Have you heard the news? Netherfield Park is-- oh, wait.

As much as I had hoped that the year 2014 would inspire somebody to make a new—and worthy—version of Mansfield Park (because it is the 200^th anniversary), and as disappointing as it is that that doesn’t seem to be happening, there are at least some delights in store, one of which is an old BBC radio version from 2003 of the story being rebroadcast.

Not quite interesting enough for you?  Okay, well, Felicity Jones, who plays Catherine Morland in the 2007 version of Northanger Abbey, will be Fanny Price.  Julia McKenzie, who is in a number of period dramas including Cranford and Little Dorrit will be Mrs. Norris… and, which seem to be the most popular names at the moment... wait for iiiit... our hero Edmund Bertram’s voice will be nobody’s but everyone’s favorite Benedict Cumberbatch (or maybe that should be ‘The One and Only’), while his older brother Tom is David Tennant.  (They’ve both been in period dramas, too… Amazing Grace and He Knew He Was Right, for example, but everyone seems to know them better from Sherlock and Doctor Who.)

I’m not really the Actor Fangirl type, but the fact that those gentlemen were going to be those characters DID excite me greatly, and I do think they’re quite superb actors, sooo… I’m looking forward to this.  Muchly.  Especially since there’s such a lack of good versions of this story.

(And I was a bit of a rebel, I suppose, putting a picture of Felicity Jones and not either of the guys, but... well, that's what everyone else is doing, and besides, we have HER in Regency costume. ;) )

The first broadcast will be May 12^th, and every successive weekday for the nine following, and each installment will be fifteen minutes.

This is where you'll be able to listen; the first episode (and probably all of them) will be from 2-2:15 pm their time, which would be 6 am PST and 9 am EST for us Americans.  (If you're in-between, you can figure it out. Heehee.) Which could mean getting up pretty early for some of us, but from the looks of it, the radio at that link seems to have old broadcasts from the last week or so, so we'll probably be able to listen to it afterwards. 

Anybody else tuning in? :D 

*Update: Here is where you can get started, and here is a list of all the episodes.  They're available for seven days from when they were first broadcast, so don't get too far behind!

Excerpt of the Day (and some Janeite rambling)

After the workshop, I drift back to the Emporium, where I am alternately charmed and repelled by the merchandise on display.  For every apron or tea towel or mirrored compact bearing a genuine Jane Austen quote, there seems to be a key chain or plaque or note card adorned with a line found only in an Austen movie.  The real Jane Austen, I’m sure, would have died rather than write anything as maudlin as “Sometimes the last person on earth you want to be with is the one person you can’t be without” or “Perhaps it is our imperfections that make us so perfect for one another.” Hasn’t anyone around here READ THE BOOKS? I find myself wondering.  The movies had made Jane Austen more accessible than ever, broadening the base of her fandom and diversifying her appeal, and even as I register my silent squawk of protest, I feel a bit churlish… (But really—“Sometimes the last person on earth--?” That one wasn’t even in an Austen movie!  It was on the poster for an Austen movie!)  Once again, I’m face to face with the contradictions of fandom: I’ve come to a Jane Austen conference to enjoy the company of other Janeites, but I can’t help turning up my nose, just a little, at the gross ignorance—the sheer bad taste!—of people whose idea of Pride and Prejudice owes more to Keira Knightley than to Jane Austen.

In my reading of Among the Janeites, there have been moments—many moments, actually—where I groan inwardly, roll my eyes, and think such phrases as “oh, brother” and “ewwww no, stop” and even skimmed a little to get past some stuff.  But the paragraph above… it just spoke to me on a Deep and Personal Level.  (I wonder if that would qualify me as a “real Janeite” according to the ideas of its author, Deborah Yaffe?)

Why I Don't Like the Darcy Fandom: A Rant

Some of you, I think, may raise your eyebrows at that post title.  "Wait a minute.  Melody IS a Darcy fan... isn't she?  Or has she changed drastically lately?"

No, my dears.  I don't believe in doing that.  Changing drastically, that is.  Yes, I am a fan of Mr. Darcy.  He ties for top spot in my list of favorite heroes.  So why do I dislike the Darcy fandom?  Wouldn't I enjoy fellow admirers of Mr. Darcy?

Indeed, I do love finding people who agree with me.  But so many who have similar opinions as I do on Jane Austen subjects hold Mr. Knightley to be their definite top-favorite Jane Austen Hero.  Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with that; I quite understand it.  Mr. Knightley is very admirable.  Yet, I honestly think that many people flock to Mr. Knightley while ignoring Mr. Darcy because he is... ha, too mainstream.  Mr. Knightley seems like a real character, the perfect gentleman, but Mr. Darcy is... a Janeite stereotype.

How To Waltz...

...according to just about any movie I've ever seen that includes teaching somebody the dance, no matter how clueless and inexperienced the trainee is.

• The first think you need to do is to find or be found by some guy, preferably a dashing one, who already knows how to waltz beautifully.  

So, I generally try to stay away from controversial topics...

...but when somebody makes a request, what can I do? ;)

Ahem.  Well, see, it was suggested I write this week about Why I Don't Like P&P 2005.  Y'all know that's the case but I try not to be too detailed about that because I know I have readers who do like it and I have no wish to annoy anybody.

Also, a post is in the works for the P&P95Forever Club blog which will be an official P&P05 bashing.  Ha.  But I won't do that here... in fact, I'm not going to give you all the reasons I don't like this version because there are kind of a lot and I don't want to get carried away.  So I'll just go with the main reason-- I find it Inaccurate To Jane Austen's Novel.

Which I suppose requires further explanation.  In a nutshell, these are the particulars, not in any special order:

~The time period in general is inaccurate.  I could go into detail about what I mean, but I don't feel like bothering, so let's just say even the makers say they meant to set it in the late 1700s.  Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813-- they were about twenty years off, and you can definitely tell.  (Some may argue that this makes sense because Jane Austen started writing the novel in the 1790s, but I will argue back that that doesn't make much of a difference-- she started working on Pride and Prejudice in 1811.  She was writing a thing called First Impressions earlier, and this wasn't just editing, it was revision.  And updating.  Therefore, the book is supposed to take place when it came out.  The end. :D)
Besides for having the wrong time period, I think they give it a distinctly modern feel, and for me that Will Not Do.