dances dressed in period clothing. That was awesome.
I love Jane Austen but I have a severe aversion to anything not fiction trying to be Mr. Darcy due to a particularly awkward experience in high school where someone sat me down and told me they wanted to be my Mr. Darcy. I sort of paused and then looked horrified.
… That is the only reasonable reaction to that statement. Oh my.
One of my cousins once tried to woo a girl he was interested in by using Darcy’s first proposal to ask her if she would want to begin a ‘courtship’ with him. She turned him down. Thank god.
Does anyone have a recommendation for an annotated version of Pride and Prejudice? I love that book but I feel like I’m missing a lot of the societal and cultural references from the time that would likely deepen my appreciation. And the hints of that in this lovely article have intrigued me!
I haven’t read it, but saw a recommendation for this: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/annotated-pride-a…
David M Shapard, Anchor Books, 2012 second edition. He’s also annotated Persuasion, S&S, and Emma. Highly recommended.
Thanks so much! My library even has a bunch of them as ebooks. I knew the Toast would come through!
You should also check out What Jane Austen Ate and Charles DIckens Knew by Daniel Pool. It gives a lot of great info on the period, is very readable, and will give you more references if you’re interested.
I had to come back to say that the David Shapard annotated books are delightful! What a great combination of societal and cultural information and also information on how Austen structured her books. I read through P&P and Persuasion and I’m now onto Sense and Sensibility.
I’ll also add that What Jane Austen Knew book to my list. Thanks guys!
Wait, what is Mr. Darcy doing in Bath anyhow?
(also: #teamwentworth)
I have long held an, i guess, unjustified dislike of Bath (seeing as I have never been there) thanks to Austen’s pretty vehement perspective on it in her books. Maybe it’s just because I’m not much of a social person, either, but it always seemed like a nightmare, either for Anne or the Dashwoods. But the profusion of Bath Praise in the comments is making me reconsider! Perhaps when I have a zillion dollars i will go there, and visit the Pump Room that i may Take The Waters.
Also, yes to the awkward little dingus-erasure of Mr. Darcy. I don’t think that just because he got married it would no longer be a problem and he’d transform into like, Fabio. If anything, he probably got more awkward and full of FEELING. That’s infinitely more interesting than the average lothario portrayal of him.
(Although I will admit that I am not strong enough a person to resist some good Austen merch.)
Yes yes yes yes yes.
*nods*
(The WikiHow link is a mailto: btw.)
But Bath Abbey is Anglican low Church, not Catholic. Not even High church.
WHAT IS THIS DARCY TALKING ABOUT?
This is THE BEST THING on the internet, thank you.
A million thank yous!
ETA: This is definitely the best part:
Mr. Darcy was leading the Jane Austen Centre’s walking tour of Bath. According to the Centre’s brochure, on this tour you get to experience Bath as Jane Austen lived it for the nominal price of ten pounds. What actually happens is that you go on a facsimile of the same walking tour that the Mayor of Bath’s office offers for free, only in the Jane Austen version you pay the price of a movie ticket plus popcorn to be led around by a costumed actor instead of someone who knows what they’re talking about.