Forgive lack of recent posting

Standard

Real life interferes once again. In the meantime, enjoy a link from Alert Janeite David, who found a link to an iPad-ready edition of P&P. The blog post seems to have fed the description (which is fine on Amazon) though a translator and then back to English again. We were, however, especially amused by this comment:

Please, this was an utterly unconvincing and boring novel. If it wa written today it would be internationally acclaimed for being a dummed down soap opera. Unfortunately, having been composed in, what, the 1830s, it has become a period drama style romance novel, where instead of foreplay, they have to bow and curtsy and everything. Althought this may appeal to worthless romantics, it will not perform well to the MTV generation. The movie starred Hugh Grant. Please………

How many things can one A. Nonny Mouse get wrong in one blog comment? And we’re not even talking about the typos.

Enjoy, and with luck regular service will resume tonight. Feel free to take this as an open thread. Let us know what’s going on in your patch of Janeiteville.

16 thoughts on “Forgive lack of recent posting”

  1. Allison T.

    ha ha ha!! ROFL

    “And positively what Melville did for whaling Austen does for marriage–tracing the intricacies (not to discuss the economics) of 19th-century British mating rituals with the certain palm as well as an unblinking eye.”

    tracing with palms! dry, unblinking eyes!

    And I’ve never considered a sentence with both “whales” and “Jane Austen” in it!

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  2. Sandra

    Uh, I’m pretty sure I *am* the MTV generation –it having launched on my 16th birthday– and I like Austen just fine. Besides which, when was this written? Because it’s been a loooonnnnng time since said generation was the arbiter of the hip and fashionable–and we adored Hugh Grant, so there! ;P

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  3. Marty

    I liked the poster who thought Jane Austen deserved credit for having written the book in an American household in the early 1880’s! And having it published without telling her husband!

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  4. Laura Sass

    It is amazing the lack of education displayed by the posters. Jane Austen in America???? And married???

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  6. Baja Janeite

    Maybe, he would have preferred the Colin Firth version? or the comic book version?

    It just goes to show that we must introduce our children to Jane Austen at an early age. Pitiful….

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  7. Julia

    I just love what all the (automatic?) translating did for the first sentence of P&P … “a law zodiacally acknowledged” …

    What a crappy website, by the way (not just by the standards of their commentators).

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  9. S

    Open thread question: Does anyone know where I can find scripts for stage adaptations of Jane Austen for junior high/middle school students? I know someone posted about some once, but I haven’t been able to find the information again.

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  10. ot:

    i am currently re-watching most recent Emma . . . if i wanted modern manners, i would watch Clueless, which is v. good . . .when will anyone make a good Emma???

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  12. Oh my gosh! This is hilarious! This is solid proof that ignorance is not bliss. It is also solid proof that we need to bumped up our courses in English literature in the high school classrooms, as well as simple grammar.

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