I COULD WRITE A BOOK BLOG TOUR - KAREN M. COX, LOOKING FOR A NEW LOVE

Looking For a New Love: Why We Should Let Lizzy have Mr. Darcy, and Set Our Caps for George Knightley (a tongue-in-cheek male review)

All of Austen’s heroes have their excellent qualities. Henry Tilney is charming. Captain Wentworth is romantic. Edward Ferrars is loyal (sometimes to his detriment). Edmund Bertram is kind.

But one Austen gentleman is more famous than all the others combined (thank you, Colin Firth!) Mr. Darcy is the ultimate catch, right? Brooding, rich, tall, and with that noble demeanor, he has turned readers’ heads for 200 years. He fell for Elizabeth Bennet when she never suspected that his feelings ran so deep. He saved her family from certain disgrace. He changes his prideful ways for the woman he loves.

He’s everyone’s favorite book boyfriend.

But hold on a minute…

Have you met George Knightley?

SPOTLIGHT ON ... SNOWBOUND AT HARTFIELD BY MARIA GRACE + GIVEAWAY

One of the things I love about Jane Austen’s characters is that they stay with you long after you’ve read the book. They become like old friends and you wonder how they would get along if they met each other. Of course, it might be challenging to manage to get them all together for tea, or better yet a house party, but it certainly would make for a fascinating time.

In Snowbound at Hartfield, a freak blizzard is just the thing to strand the Darcy party, including the Darcys, Colonel Fitzwilliam and Mr. Bennet, and Sir Walter Elliot’s party at Hartfield with Emma and George Knightley. Though Knightley has Emma’s assurances that she is finished with matchmaking, can she really resist the temptation their guests provide?

Maria Grace

 About the book: Snowbound at Hartfield  

Colonel Fitzwilliam should have been happy facing retirement. No more Napoleon, no more tromping the Continent, and his distant cousin had unexpectedly left him an estate. What was more, two of his favorite people, Darcy and Elizabeth, were travelling with him to visit his new home.

But the colonel wasn’t happy, not when he was forced to watch Darcy exchanging enamored glances with his wife. No, he wanted to pitch his cousin out the window. It didn’t help when Darcy kept lecturing him on the joys of wedded life— as if women like Elizabeth Darcy grew on every tree.

MR DARCY? HE'LL JUST STAY A JERK. MR KNIGHTLEY? YES, PLEASE! TALKING JANE AUSTEN WITH ... KATIE HEANEY. WIN DEAR EMMA PAPERBACK.

Hello and thank you for joining us at My Jane Austen Book Club, Katie! It’s awesome to have you as a guest and  to celebrate the release of your Austen-inspired,  “Dear Emma”. Ready for my questions? 

First one is a “twitter game”: How would you present your book in 140 characters?

Harriet, a tender know-it-all, gets her heart broken, makes an enemy, makes an unexpected friend, and learns she doesn't know everything.

How did the idea for “Dear Emma” come to your mind?

I was inspired by Jane Austen’s Emma, but also by friendships formed between women who’ve dated the same man, or been interested in the same man, which is a situation I found myself in several times when I was younger.

How much does your heroine, Harriet, shares with Emma Woodhouse?

She would think nothing, but they are both very absolutist in their views of other people, and what’s “right,” and how people should behave. But she shares more with Harriet Smith (her namesake) in her sort of underdog-ness, and tendency to act passively, or as a sort of sidekick sometimes.

LOVELY JANEITES - MEET JULIET VONTURI: EMMA CALLS MR KNIGHTLEY

A very heartfelt thanks to Maria Grazia for her gracious welcome to join her and you all at My Jane Austen Book Club.

In 1997 the Miramax Production of ‘Emma’showed me with such clarity a higher quality lifestyle. She enchanted me and I fell head over heels in love with him, nothing could be further from my own life than this beautiful movie. Mesmerized I grew my hair long and started making choices in my thoughts and atmosphere which reflected the values I refined upon.

Poetic license lit up my mind since I’m in the midst of publishing my own book of poetry ‘Sunstar’. 

MEET AUTHOR KATHERINE REAY AND HER "DEAR MR KNIGHTLEY" - GUEST POST & GIVEAWAY

Dear readers of My Jane Austen Book Club,

I’m so delighted to be here and to share a bit about Dear Mr. Knightley. This story is the compilation of Samantha Moore’s letters to an anonymous sponsor (Mr. Knightley) who has awarded her a grant to journalism graduate school. And while Sam studies fact, she must lay down fiction – her hiding place.

