Emma (Manga Classics)
Jane Austen, adapted by Crystal S. Chan, art by Po Tse
ISBN: 9781927925355
Saccharine and overdramatic in a way that Emma herself would have loved.
Read July 2015
This book is a PERFECT fit for a manga. Emma is a total dream ingenue, her meddling matchmaking is a delightful device in a visual format, and the characters are so perfect in their charming English politeness and absolutely beautiful clothes. All of the focus of the plotting; beauty, charm, polite society, the issue of social class and of appearances, the virtue of character, all of that are enhanced by the trimming of the story into a laser-focus on Emma, Harriet, and Jane, and their fortunes and misfortunes in love.
If you've read Emma before and enjoyed it, you should also enjoy this delightful dessert of a rendition. If you have NOT read Emma, this might be a fun way to introduce yourself to the characters and plotlines before diving into the real thing.
Showing posts with label Jane Austen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jane Austen. Show all posts
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Saturday, May 30, 2015
Glamourist Histories: Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal
Glamourist Histories Book 1
Shades of Milk and Honey
ISBN: 9780765325600
Jane Austen with magic.
A delightful romp through Austen-inspired Regency family drama.
Jane lives with her father, her munchausens-afflicted mother, and her preternaturally beautiful younger sister Melody, and it's getting to be time for that younger sister to be married safely off to one of the young lords of the neighborhood. Jane has no illusions to her own prospects; she's plain and gawky, with no grace in dancing or flawless social manners. She is, however, a fair hand at glamour, that invisible ethereal substance that can be worked upon to create illusions and pretty fancies. It's a natural gift of hers, but sadly, not any more useful nor marketable than the other basic social graces.
While the family plots to get Melody attached, Melody has plans of her own, and Jane discovers that their neighbor has an acclaimed glamourist on-site, working beautiful magics on their house. Too bad she can't stand him!
I really don't know what else to say about this book. If you love Austen and enjoy Regency manners, then this adds a light touch of magical frosting to the idea. It's a lovely stand-alone book, despite sparking a series afterwards, and it's sweet and lighthearted and clever.
Shades of Milk and Honey
ISBN: 9780765325600
Jane Austen with magic.
A delightful romp through Austen-inspired Regency family drama.
Jane lives with her father, her munchausens-afflicted mother, and her preternaturally beautiful younger sister Melody, and it's getting to be time for that younger sister to be married safely off to one of the young lords of the neighborhood. Jane has no illusions to her own prospects; she's plain and gawky, with no grace in dancing or flawless social manners. She is, however, a fair hand at glamour, that invisible ethereal substance that can be worked upon to create illusions and pretty fancies. It's a natural gift of hers, but sadly, not any more useful nor marketable than the other basic social graces.
While the family plots to get Melody attached, Melody has plans of her own, and Jane discovers that their neighbor has an acclaimed glamourist on-site, working beautiful magics on their house. Too bad she can't stand him!
I really don't know what else to say about this book. If you love Austen and enjoy Regency manners, then this adds a light touch of magical frosting to the idea. It's a lovely stand-alone book, despite sparking a series afterwards, and it's sweet and lighthearted and clever.
Monday, June 4, 2012
A Jane Austen Education, William Deresiewicz
A Jane Austen Education
William Deresiewicz
ISBN: 978-159420-2889
Penguin Press, 2011
I have a complicated relationship with Jane Austen. As a self-proclaimed hopeless romantic with a serious pragmatic streak, I have difficulties with the Austen/Bronte dichotomy that popular culture and academic culture alike have deemed insurmountable. I really like Jane Eyre, I really do. And I hate Wuthering Heights with a burning passion. I also think that Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, and Mansfield Park are quite lovely, and I still wish that I could get my hours back from Emma and Persuasion.
Therefore I feel a little unsuited to review this (at times uncomfortably obsessive) tribute to Austen and her ability to use her novels as object lessons to teach people how to be decent human beings. (I also question the parenting involved that leaves someone in their post-graduate work to realize that they are being schooled in how to be decent human beings.)
