This is a Jane Austen Fan Post
You've been warned.
I spent two weeks in southern England with my
parents, husband, and preschooler in April, and we spent a couple of days
visiting Bath, which was a popular city with fashionable Georgians. And since
books about fashionable Georgians are popular with me, it was exciting to see
so many scenes from so many books I've loved in real life.
(Pro-Tip: Depending on how you play it, England can
be much cheaper than Disney World.)
The most famous name associated with Bath is
probably Jane Austen. She lived there for several years in the first decade of
the 1800s, and two of her novels, Persuasion
and Northanger Abbey (my
favorite), use Bath as one of their settings.
We visited the Jane Austen Centre on Gay Street, danced
in the Assembly Rooms, had tea twice in
the Pump Room, sampled the waters at the Roman Baths, and chatted with a lay
reader at Bath Abbey. So many scenes are set in these places!
At the Jane Austen Centre, my daughter earned a book
for good behavior on the tour. It's a Jane Austen find-it with graphic novel
style retellings of all six novels. It's awesome. And yes, I totally intended it to be a Jane Austen gateway book.
On another day, we visited the town of Lacock, which
is mostly operated by the National Trust as a film site for every English
period drama you've ever seen.
It served as Meryton in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice (otherwise known as
the best P&P), and it didn't take
my daughter long to figure out that there are movies of all Jane Austen's
novels and that these movies often contain balls and fancy dresses. (Because no
matter how poor the Bennets think they are, they're really not.) My saying,
"Hey, do you want to watch the movie of this when we get home?" may
also have helped her to this conclusion.
I wasn't sure she really would want to watch a Jane
Austen movie, but we've made it through Pride
and Prejudice and half the version of Emma
that stars Romola Garai and Jonny Lee Miller (otherwise known as the best Emma). We plan to start Sense and Sensibility next (the 1995 one
with Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant, obviously).
She thinks they're hilarious because there are "so
many silly people in these shows," and while she doesn't necessarily get
every detail, she gets Jane Austen's worldview, which is—in the Southern
parlance of my childhood—"People's crazy," which is an important life
lesson. She is firmly #TeamBingley. She identifies with Emma Woodhouse as the
Austen heroine she most resembles, which is astonishingly self-perceptive of
her. (I like to think of myself as Elizabeth Bennet, but I'm much afraid I'm
really some combination of Catherine Morland and Anne Elliot or Fanny Price.
Horrifying thought.)
In short, all my dreams have come true.
Sounds like a great trip.
ReplyDeleteIt was!
DeleteI love this, Courtney! You are wise to start your daughter off early on the Jane train. I, unfortunately, failed miserably with my own daughter. Her name is Jane Elizabeth but the only Jane Austen book she's read (after MUCH prodding) was Pride and Prejudice (my favorite) and, horrifyingly, her response was simply, Meh.
ReplyDeleteThere's hope for her yet. Not everyone boards the Jane Train at the same time.
DeleteYou're clearly doing this parenting thing right. :)
ReplyDeleteOr at least one part of it!
DeleteWait, I forgot about Elinor Dashwood. I bet I'm really Elinor Dashwood.
ReplyDeleteWow. Jane.
ReplyDelete