The Jane Austen Book Club

Normally I don’t watch romantic comedies.  But this movie looked interesting enough in the previews and came with a recommendation from a co-worker.  So, knowing that my husband would refuse to watch it, I rented it and settled into the couch with a couple of cold beers mixed with spicy tomato juice.  I should have had a few more beers.

Part of me can blame the fact that I found the movie ridiculous because I was too busy blogging my favorite quotes.  But another part of me can blame the fact that this movie was not very engrossing and in fact, quite boring.  It wasn’t like I was expecting pure genius to come prancing out, but at least something watchable.

Right away when Daniel asks his daughter for her car keys I knew he was having an affair.  Although the only way it worked into the movie is so that their love could reflect “Sense and Sensibility” to some strange degree.  The other male character I hated was Marc Blucas’s character of Prudie’s husband Dean.  He just came off as one of those dumb highschool jocks that never grew up and still believed they were the ‘big man on campus’.  Love after marriage doesn’t have to evaporate and go to hell like that and we never even discover the reason why.  Isn’t there usually a reason why a man and a woman drift apart?  At least with Daniel and Sylvia it was due to an extramarital affair.  For Prudie and Dean it was nothing.

Out of all the characters I really liked Bernadette the best.  She seemed the most down to earth and lively out of all of them.  Boldly she approaches Prudie and strikes up a random conversation about Jane Austen and then spills her secrets about being married and her philosophy on love.  Even throughout their book club meetings she seems to bring a sense of equilibrium to the contrasting points of view (most noticeably between Prudie and Allegra).

A part of me questions what the point of having Prudie’s mother in the movie was.  We never see any kind of resolution when she forgets to pick Prudie up from school.  There’s all this tension about her mother’s lack of common sense in mothering and just sitting in the house getting stoned.  Sure Prudie kicks her out and then  she dies, but there seems to be nothing to tie up the loose ends of what we’ve been told.  Along those lines, I’m curious as to why Allegra dumped Corinne.  I suspect it was because she used Allegra’s life as her inspiration for writin, but that’s never explained.  Instead, we see Allegra swearing off Corinne and immediately jumping into a new relationship with the doctor.  Another thing that’s never cleared up is why Allegra does these crazy things like skydiving and rock climbing.  Is she simply a thrill seeker or is it her way of letting go of the stress and bad karma in her life?

A lot of the things that happen in this movie just seem very disconnected.  Maybe if I had a bit of background on Jane Austen’s novels I would see the parallels more clearly.  Or maybe if I weren’t so darn distracted I might have gotten something out of the movie.  But I don’t and never will because honestly, I can’t concentrate on Jane Austen’s books (much like how I’ll never finish reading “Vanity Fair”) and I won’t have a chance to re-watch the movie before it’s due tomorrow.  So I’ll stick with my vote of it’s not the greatest movie in the world and no I don’t really recommend it.

Favorite Quotes

I haven’t re-read “Practical Magic” in a long time, but there are several quotes that I’m absolutely in love with.

“…the moon is always jealous of the heat of the day, just as the sun always longs for something dark and deep.”  p. 7

Very yin and yang like.  While there’s something to be said about being comfortable in your own element, it’s always fun to cross the line and be something you aren’t, even if for a little bit.

“Desire had a way of making a person oddly courageous.  In the aunts’ opinion, it could sneak up on a grown woman and turn her from a sensible creature into something as foolish as a flea that keeps chasing after the same old dog.” p. 14

“…those women who wanted someone else’s husband, they were the worst.  They would do absolutely anything for love.  they got all twisted up, like rubber bands, just from the heat of their desire, and they didn’t give a damn for convention and good manners.” p. 15

“They could see how love might control you, from your head to your toes, not to mention every single part of you in between.” p. 16

“She was being eaten alive by love…”. p. 17

“What had she thought, that love was a toy, something easy and sweet, just to play with?  Real love was dangerous, it got you from inside and held on tight, and if you didn’t let go fast enough you might be willing to do anything for its sake.” p. 26

“Goodness, in their opinion, was not a virtue but merely spinelessness and fear disguised as humility.” p. 29

“…they felt as though fate was picking them up, rattling them around, then releasing them into completely alternate futures.” p. 34

“She saw craving as obsession, fervor as heated preoccupation.” p. 35

“…as if there were words he wished would spill out of their own accord to convey what he was too shy to speak of.” p. 36