Our boy Will apparently grew up under a rock, or had his head so far up his nether regions as a child and young adult that I find it hard to believe that he had any long-term friends at all. Once he made the acquaintance of the delightful Ms Austen's writings, he began to slowly work his way intellectually into the social niceties of not being a self-absorbed twit.
Over the course of a review of the six main Austen works (likely much cross-pollinated with his graduate thesis and subsequent publication on roughly the same topic) Will realizes that Austen was purposefully creating main characters with character flaws, so that the reader would be tricked into identifying with them, and then subsequently shamed by their close identification when the character realizes their lapses (or not, as the case may be) and suffers the obvious consequences.
Perhaps I was read too many moralizing tales as an impressionable child, but I really do have to wonder how someone gets to be an adult without realizing much of what Will seems to attribute directly to the near-divine wisdom imparted by Austen's pen. Perhaps our social circles are simply very different.
In any case, while the rhapsodizing gets a little overwhelming at times, the voice is charming and self-deprecating enough that one doesn't quite want to hit him over the head (I did say quite), and the flow is very well handled between episodes of Austenia and episodes of the ongoing Will learns to be a decent person show.
If you're short on time, or have little patience for obsessive devotion, the back jacket will tide you over quite nicely with short paragraphs of the "point" of each of the novels according to our now totally humanized guide.
William Deresiewicz
ISBN: 978-159420-2889
Penguin Press, 2011
I have a complicated relationship with Jane Austen. As a self-proclaimed hopeless romantic with a serious pragmatic streak, I have difficulties with the Austen/Bronte dichotomy that popular culture and academic culture alike have deemed insurmountable. I really like Jane Eyre, I really do. And I hate Wuthering Heights with a burning passion. I also think that Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, and Mansfield Park are quite lovely, and I still wish that I could get my hours back from Emma and Persuasion.
Therefore I feel a little unsuited to review this (at times uncomfortably obsessive) tribute to Austen and her ability to use her novels as object lessons to teach people how to be decent human beings. (I also question the parenting involved that leaves someone in their post-graduate work to realize that they are being schooled in how to be decent human beings.)
Our boy Will apparently grew up under a rock, or had his head so far up his nether regions as a child and young adult that I find it hard to believe that he had any long-term friends at all. Once he made the acquaintance of the delightful Ms Austen's writings, he began to slowly work his way intellectually into the social niceties of not being a self-absorbed twit.
Over the course of a review of the six main Austen works (likely much cross-pollinated with his graduate thesis and subsequent publication on roughly the same topic) Will realizes that Austen was purposefully creating main characters with character flaws, so that the reader would be tricked into identifying with them, and then subsequently shamed by their close identification when the character realizes their lapses (or not, as the case may be) and suffers the obvious consequences.
Perhaps I was read too many moralizing tales as an impressionable child, but I really do have to wonder how someone gets to be an adult without realizing much of what Will seems to attribute directly to the near-divine wisdom imparted by Austen's pen. Perhaps our social circles are simply very different.
In any case, while the rhapsodizing gets a little overwhelming at times, the voice is charming and self-deprecating enough that one doesn't quite want to hit him over the head (I did say quite), and the flow is very well handled between episodes of Austenia and episodes of the ongoing Will learns to be a decent person show.
If you're short on time, or have little patience for obsessive devotion, the back jacket will tide you over quite nicely with short paragraphs of the "point" of each of the novels according to our now totally humanized guide.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Austenland, Midnight In Austenland, Shannon Hale
Austenland
2007, Bloomsbury, ISBN: 9781596912854
Midnight in Austenland
2012, Bloomsbury, ISBN: 9781608196258
These were a bit of a tangent for me, but I have to say that I enjoyed them more than I thought I would.
Shannon Hale is the author of several Juvenile fairy-tale-esque stories that I have enjoyed - most particularly Princess Academy, The Books of Bayern, and the graphic novels Rapunzel's Revenge and Calamity Jack. (I recommend them all - they are amazing.)
