MY JANE AUSTEN WEEK - QUESTIONS - PART I

Elegance of Fashion has organized this great event, a blog party,  My Jane Austen Week  from August 7 / 13,  and I joined the Austenite lady host there with great pleasure. Part of the fun is answering an interview she prepared. Do you want to join us? Answer these questions on your blog and link to Elegance of Fashion. Here are my answers to questions 1 /6. I hope you'll enjoy them.  ( Part II coming soon. Stay tuned. )

What was your introduction to Jane Austen?

I was only 14 and  loved reading so much that …I was often reproached by my grandmother and grand-grandmother for wasting so much time with “those things under my nose”. Books!  My family didn’t own many of them and my mother didn’t have time to buy  me new ones, working all day long. My lovely aunt - we all have got  one, haven’t we?  – was my “pusher”. I borrowed from her all the books she had. So one day, among a pile of second-hand books to read, I got my first copy of Pride and Prejudice. I was so naive at that time that I went on believing Wickham was really charming until I read he got money from Mr Darcy to marry Lydia!

What is your favourite thing about Jane Austen? Why?

I love her incredibile wit, her smart use of words. Oh, to be able to communicate so humourosly and to the point! She is a master of irony and a talent in wit!

What are your top three favorite Jane Austen Novels and why?
    

     
     Persuasion is at the top of my list. Why? I really can’t say it. It was the last I read and it immediately became first in my heart. Maybe it is because I can feel for and sympathize with the heroine much deeply than in the other 5. A question of age?

    Emma comes second and for a totally different reason. I can’t sympathize with Emma Woodhouse. I feel I’d rather strangle her at times but … it is Austen’s masterpiece, I think. It’s definitely her best achievement in wit and style and characterization. If you feel Emma is so vividly real you want to strangle her, does that not mean that Austen achieved perfection?

     
   Sense and Sensibility is my number 3. Despite its flaws – in picturing all the male characters in depths except for Willoughby, for instance – I like it more than Pride and Prejudice. There’s so much of Jane’s life in that tale. Pretty much. She doesn’t want us to cry on her misfortunes and doesn’t do that herself either but… reading about Elinor and Marianne . can’t you feel all the anxiety and sorrow she and Cassandra must have felt after their father’s death, in their years in Bath? Well, that’s what happens to me.

Who are your top three favorite Jane Austen Heroines and why?

Well, I am Anne Elliot, a test says. I feel she is actually the one who resembles me more so…I love her. Then, incredibile but true,  among my best favourite there are the 2 heroines that differ from me the most: nosy, spoilt Emma Woodhouse (she can be so irritating and hilarious at the same time!) and sensitive, romantic Marianne Dashwood.

Who are your top three favorite Jane Austen Heroes and why?

Ah, there! Here we go! I definitely love Captain Wentworth. He is MY PERFECT HERO. His letter to Anne makes me shiver every time I read it. Then I love Mr Knightley, who is a real gentleman, one to marry at once! Last but not least, I’d love to have Henry Tilney as my partner to a ball. He is so intelligent and entertaining! P.S.Though I'm not blind and I can see Rupert Penry-Jones is definitely gorgeous, may I have my captain tall, dark, handsome and blue-eyed in the next Persuasion adaptation? Somewhat like this, for instance. No, not somewhat  like, just HIM, please.

Any honorable mentions for 3, 4, and 5?

I'd like to  mention someone else, but ...You only asked for “heroes”? Well, though honorable is NOT an attribute of his… What about a rogue, an anti-hero? Yes, just let me say, I have a real crush on … Mr Willoughby (God helps me!)

Check the other posts at Elegance of Fashion