The Quality of Luck
We were really pleased to see in the Jane Austen Centre online magazine an article by Patrice Hannon in which she discussed her road to publication of two Jane Austen-related book, Dear Jane Austen and 101 Things You Didn’t Know About Jane Austen. We were delighted not because the Editrix got a shoutout in the article (though it’s always nice to get an unexpected egoboo) but because it’s such a great story for aspiring authors.
There is a persistent belief among aspiring authors (and some readers) that one must “know someone” to get published, or have some kind of inside track. There is a grain of truth in this, but what is not acknowledged is that authors who are seen as “lucky” or “in the right place at the right time” are almost always someone who has worked very hard and had her hard work noticed and rewarded by putting herself in the position to take advantage of her “lucky” break. There are few really overnight successes.
It also should be pointed out that Patrice Hannon not only put herself out there by taking a part-time job mostly to sell her own book, and by believing in herself sufficiently to put in the time and work to promote it and get it noticed, but by backing it all up by writing good books. When asked to recommend someone to write a book on Jane Austen, the Editrix recommended Dr. Hannon because her deep knowledge (and love) of Jane Austen’s work came through on every page of Dear Jane Austen. If it had been a mediocre book, it would have ended there.
Jane Austen herself spent more than 20 years honing her craft before being published, and one can see the progress of her genius through each of her books. While publishing was set up a little differently in those days, without much more of a barrier to first publication than the ability to guarantee any losses experienced by the publisher, if her books weren’t great, they would have been forgotten like the other hundreds of books published in that time. Even the bestselling authors of her day–Fanny Burney, Maria Edgeworth, Samuel Richardson–are not widely known or read today. Work hard–and produce good stuff.
Albert Einstein famously once said that genius is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration. We would add that luck, at least in publishing, is some percentage of genius and a larger percentage of work. Don’t expect the Publishing Fairy to come down and smack you with her magic wand. As Conan O’Brien said, work really hard and be kind and amazing things will happen. It’s true!
“Monetizing Emma” at the NYC Fringe Festival
“Monetizing Emma,” a play by Felipe Ossa, is being presented as part of the NYC Fringe Festival. There are two shows left on Sunday, August 22, at 2:30 p.m., and on Wednesday, August 25, at 9:45. Tickets are an insanely-cheap-for-NY-theater $15. About the play:
The year is 2013 and boutique investment bank Thackeray Walsh is arranging the first-ever securitization of smart teenagers. Nothing like the insanely convoluted securities that brought the global economy to its knees in 2008-2009, this bond is backed by something far more valuable than sub-prime mortgages or toxic assets. It’s backed by an A-list pool of adolescents pledging their future earnings. They get money now in return for a share of their subsequent income.
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.
We tried to free up the time to go, but couldn’t manage it; if any Gentle Readers get to see it, we would love a report!
We received a couple of copies of this book at AustenBlog HQ to distribute to the Gentle Readers who won the drawing (congratulations, Shel and Maria L.!), and we were moved to write up a short non-review of the book. After all, we’ve all read Pride and Prejudice, haven’t we? HAVEN’T WE??? 
This edition is not a scholarly take on the novel; it includes no notes, no introduction. It is just an attractive, solidly put-together book, beautifully presented with an attractive cover by the fashion illustrator Ruben Toledo. There is a paragraph of information about the artist, and another about the author, and that’s about it for extras. However, if you’re looking for a gift copy of P&P to indoctrinate a newbie give to a friend or a young person who hasn’t read the novel, this would be a great selection.
REVIEW: Aisha
The third Jane Austen novel to get the Bollywood treatment (after S&S as Kandukondain Kandukondain and P&P as Bride and Prejudice) is Emma, presented here as Aisha. Aisha is a modern Delhi girl, obsessed with fashion and makeup and with matching up her friends. Wait–haven’t we seen this already, with a blonde girl from Los Angeles? Why, yes, we have. But it’s still fun to see Jane Austen’s story successfully injected into a modern setting.