With this duo, Hale sets off into a (presumably imaginary) world where rich young (or not so young) things bored or tormented by modern life and modern loves sequester themselves in the Regency version of an SCA convention, proceed to be romanced (carefully and properly) by handsome young actors in tight Regency pants, and enjoy a few weeks respite from the raging modernity by relaxing in a world where class and gender roles are rigidly imposed.
Ooookay. Sure. On the surface, that sounds a little kooky, but lets be honest here - this seems perfectly logical to me. There have been umpteen different revivals and restagings of Austen's works, women like being romanced, and just about everyone can have fun with a costume party if they let themselves.
In Austenland, our first protagonist is Jane Hayes. She works in marketing, and she's never had a "real" boyfriend. When her elderly aunt notices a certain DVD hiding in her potted plants, Jane is sent off on an adventure to clear the romantic preconceptions from her mind and heart once and for all, so she can settle into a rational life with realistic expectations of love that don't involve beautifully-worded protestations of infatuation or incidents of feet-sweeping-off-of. No one who reads this sort of book will be in the least surprised that this doesn't exactly go according to plan.
In Midnight in Austenland, after having settled our first protagonist (no spoilers) we're treated to a brokenhearted recent divorcee who, while extremely intelligent in many ways, is totally blinded to the reality of the trainwreck that was her marriage. This vacation to fantasy Austenland is an attempt to see herself as something more than an abandoned woman and a mother. Her hopes of finding herself are thwarted from the start as a series of unfortunate and perplexing events culminate in a possible murder! Are the actors simply outdoing themselves, or is something truly afoot?
These are not high literature. They are not classics, they are not treasures of the nation (I would argue strenuously that Rapunzel's Revenge IS) and they are not intellectual reads. They are pure, unadulterated Austen-flavored fluff. I enjoyed the hell out of both of them!
2007, Bloomsbury, ISBN: 9781596912854
Midnight in Austenland
2012, Bloomsbury, ISBN: 9781608196258
These were a bit of a tangent for me, but I have to say that I enjoyed them more than I thought I would.
Shannon Hale is the author of several Juvenile fairy-tale-esque stories that I have enjoyed - most particularly Princess Academy, The Books of Bayern, and the graphic novels Rapunzel's Revenge and Calamity Jack. (I recommend them all - they are amazing.)
With this duo, Hale sets off into a (presumably imaginary) world where rich young (or not so young) things bored or tormented by modern life and modern loves sequester themselves in the Regency version of an SCA convention, proceed to be romanced (carefully and properly) by handsome young actors in tight Regency pants, and enjoy a few weeks respite from the raging modernity by relaxing in a world where class and gender roles are rigidly imposed.
Ooookay. Sure. On the surface, that sounds a little kooky, but lets be honest here - this seems perfectly logical to me. There have been umpteen different revivals and restagings of Austen's works, women like being romanced, and just about everyone can have fun with a costume party if they let themselves.
In Austenland, our first protagonist is Jane Hayes. She works in marketing, and she's never had a "real" boyfriend. When her elderly aunt notices a certain DVD hiding in her potted plants, Jane is sent off on an adventure to clear the romantic preconceptions from her mind and heart once and for all, so she can settle into a rational life with realistic expectations of love that don't involve beautifully-worded protestations of infatuation or incidents of feet-sweeping-off-of. No one who reads this sort of book will be in the least surprised that this doesn't exactly go according to plan.
In Midnight in Austenland, after having settled our first protagonist (no spoilers) we're treated to a brokenhearted recent divorcee who, while extremely intelligent in many ways, is totally blinded to the reality of the trainwreck that was her marriage. This vacation to fantasy Austenland is an attempt to see herself as something more than an abandoned woman and a mother. Her hopes of finding herself are thwarted from the start as a series of unfortunate and perplexing events culminate in a possible murder! Are the actors simply outdoing themselves, or is something truly afoot?
These are not high literature. They are not classics, they are not treasures of the nation (I would argue strenuously that Rapunzel's Revenge IS) and they are not intellectual reads. They are pure, unadulterated Austen-flavored fluff. I enjoyed the hell out of both of them!
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