Happy Birthday Jane!

Today is the 234th birthday of Jane Austen! Dearest Jane was born on December 16th, 1775, "to George and Cassandra Austen at Steventon rectory." (Hampshire, England) "She was the eighth child and second daughter behind brothers James, George, Charles, Francis, Henry, Edward and sister Cassandra." (*Copyright JaneAusten.org: I couldn't get that straight.) 234, wow! And this means that the 200th anniversaries of her novels are coming up in the next decade! S&S in 2011, P&P in 2013, and Emma in 2015! Very exciting!

I don't know how she would have celebrated, but I suppose some kind of cake is in order, here. I have a devil's food cake mix, that I have been dying to cook up....

In addition, I saw the most wonderful story on BBC World News last week. In Cuban cigar rolling factories, many employ full-time Readers, who read aloud to those rolling cigars. The Reader that was interviewed started the morning by reading the paper cover-to-cover, and then read books such as "Romeo and Juliet" or "The Count of Monte Cristo." Also, modern books, such as "The Da Vinci Code". For some rollers, it inspired them to read books at home, for the first time. It was really quite something.



*Also: re-read "The True Meaning of Smekday" by Adam Rex. I have a signed copy of it, in which he even SPELLED MY NAME RIGHT! I know, I'm impressed also.

Wonderful book, good set-up, dialogue, characters. Also hilarious, which can be hard. Most of the humour comes from my favourite character, and also the best, J.Lo. He is one of the Boov, which are a kind of alien race, which invades Earth and renames it Smekland, after glorious Captain Smek. J.Lo is not his real name, but the one he picked out for himself. In any case, his combination of choppy English, heroic bravery, Boovish quirks, alien knowledge, and amazing cartoons, make him the best none-heroine character I've read in a very long time.

Kudos to Mr. Adam Rex, and his book. Here are links to his blog, and website.

Coming up before the end of the week: the dreaded literary mountain Emma, and the search through the book store jungle for a foot-noted copy!

Mr. Wallaby and Mr. Bowlinggap

A few minutes ago, I was talking to my sister Bella about casting for Jane Eyre (if we were to make a short adaptation); my brother Cruce surprised me when he showed an interest in making a movie of the book--I soon found that this was only because he wanted to be "the old mean guy...who sits by the fire" Mr. Rochester? Why? I thought I'd cast you as Jane Eyre, because you're slight, and Bella would be a good Mr. Rochester. Why do you want to be Rochester? Cruce: "I just want to to sit by the fire! [Rochester] gets to sit by the fire in his comfy chair, and say mean things about his daughter."

As I related this to Bella, we had a good laugh, and I explained about Mr. Rochester's character.

"He's kind of like Mr. Darcy; he's really mean to Jane Eyre in the beginning, and then he's nice at the end, and you find out that he was kind of nice all along..."

This led Bella to ask, "Oh, you mean like Mr. Wallaby?"

I promptly broke down, into dry sobs. I, unfortunately, knew exactly who she meant, and I managed to get out,

"Mr. Willoughby?!"

Yeah, Mr. Willoughby. Is he like Mr. Willoughby? No! He isn't!

"Well who's Snape's character?" asked Bella.

"Severus Snape," I told her.

"No! In the movie!"

"Oh, Sense and Sensibility?"

"Yeah, Sense and Sensibility. Who does he play? Mr. Bowlinggap?"

"Colonel...Colonel Brandon!"

"Oh... Yeah!"


We are taking it one day at a time.