While we love reading Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Jane Eyre, Daddy Long Legs and other favorite classics, Sam lives within them. Growing up in the foster care system, Sam learned to avoid pain, strife and loneliness by “hiding” behind her best friends – Elizabeth Bennet, Charlotte Lucas, Jane Eyre... But now this habit is beginning to hurt her and others (as all hiding does), including another young foster kid, Kyle. And that shocks Sam – that she could be an adult who hurts a child.

So the journey begins… And we are invited along through Sam’s increasingly private letters to Mr. Knightley. And believe me, these letters take us on quite a ride. Nothing comes easily to Sam. She struggles to find her own voice, wondering if she has one at all. And the letters almost make us believe we’ve got a first person view to into her world, but we don’t. It’s even better. There’s a delicious layer we see that Sam can’t – there is what she is willing to tell Mr. Knightley, what she tries to withhold and how she interprets events – any or all of which can look to different to us than to her. The epistolary format allowed me to really explore Sam’s limited perspective and twist it about occasionally. I especially loved playing with Mr. Knightley’s anonymity, Josh’s subtle selfishness and Professor Muir’s feistiness.

TALKING JANE AUSTEN WITH ... VICTORIA GROSSACK & GIVEAWAY OF THE HIGHBURY MURDERS

Victoria Grossack studied Creative Writing and English Literature at Dartmouth College, and is co-author with Alice Underwood of the Tapestry of Bronze series, novels based on Greek myths and set in the late Bronze Age. She is also the “Crafting Fabulous Fiction” columnist at www.writing-world.com. Visit her website at www.tapestryofbronze.com, or contact her at tapestry (at) tapestryofbronze (dot) com.

Welcome on My JA Book Club, Victoria ! I’m very happy you’ve joined our on line club and you accepted to talk Jane Austen with me.

Your Austen-inspired novel, The Highbury Murders,  is  a  mystery  set it in Emma Woodhouse’s village.  Why Highbury and not Mansfield Park or Longbourn? Is Emma your favourite Austen novel?

First, why Highbury?  I chose Highbury for several reasons. Emma has been described as a detective story without a body – however, there actually is a body, and hence the potential for a mystery. Second, Emma’s active imagination makes her a natural detective. 

Secondly, is Emma my favourite Austen novel? That’s extremely difficult to answer. There’s a maturity in Austen’s three later works – Emma, Mansfield Park and Persuasion – which you don’t find in the three that were written earlier – Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Northanger Abbey. On the other hand, there’s a joy in both Pride and Prejudice and Emma that is absent from the other novels. So, yes, Emma is my favourite but the competition is fierce.

JANE AUSTEN'S BIRTHDAY SOIREE - BEST WISHES FROM YOUR BEST MEN, MISS AUSTEN!

Welcome to the  Jane Austen's Birthday Soiree on My Jane Austen Book Club! You know, this is an idea  Katherine Cox's at November's Autumn  and I had some time ago and we've invited other bloggers and Austen writers to join us in this celebration of Jane Austen's Birthday. 

But, after 30 of those friends accepted the invitation,   something strange happenedto me: the more I tried to figure out something special and original as Jane's birthday gift the more I found my ideas  and words inadequate. Our gifts could be letters (Jane loved writing them and wrote brilliant ones), cards or any other item we could think of, and we had to post it or about it today, on December 16th. So,  I decided to leave space to Jane's best men: who better than them can use words effectively and to the point? And who could  make Jane happier as guests to her birthday party? So, I'll leave the stage to Mr Darcy, Mr Tilney, Mr Knightley, Edmund Bertram, Colonel Brandon and Captain Wentworth. They and their words are my gift to Jane. 

There are gifts for you as well! You'll find a great Austenesque giveaway contest on each one of the participating blogs. Click, visit, comment all of them following the links in the list below and you'll get plenty of chances to win extraordinary prizes! Start from here, if you wish. The details of my giveaway are below, at the end of this post, which I really hope you'll like. Good luck to you all and a very happy birthday to our dear Jane.

GUESTBLOG: JULIET ARCHER, TAMPERING WITH PERFECTION + GIVEAWAY

Juliet Archer describes herself as ‘a 19^th-century mind in a 21^st-century body – actually, some days it’s the other way round’. She is on a mission to modernise all six of Jane Austen’s completed novels. The first in the series, The Importance of Being Emma, was shortlisted for the 2009 Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance – a genre she believes Austen excelled at. The second, Persuade Me, will be published in September. You can find out more about Juliet on www.julietarcher.com and www.austenauthors.com; she is also taking part in the Austen Twitter Project. Today she is talking to My Jane Austen Book Club about Austen’s heroes and offering a copy of The Importance of Being Emma as a giveaway. Please comment and provide your email address if you would like to be entered into the giveaway competition.Open worldwide, this giveaway ends on April 14th.

Hi, everyone! And thank you, Maria , for inviting me along. I love your blog and drop in as often as I can.

