Love and Freindship [sic], by Jane Austen

[sophia_sol]

RIGHT so October is a write-off, I didn't read a single book all month because life was too much and I couldn't handle having feelings about good books, but I still have out-of-date book thoughts to post! This is a book I read two months ago!

This is one of Austen's works of juvenilia, and it is.....PRETTY RIDICULOUS. It's clearly intended as a satire of a certain variety of popular novels of the time, though I think I'm missing some of Austen's jokes via not being quite familiar enough with the sort of literature she's satirizing.

It's overall a pretty teenaged-feeling attempt at satire, with literally nothing going on EXCEPT for the things she's poking fun at; it very much reminds me of the Mary Sue parodyfics I used to read when I was a teenager. I'm charmed by this piece of evidence that people just keep on being people.

There are some genuinely funny bits, but overall it's a quick and shallow read that is mostly only interesting to take a look at in order to see how much Austen grew as a writer over the years. People sometimes like to think sometimes that great writers are born, not made, but it clearly took Austen some practice to get as good as she did!

Comments

[sylvaine]

Heee, that is such a delightful thing to know! I love evidence that people are always and have always been people. :D

[sophia_sol]

Yes! I was really charmed.

[pauraque]

That's adorable. I hope she wouldn't have been embarrassed to know people were reading her early attempts!

[sophia_sol]

Yes, I hope so too!

[carmarthen]

Did you see the movie adaptation? I thought it was pretty darn enjoyable in that form, although I don't know how much they changed.

[sophia_sol]

I didn't see it, no! I didn't even know there was one! I will put that on my to-watch-someday list, but given how rarely I watch movies I do not rate highly my chances of ever getting to it. But I'd be interested to discover what they did to it in movie form so maybe I should put some effort in.

EDIT: Having just googled the movie, they attached the name "Love and Friendship" to the plot and characters from "Lady Susan" soooooo they changed approximately everything :P

[carmarthen]

Ahh, I didn't remember details - it was an enjoyable movie, though!