Becoming Something Other than Jane

It’s amusing to think about how English novelist Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice) would have reacted to her current popularity. It seems that a whole new generation of fans have not only discovered Austen -- who was born in 1775 and died in July of 1817 -- they’ve reinvented her. As The Boston Globe reports today:

Given the current bull market in all things Jane Austen, it was inevitable that spinoffs would appear. In addition to the much-praised 2005 Keira Knightley Pride & Prejudice and the announcement that Masterpiece Theatre will soon tackle the entire Austen oeuvre, the 2004 novel The Jane Austen Book Club is on its way to the big screen. Titles like Jane Austen’s Guide to Good Manners crowd store shelves, and you can buy a Jane Austen action figure on Amazon. A McDonald’s “Ironic Meal” is probably in the works.

Though that led doesn’t hint at it, the piece is, of course, really about the new Jane Austen movie, Becoming Jane, starring Anne Hathaway. Unlike some reviewers, The Globe doesn't hate the movie:

It’s not bad, either -- lushly mounted, well played, pleasing to the eye and ear. Girls (and other people) who like the Austen movies and miniseries but haven't yet progressed to the novels will love it. But it’s not Jane.

The Los Angeles Times’ Calendar, on the other hand, stops just short of calling for tar and feathers for director Julian Jarrold and the project’s screenwriters. (Hathaway, oddly, is spared.)

The actress Anne Hathaway may someday fulfill her costume biopic destiny by assuming the role of her literary namesake, Shakespeare’s wife, but in Becoming Jane, she takes on the far more daunting task of playing Jane Austen. Few writers enjoy a following as loyal or fervid or frankly well-organized as Austen’s, and it’s hard to imagine her fans not coming after Becoming Jane director Julian Jarrold and screenwriters Sarah Williams and Kevin Hood with pitchforks and torches, or at the very least a letter-writing campaign.

Not having seen the film, we won’t opine on the necessity of pitchforks, however, considering that back in March, we were commenting on the fact that Austen’s UK publisher was giving the author a makeover because she “was not much of a looker,” one wonders at Hathaway’s representation of Austen as a hottie with a boyfriend.

Jane Austen died at age 41 having never been married. But had she ever been kissed?