Some of you may be asking, ‘Why on earth would anyone tamper with Jane Austen?’ Well, first of all, my theory is that most romantic fiction is modeled on one of Austen’s stories. Hate at first sight? Think Pride & Prejudice. Lost love regained? Persuasion. Old friends falling in love? Emma. Love Gothic-fantasy-style? Northanger Abbey, and so on. Second, if you want to write comedy romance, why not learn from the master of the genre? Austen attained absolute perfection with her unforgettable characters, sparkling dialogue, elegant prose and page-turning plots.

But in my view there’s no point in producing a pale imitation – you have to tamper with it to make it your own. That’s why I’ve decided not only to bring Austen’s novels bang up to date, but also to get inside the heads of her heroes. I find that this is the most enjoyable part of modernising Austen – filling in the gaps that she left in our understanding of her male characters. Apparently, she never wrote a scene with just men in it – there had to be a woman. For each of her heroes, therefore, she provides a starting point and an end point and a few little clues along the way – but the rest is up to me!

Inevitably, modernising Jane Austen’s novels means taking certain liberties with the originals, mainly around transporting the characters, dialogue and plot lines into today’s world. These liberties are acceptable to Austen fans, because without them the modernisation would be stuck in a time warp, belonging to neither the 19^th nor the 21^st century. 

See all Jane Austen heroes HERE

 When it comes to tampering with Austen’s heroes, however, an author is treading on far more dangerous ground. Imagine Mr Darcy with a lisp, or a manic-depressive Henry Tilney! But sometimes leaving them unchanged just will not do.

When I started my first modernisation, The Importance of Being Emma, I took a long, serious look at George Knightley. Forget Jeremy Northam, Mark Strong and Jonny Lee Miller, who portray him on screen! In the original, he’s 37, has no apparent history with the opposite sex, is a pillar of Highbury society and woos Emma with the immortal line, ‘God knows, I have been a very indifferent lover’. So, on paper at least, he has far less appeal for most readers than Darcy or Wentworth. And why would 21-year-old Emma Woodhouse, with her rampant eligibility and penchant for matchmaking, consider him remotely lustworthy? Well, knowing the original Emma, she was after position rather than passion – but my heroine was already evolving into a sassy, savvy, 21^st-century woman.

There was no alternative: George Knightley had to have a makeover. I cut the age difference between him and Emma, to make sure he’s not old enough (technically) to be her father. Changed his first name from George to Mark (in spite of my weakness for George Clooney, ‘George’ just didn’t feel right as I didn’t know any 34-year-olds by that name – they’re all much older or younger). Gave him a stunning girlfriend, and kept him well away from Highbury while Emma was growing up. It seems to have worked: readers love the new Knightley, as does Emma who we first meet at 14 years old, in the prologue. It’s a flashback to the moment when Knightley discovers she has a crush on him; he deals with it less than sympathetically, giving Emma every reason to resist his charms when they meet years later …

And if I say that Mark Knightley is six foot two, dark-haired and blue-eyed, can you guess who my inspiration was for this makeover?  

Yes! Richard Armitage. Who else?

 Moving on to my next modernisation, however, the hero of Persuasion didn’t need any tampering with – apart from giving him a more convincing reason to disappear for 8 years than the Napoleonic Wars! I still wanted him to do something sea-related – so Captain Frederick Wentworth has become Dr Rick Wentworth, a marine biologist who’s become a world expert on sea dragons, beautiful creatures that live only off the south coast of Australia. He returns to England on a book tour and meets Anna Elliot, the girl who refused to go to Australia with him 8 years ago. The words ‘forgive and forget’ aren’t in Rick’s vocabulary, but the word ‘regret’ is definitely in Anna’s. When they meet again, can she persuade him that their lost love is worth a second chance? You’ll have to read the book to find out – although I suspect you already know what the answer is!

I’ve already started work on my third Austen modernisation, Northanger Abbey. Like Wentworth, the delicious Henry Tilney doesn’t need much tampering with. Neither will Darcy, I’m sure, when I get round to updating Pride & Prejudice.

But what about Edward Ferrars and Edmund Bertram? They’re often considered the least attractive of Austen’s male leads. For a start, each is entangled with the anti-heroine, Lucy Steele and Mary Crawford respectively, to a far greater extent than Austen’s other heroes. Both have a second, potentially more attractive, male lead to contend with – Colonel Brandon and Henry Crawford. Finally, on the page their personalities have less impact than playful Henry Tilney or brooding Fitzwilliam Darcy. At this stage, I see Edmund as more of a challenge than Edward – but who knows?