Like Emma, Aisha begins with a wedding, which Aisha tells us in voiceover she arranged, between her aunt and a ruggedly handsome colonel. (Perhaps he wandered in from S&S. We will never complain about ruggedly handsome colonels, however.) At the wedding, Aisha sees “loser” Randhir spill wine over Shefali, whose aunt brought her from the country to Delhi to find a husband, and she immediately decides it will be a match. Cue a makeover for Shefali, several misunderstandings, and a hilarious episode with pepper spray, and Aisha switches gears to match Shefali with Dhruv, her aunt’s hottie stepson, with whom she just wasn’t able to fall in love. Meanwhile, Aisha argues with Arjun, her annoying neighbor whose brother is married to Aisha’s sister and who likes to tell her to grow up and stop being so shallow; but she is extremely put out whenever Arjuns spends time with Aarti, recently returned to Delhi from New York (and the actress who plays her looks EXACTLY like Angelina Jolie, we mean EXACTLY, could be her twin minus the tattoos, so one can’t really blame her). There is a secret engagement–but probably not the one you’re thinking of–and a borrowed subplot that almost could have come over from P&P.
Like Emma Woodhouse, Aisha learns humility; the girl who, surrounded by friends and family, squeals, “I love my life!” at the beginning of the film learns that her fashionable, fun life is truly meaningless when she alienates those she loves with her interfering ways; but this is shown as a montage with a sad pop ballad played over it, which is a bit shallow itself.
Unlike the previous Bollywood treatments of Austen, there are no musical numbers in which the characters sing and dance, a la the great MGM Hollywood musicals. There is lots of music, but it’s more like background to the characters; more John Hughes than Jane Austen.
We particularly enjoyed Abhay Deol as Arjun, the Mr. Knightley character. He is natural and funny, and only Aisha never seems to figure out that he has very strong feelings for her. Sonam Kapoor is lovely and plays Aisha exactly right–she is shallow, frivolous, fun-loving, and yet sweet and lovable and way smarter than she has shown.
The product placement is egregious and unashamed: the product logos are put right up on the screen in the beginning of the movie with thanks to the companies! And then watch Aisha put on her L’OREAL eyeshadow out of the case with L’OREAL on it and watch the camera follow her every movement as she opens her L’OREAL mascara and daubs her lips with L’OREAL gloss! When Aisha goes through her long dark musical montage of the soul, it is probably significant that her lipstick becomes less glossy and her eyeshadow much lighter, and her false eyelashes seem to disappear completely. But it’s all part of the fashion-conscious scenester of Aisha in the beginning of the film, so it works, but we still found it hilarious, and something that wouldn’t fly in Hollywood without being mocked endlessly.
We also noticed a lot of similarities with Clueless that went beyond the setting. There are scenes that are practically lifted from that movie. Aisha calling Arjun to pick her up when she is stuck in a bad neighborhood with a flat tire; Aisha and Arjun fighting over the TV remote; the gang “sparking up a doobie” and dancing at a party; shopping, hair, makeup, shoes, voiceovers by the lead, it’s all there. It’s almost as if Aisha is an Indian remake of Clueless, rather than an adaptation of Emma, but we guess it’s all the same.
Aisha is sweet and funny, but like Anne Elliot we felt that “There was never any burst of feeling, any warmth of indignation or delight, at the evil or good of others.” We adore Clueless, and while we enjoyed Aisha (and laughed out loud during several scenes), and liked the clothes and the music and the pretty girls and handsome boys, overall we just don’t love Aisha in quite the same way. For Janeites, it’s worth seeing as an object of our mutual obsession, and it is fun and funny, but like the title character, a bit shallow. Don’t expect any Emma-like epiphanies.
P.S. There’s an intermission of about 10 minutes! Really! Haven’t seen one of those in YEARS.
P.P.S. We forgot! There was a KISS! On the LIPS! And two characters made out in a bar! There were gasps from the audience at the first one, but the second didn’t seem to faze anyone. We thought there was no smooching in Bollywood, but we guess no more.
Monday Ebooks: Freebies Edition
Welcome to Monday Ebooks, in which the Editrix has a most harmless delight.
We wrote a couple of weeks ago about the ebook reader price wars going on between Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Farhad Manjoo predicted in Slate that Amazon will lower the price of the wifi Kindle to $99 for the holiday season, even if they have to take a small loss on the device, citing surveys that the ebook adoption tipping point will occur with the first $99 reader. This article has several problems, one of which being that Manjoo completely ignores the presence of any reader other than the Kindle and the iPad. That assumption is common; many commentators–many of which have never really tried an ebook reader for longer than five minutes, tossing it aside when they realize they can’t use Twitter or get e-mail or play WOW on it–think Amazon will outlast all its competitors. We find this argument lacking, as we wrote in our last Monday Ebooks post, not to mention way too North America-centric. Kindle is in Europe, it is true, but not in the huge Russian and Chinese ebook markets; and many of the books Amazon can sell in America cannot be purchased by readers in other countries, in particular Australia, a large English-speaking market which has great difficulty purchasing ebooks from Amazon. It’s way too early to predict a winner now; and we would be very upset were either Amazon or Apple (or the two together) to control the ebook market. Competition, in this market, is a GOOD THING for everyone, readers and authors and publishers; well, maybe not so much for retailers.
