Thank Goodness For Jane Austen, The Opiate Of The Masses

[dr_pretentious]

Asking people for things makes me twitchy.

That's not quite right.

In person, I can brazen it out just fine. In person, I can usually rely on my superpowers as the Vortex of Schmooze. It's when email and telephones are involved that I start twitching.

That's still not quite right.

Asking people who are higher up the totem pole than I am, especially when there are valid reasons for them to be up there, and even more so when I know they're busy, makes me twitchy.

Almost right. Try again.

To be more precise, sending out requests of this sort makes me panicky, for no good reason, because what's the worst that can happen? My emailed attempt at a charming request might be met by an email that says the busy person is too busy, or, if s/he's completely swamped, by no email at all.

I have half a dozen of these panic-inducing emails to send. Really, they should have gone out months ago. The only thing that makes it possible to click the send button is taking frequent breaks to read a page or two of Pride and Prejudice.

Fortunately, Jane Austen has much milder side effects than most opiates do. So far, the most persistent side effect is an even more frequent than usual inclination to kiss my spouse.

Comments

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

And you'll be glad to know that Pride & Prejudice & Zombies is being made into a tv series.

I have the same drug of choice

[amushink.livejournal.com]

Not always Austen, but I remember that the dreadful task of writing my (nonfiction) thesis could only be accomplished by frequent trips into the stack of novels on the right side of the terminal, slightly smaller than the stack of research books and notes on the left.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

My dear, a quick question, sadly, not connected to Jane Austin. One of our colleagues would love to speak to someone about the process of finding a publisher for a forthcoming genre. This colleague contacted me, but alas, I know only of academic presses. You are the expert on surving and thriving in the midst of a publisher search.

I left a message on your cell phone, but wonder if you might give me a quick call so I can appraise you of the situation. Please call me on my cell at your convenience.

love,

s.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I got your voicemail. By all means, put him in touch with me. He's welcome to all my contact info.

[spindlewand.livejournal.com]

I frequently have odious requestatory phone calls I have to make, which are very very difficult and therefore do not always get done, although they really need doing. I will have to try the "One call, two pages of Austin, one really awful call, three" prescription and see if it works.

I am quite sure "requestatory" was not a word five minutes ago, but I think I kinda like it...

[(Anonymous)]

If gustatory gets to be a word, requestatory should get to be one, too.

[happy-dr-friend.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I just finished reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies...which led to a wicked urge to reread the original. Three thoughts about the two:
1. Seth Grahame-Smith isn't as good a writer as Jane Austen. His edits actually removed some of the biting (pun semi-intended) social commentary of the original. If only Jane Austen could be reincarnated and have the urge to play with her original novels. Or write more novels in the original style. I'd be happy with Jane Austen writing more in any style.
2. It really is too violent. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters does a better job, IMHO, of integrating the monsters and the story without gratuitous violence. Well, without as much gratuitous violence.
3. Conversely, in PPZ marriage is not the grotesque form of prostitution it was in the original. Jane and Elizabeth don't marry because they have to-they can support themselves. Lydia is more or less forced to marry only after she screws up in a major way, multiple times. Even then, if she'd simply demanded Wickham's head, she probably would have gotten away with that. Even the less talented Charlotte marries only because she is about to become a zombie and wants to do so far from her family. This is very different from the meat market view of marriage in the original. (That Jane and Elizabeth marry happily in PP is a testament to their talent and daring, but they still have to marry for it to be a happy ending in PP. In PPZ the marriage is somewhat ambiguous: is marriage and retirement from the defense of their home really the happy ending?)

Or am I reading too much into this?

[violet-moon25.livejournal.com]

This post just make me wonder what Jane Austin would write if raised from the dead AS a zombie...

[happy-dr-friend.livejournal.com]

Polite, snarky stories about the mores and manners involved in the search for brains?

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Best lj comment ever! I want there to be a book with that as a blurb on the jacket copy.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I haven't read PPZ, but I think you're reading just the right amount into it. The question every young woman raised after 2nd wave feminism asks while reading Austen is, Why don't these women stop whining about the shortage of sugar daddies and go get their own damn jobs? And it turns out there are very good answers to that question, but any modern revision will find that issue irresistible.

I haven't decided whether to read the Austen mash-ups. You know how sometimes you watch a great movie preview that nonetheless gives you the impression that you've just seen the only minutes in the film that are worth watching? I really get the impression that once I've read the blurb of PPZ, I've already got everything it can offer me. Is that the case?

[happy-dr-friend.livejournal.com]

I've been generally amused by the Austen mash-ups, although I think Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is the better of the two. I think I mentioned my major complaint about them already: they take out too much of the snarky character interactions and the writing of the coauthors is not up to Austen's. On the other hand, they do add an interesting blend of 19th and 21st century sensibilities. Plus I've wanted to see Elizabeth Bennet kick Darcy in the butt since I originally read PP and now I have.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Hm. A Darcy smackdown. That may be worth it.

I read PP recently--teaching prep--and was struck by how Darcy reads as an introverted geek who happens to be cursed with excessive wealth that makes people expect him to be sociable. The adaptations always cast a pretty actor as Darcy, but with no visible pretty face intruding on the story, he actually reminded me those of my splendidly geeky male friends from high school who would be least likely to feature as romance novel fodder.