Let’s return now to my 21^st-century version of Wentworth and an extract from Persuade Me – that fateful moment when he and Anna meet again in Uppercross, at the house of Charles and Mona (another name change, for obvious reasons!) Musgrove:

Charles took a little turning off the lane, beside a large sign saying ‘Uppercross Manor’, and Rick followed him blindly. Down a side path, into a sudden fragrance of lavender, across a wide sunny terrace strewn with kids’ toys. Then through a door and –

Two worlds collided. The one he inhabited now, with its ship-like order and restraint; and the one he’d glimpsed eight years ago. With a girl who’d once wiggled her toes at him until he caught hold of her small, perfect foot and covered it in kisses.

This girl. These toes. This foot.

He dragged his gaze to her face. She was too busy with the little boy to notice him, so he had several long seconds to study her haggard, unkempt appearance. He felt oddly pleased that she’d lost her looks; especially since she wouldn’t see much change in his.

At last, she glanced up and their eyes met. He watched her smile fade and her face go rigid with disbelief; then she flushed and looked away.

The boy broke the strained silence. ‘Who dat man?’

Charles breezed in – Rick hadn’t even realised that he’d gone out of the room – and said, ‘That’s Rick, he’s coming up to see our lake. Sorry, Rick, haven’t introduced you. This is Anna, Mona’s sister, and my son, Harry. By the way, Anna, have you seen my spare rod?’

She gave him a stunned look, but said nothing.

Charles’s voice softened noticeably. ‘Don’t worry, you’re obviously on another planet, I’ll check the shed.’ He turned to Rick and added, ‘She’s whacked – my other son sprained his ankle yesterday and he’s had a bit of a restless night. Poor Anna bore the brunt, she’s wonderful with the children, always happy to come and help us out.’

Quite the little ménage à trois, Rick thought sourly. He cleared his throat, muttered ‘Hi’ and followed Charles outside.

It was over. He’d met her again and he’d felt nothing. Nothing at all.

I hope you recognise something of Jane Austen’s original hero and feel that my tampering has not been in vain!

Thank you for ‘listening’ – any questions?

Juliet Archer

THOUGHTS ON EMMA - THIS MONTH'S HERO, MR KNIGHTLEY. MR PERFECTION?

Mr. Knightley can be considered as the novel’s model of good sense. But, please lets's not go on considering him a fatherly figure. Isn't he more a very  tender passionate lover? The fact that he is much older than Emma has produced this stereotype of him , that of  a father figure to Emma who has always had a weak real one in Mr Woodhouse. Mr Knightley scolds her and rebukes her when she 's wrong, he tries to make her understand her mistakes,  but more as a dear affectionate friend, an older admirer , than a fatherly presence. When he finally declares his love to her he finds even the word "friend" unacceptable: "Emma,that I fear is a word ... - no I have no wish." 

 

Knightley’s love for Emma is the one emotion he cannot govern fully. It leads to his only lapses of judgment and self-control. Before even meeting Frank, Knightley decides that he does not like him. It gradually becomes clear that Knightley feels jealous. When Knightley believes Emma has become too attached to Frank, he acts with uncharacteristic impulsiveness in running away to London. His declaration of love on his return bursts out uncontrollably, unlike most of his prudent, previous well-planned actions. Yet Mr Knightley’s loss of control humanizes him rather than making him seem like a failure.

 

 From his very first conversation with Emma and her father in Chapter 1, his purpose—to correct the excesses and missteps of those around him—is clear. He is unfailingly honest but tempers his honesty with tact and kindheartedness. Almost always, we can depend upon him to provide the correct evaluation of the other characters’ behavior and personal worth. He intuitively understands and kindly makes allowances for Mr. Woodhouse’s whims; he is sympathetic and protective of the women in the community, including Jane, Harriet, and Miss Bates; and, most of all, even though he frequently disapproves of her behavior, he can't stay away from Emma, he never deserts her.

Like Emma, Knightley stands out in comparison to his peers. His brother, Mr. John Knightley lacks his unfailing kindness and tact. Both Frank and Knightley are perceptive, warm-hearted, and dynamic; but whereas Frank uses his intelligence to conceal his real feelings and invent clever compliments to please those around him, Knightley uses his intelligence to discern right moral conduct. Knightley has little use for cleverness for its own sake; he rates propriety and concern for others more highly.

Is Mr Knightley a Mr Perfection meant to mild Emma's imperfection? Is he too perfect to be true? I like him very much for his temper and for his wisdom, for his kindness and his generousity. Impossible to find a Mr Knightley in real life? Well, who cares? We can find one each time we leaf through Jane Austen's Emma.  Isn't this the reason why we love reading so much? Isn't it because  we can find "recovery, escape and consolation"? And, especially, a Mr Knightley, a Mr Darcy, a Captain Wentworth ....