“A man’s tenure on earth is limited enough, but once the beetle’s ticking begins there’s no way to stop it; there’s no plug to pull, no pendulum to stop, no switch that will restore the time you once thought you had.” p. 43

“…she cried and wished she had never fallen in love in the first place.  It had made her too helpless, because that’s what love did.” p. 44

“Some fates are guaranteed, no matter who tries to intervene.” p. 45

“Sally understood now what love could do to a person.” p. 46

“…they preferred to look straight into the sun and be temporarily blinded, rather than see what had happened to her.” p. 47

“In time, Sally stopped believing in anything at all, and then the whole world went gray.  She could not see orange or red, and certain shades of green-her favorite sweater and the leaves of new daffodils-were completely and utterly lost.” p. 48

“Sally felt as though she’d been dead and now that she was back she was particularly sensitive to the world of the living…” p. 50

“It doesn’t matter what people tell you.  It doesn’t matter what they might say.  Sometimes you have to leave home.  Sometimes, running away means you’re headed in the exact right direction.” p. 62

Sally runs away to Arizona (if I remember correctly) and Gillian comes soon after to escape her crazy lover.  Do people sometimes run screaming like mad from things to gain perspective?  I know I have and do it quite often.

“Trouble is just like love, after all; it comes in unannounced and takes over before you’ve had a chance to reconsider, or even to think.” p. 75-6

How do we wake up one morning and say “I’m in love with you”?

“‘I was really in love with this one.  Deep down in my heart.  It’s so sad, really.  It’s pathetic.  I wanted him all the time, like I was crazy or something.  Like I was one of those women.” p. 91

“It’s amazing the places that love will carry you.  It’s astounding to discover just how far you’re willing to go.” p. 92

I adore this quote because it’s so true.  Think of people in the military and how far their love stretches over time & space.  Even being in love from day to day can test your patience and question how far you’re willing to go to keep the romance alive or even the sanity.

“…reminded of desire and real love and a thousand other things they’d long ago forgotten, and sometimes now wish they’d forgotten still.” p. 93

“…remembering how scorching his kisses were, and the memory alone can turn her inside out.  He could burn her up alive; he could do it in a minute flat, and that’s not easy to forget.” p. 99

“But when you’re in love, when you’re so fixated you can’t even blink, you don’t want onions, and it’s not to ensure that your kiss will stay sweet.  Onions wake you up, they rattle you and snap right through you and tell you to get real.  Go find someone who will love you back.  Go out and dance all night, then walk through the dark, hand in hand, and forget about whoever it is who’s driving you mad.” p. 110

“This person has short blond hair and is thin, not in the way that storks are but in the style of women who can make you fall in love with them even when you’ve known them for what seems like forever though you aren’t much more than a kid yourself.” p. 117

“He is so gone, he couldn’t come back if he wanted to.” p. 121

“Or maybe it wasn’t his mind that was so intensely affected, but now every piece of him wants her.” p. 137

“In a world without love, what is the point of any of that?” p. 139

“But love was not about practice and preparation, it was pure chance; if you took your time with it you ran the risk of having it evaporate before it had even begun.” p. 167

“…-as if they were meant to be together from the start and every single thing they’d ever done in their lives had been leading to this moment.”  p. 171

“…they still won’t learn what Ben knows until they fall head over heels in love.  When they don’t care if they make fools of themselves, when taking a risk seems the safest thing to do, and walking a tightrope or throwing themselves into white-water rapids feels like child’s play compared with a single kiss, then they’ll understand.” p. 177

“Pride is a funny thing; it can make what is truly worthless appear to be a treasure.  As soon as you let go of it, pride shrinks to the size of a fly, but one that has no head, and no tail, and no wings with which to life itself off the ground.” p. 190

“…his whole life afraid that whoever he loves will disappear, and there’ll be no finding her; not behind the veils, not in the false bottom of the largest wooden box….” p. 204-5

“…if they can’t be their true selves with each other, they might as well walk away now.” p. 216

“Lightning, like love, is never ruled by logic.” p. 225

“They fall in love so hard they never again get up off their knees.” p. 236

“She knows now that when you don’t lose yourself in the bargain, you find you have double the love you started with, and that’s one recipe that can’t be tampered with.” p. 314

There’s one quote that I have written in my wedding scrapbook and I can’t seem to find it right now.  Mostly because I’m too lazy to get up and look.  But I am suspicious that it isn’t in the book at all and only appeared in the movie.  Maybe tomorrow we’ll see.