I guess it was almost two months ago now that we did this absolutely wonderful Zoom bookclub with some IC alumni, reading Sense and Sensibility together. For me it was an especially fantastic experience, because I was leading it with my dear colleague Hugh Egan, and we would meet up beforehand to have our own discussions of the book — I will forever remember when another colleague, Dan Breen, popped his head in to Hugh’s office and said “I just want you to know that this is exactly what I always imagined it would be like to be an English professor.” And it really did feel like living the dream, just hanging out and chatting about the novel in this really focused way. As an added bonus, I was also teaching Pride and Prejudice at the same time, and, icing on the cake, I started reading Emma Thompson’s screenplay of the movie version of Sense and Sensibility, and her diary from the film set. So I was IN IT.
Hugh and I both kept guiltily confessing that we couldn’t get over the feeling that S&S is just…not as good as P&P. It’s so much darker, and less satisfying, and more awkward. It’s such a weird book! (as I write this, I’m teaching Mansfield Park, which is also very strange and quite dark!) This is where the Emma Thompson screenplay was so interesting, because she does an incredible job massaging the novel a little bit, lightening things up, finessing some of the gloom and awkwardness. Interestingly, the one things that I regretted was that she cut the scene with Willoughby and Ellinor at the end, but she explains in her diary that it had to go because it detracted too much from the Col. Brandon plot, which is no doubt correct, and indeed crucial to redeem the Col. Brandon plot at all (that and Alan Rickman’s performance). The diary is such a delight to read (further deepens my desire to be besties with Emma Thompson) — it’s fascinating to learn about the process of making a movie, and fun to get behind the scenes glimpses of famous actors, but it’s also great to see these little interpretive musings on the novel.
But though I found myself thinking that P&P might be the perfect novel, and S&S is just not at all, I did find it super interesting for how you so clearly see in that that Austen is in dialogue with other authors of her time, trying out various tricks, etc. And discussing it with Hugh and the book club, I appreciated just how complex and chewy it is, even if there are things that frustrate me or don’t seem to work. I think when I get back from sabbatical I’m gonna have to do an Austen class and just read all of her stuff in one long go, because I really need to properly think about them all in relation to each other…
Kasia Reads 