All that being said, we would like to take the opportunity to remind our Gentle Readers that you don’t really need to buy a special device to read your ebooks. If you have a smartphone such as a BlackBerry, an iPhone, an Android phone, or a Palm WebOS phone (holla!), you already have a portable device that can be used to read ebooks. And you don’t even need to pay for books, if you’re happy reading public domain books. Read more…
REVIEW: Ellie and Marianne
Longtime Gentle Readers will remember news a few years ago about a student film made by the Department of Communications at Ball State University, a modern-set adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. It was said the film would be made available via iTunes, but we’re not sure if that ever happened. However, Alert Reader Amy H. took the initiative to contact a professor at the university, who offered to send a DVD for review. Information for ordering a DVD of the film will be available at the end of the review. Thanks to Amy for tracking down the film and for her review! –Ed.
Review by Amy H.
“Ellie & Marianne,” released in 2006, is a modern-set adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic Sense and Sensibility. The film was written and produced by and stars the students of Ball State University. In brief, Ellie (Elinor) is a paralegal who sketches and draws. Marianne is a former soap opera star who takes up a role in a local play. Together the sisters follow Austen’s canon pretty closely. In the end Ellie ends up with Edward (a professor in Art) and Marianne with Brandon (who has a job crunching numbers and is a peer in this film) only after being tossed aside by Willoughby, who moved onto the next pretty girl. My best comparison for this film would be to the Mormon “Pride and Prejudice”; I neither really liked nor disliked it. I found parts quite amusing and enjoyable, while others were just hard to watch due to over-acting. Now, that being said, I highly commend the students for their wonderful efforts in putting together such a project and I did find the script pretty solid. I would say it’s worth the watch for those diehard “Sense and Sensibility” fans looking for anything S&S-related. I would also like to thank Tim Pollard, Associate Professor, Department of Telecommunications at Ball State University. I had emailed Prof. Pollard inquiring about “Ellie & Marianne”, and it’s thanks to him that we are able to get our Janeite hands on this film. So a big Thank You goes out to him!
You can purchase the “Ellie & Marianne” from Ball State University at the following links:
NON-TAXABLE – non-Indiana residents
Film trailer:
Alert Janeite Patsy directed our attention to a new CD of Haydn piano trios, which might certainly have been played by Jane Austen or one of her more accomplished heroines, in which the liner notes mention Jane Austen, the Gothic, and Northanger Abbey. Download or listen to samples at The Classical Shop.
Remember the Jane Austen Fight Club thing that was all over the Internets last week? Some more info is coming out about it. We saw in a few places commenters claiming that it was an amateur work by a bunch of friends, and this post on EW’s Popwatch blog does nothing to dispel that implication.
Not Really Laurel Ann
With the impending release of not-at-all-amateur Aisha, there are a lot of new promo videos and articles floating around. Read more…
Monday Ebooks: Price Wars and New Kit Editions
It’s been a while since we’ve got it together to post a Monday Ebooks, and as usual the ebook world has moved so quickly we’ve missed a lot.
We wanted to point out that Barnes & Noble is giving away copies of its B&N Classics editions ebooks all summer, 12 each week, complete with introduction and notes as in the paper book. This week’s selection includes several Jane Austen novels. They switch out on Sunday, so if you want them, make sure you download them soon. You don’t need a device to read the books–you can get the B&N Reader software for your PC or smartphone.
As far as the devices go, the two biggest ebook/hardware providers, Amazon and Barnes & Noble, are engaging in a price war. B&N lowered the price of its nook reader to $199, providing a second, wifi-only model for $149. Amazon responded by lowering the price of Kindle to $189, and recently introduced a new, sleeker, lighter Kindle at the same price and a wifi-only model at $139. A $99 device, perhaps from Kobo or Sony, can’t be too far behind.
The press is trumpeting that this means the second- and third-tier sellers that few have heard of will fall by the wayside. This strikes us as a particularly American-centric viewpoint. Russia is a huge ebook market, and Pocketbook is selling thousands of devices there as well as in Europe and even the U.S. (we confess to drooling a bit over the Pocketbook 360–look at that case isn’t it darling squeeee!) Asia is another huge market, and Hanlin and Netronix are producing OEM devices for the lesser-known companies such as Astak, Bebook and Bookeen–great devices, especially for those who like to play with their electronic toys a bit, but they are currently not really competing on price in the U.S. Kindle and nook are top of the heap. Kindle is cheaper, has more and cheaper ebooks, but nook is more open–you can buy books from other bookstores and borrow ebooks from public libraries that use Overdrive, which is most of them in the U.S. (the Editrix’s county libraries just got ebooks–squeee!). In either case, they are designed to get the purchaser to stick to that company’s particular ecosystem, which is just good business.
One of the most exciting things about the new Kindle model is the Pearl eInk screen, which has better contrast and is therefore easier to read. We are assuming that the new screen will trickle out to the other sellers, and probably won’t upgrade our current device, an Astak EZReader Pocket Pro, until it does. Exciting times are ahead!
The Marquess of Queensbury has nothing to do with this
Several Alert Janeites sent us a link from Salon about the Jane Austen Fight Club video (which has really blown up HUGE) and JA mashups in general. The article was fine, and then the author had to go and drag out that tired old blah blah bonnets blah tea blah dressing up blah crazy cat ladies blah de blah.
Granted, we have a Jane Austen problem. Austen, like Jesus, is most misunderstood and misrepresented by those who claim to love her best. Somehow, a writer regarded by previous generations as among the greatest novelists of all time, widely read by both men and women, has lately been cast in the role of the grandmother of chick lit. Nostalgic fetishists of tea sets, balls, empire-waist gowns and Colin Firth choose to see the milieu of Austen’s novels as a theme park for genteel romance instead of as the unforgiving shark pond it actually was.
So let us get this straight: putting on an Empire-style gown precludes one from “truly understanding” Jane Austen? So what is the appropriate outfit, then? A tweed suit? Jeans and a flannel shirt and Birkenstocks? (We have two-thirds of that outfit already, so we’re hoping for that one.) What are the rules? For this statement implies that there are some rules. To be admitted to the Truly Understands Jane Austen Club, one is not allowed to wear a high-waisted frock or admire a certain British actor? Is it okay to fetishize Matthew Macfadyen, then, or David Rintoul, but not Colin Firth? Really, we just want to know, because we certainly don’t want to break the rules.
We are really weary of the perception that one cannot have fun with our fanship of Jane Austen without being perceived as lightweight or as not understanding her properly. Our notion of fun might be different from someone else’s idea of fun, but it doesn’t shut off some vital portion of the brain that is necessary to understanding Jane Austen. Really, we “get her;” we get her to the extent that we understand she would have wanted us to enjoy her novels first of all.
Friday Bookblogging: Penguin Turns 75 Edition
July 30, 2010 is the 75th anniversary of the launch of Penguin Books. Before Penguin, books were expensive to purchase; if one wished to read a book, one ponied up the blunt (and this was 1935, smack in the middle of the Great Depression, remember) or got it from the library. Penguin brought affordable paperback editions of popular books to news agents, train stations, and other nontraditional bookselling locations, and revolutionized publishing and reading. The bookcovers featured simple, bold design, and color coding: orange for general literature, blue for biography, etc. While none of Jane Austen’s books were among the original ten, they have enjoyed great representation in the Penguin catalog ever since.
The celebration will continue over the summer:
A bright-orange Penguin Mobile (an adorable Mini Cooper with the Penguin logo) is driving to bookstores all over the US to bring some of our bestselling authors to parties in their hometowns, increase awareness of The Nature Conservancy, and promote literacy. At each event, a set of 75 Penguin Books is donated to a local library or literacy group. Each author is signing the Penguin-mobile as it makes its way across the United States, and the summer’s events will culminate with a party at the New York Public Library in September where Penguin will auction the car with the proceeds going to the New York Public Library. Penguin is also donating sets of books to numerous U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.
AustenBlog congratulations Penguin on their 75th anniversary, and like hobbits, they are giving away gifts on their birthday! Penguin has sent us two copies of the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of P&P, with the Ruben Toledo-illustrated cover, to give away to two AustenBlog readers. If you would like to be entered in the giveaway, respond to this posting with a valid e-mail address that you check regularly and let us know your thoughts about Penguin and this auspicious occasion. If you wish to comment and not be entered in the drawing, just say so in your comment. After the jump, just for fun, we’ve assembled a gallery of some of Jane Austen’s Penguin covers from over the years. Read more…
