So. Perfect. You guys rock me and my zombie PMS face right now.

What the hell is a "putrid tendency"? And do I really want to know?

Yum, Alan Rickman!

I just assumed they had really bad shoes in the 19th century - this after spending hours trying to figure out how the oldest Bennet sister could get so sick from just riding in the rain - weird though that Lizzie could walk the same distance by foot and be fine...

@bitterhousewife: C'mon. It's well known that riding in the rain is almost as harmful as over-exciting one's nerves by reading robust poetry.

Sense and Sensibility with Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson is the best movie adaptation of an Austen novel ever. It is my favorite movie. It has sooo many great British actors in it. Kate, Emma, Alan, Hugh Grant, etc.

@bitterhousewife: I never understood that! Was Jane just such a delicate flower that she couldn't ride a horse in the rain without becoming so deathly ill that she was bedridden for months? Just goes to show that snarky bitches like Elizabeth are much better off.

My women's studies lit. professor always liked to point out that it was absolutely impossible for a woman character who had given birth outside marriage to remain alive* in old school literature. Having an illegitimate child was what killed Lady Dedlock.

*it was also acceptable for the character to go stark raving mad

@svreader: Word. I love Alan Rickman. He even managed to make Severus Snape look delicious.

I re-reading Emma right now, and every-other page has either Mr. Woodhouse or Miss Bates worrying about the sodden shoes of either Emma or Jane Fairfax. It's kind of annoying.

I also just re-read Sense and Sensibility (I'm in a Jane kick). I was sooo annoyed by Mariann in a way that I never am when Kate Winslet is portraying her. Bitch is just selfish. And whiney.

@gra: I like to play "Spot the Harry Potter actor" with that movie. Although, the BBC Pride and Prejudice is my favorite. Wet Colin Firth, you understand.

Seriously, how freakin' hot is Alan Rickman??? Have you heard his voice? Makes me melt like buttah. "The was filled with spices" is so my favorite line from S&S.

Thankfully he has an Alan Rickman-in-training. British, rugged jaw line, liquid-sex voice: Clive Owen.

@gra: Check out the BBC early 90s "Persuasion." It's by far my favorite (or favourite, rather), and I've seen them all. I so wished they covered this when I took my semester-long class just on Jane Austen. It's like Oregon Trail, but with way cuter outfits and fewer oxen.

Yum, Alan Rickman...

@hugnkiss: Yes! Persuasion is my fave of the novels and Ciaran Hinds is smokin' as the Captain in the BBC adaptation.

@oudemia: Absouletly! He's right up there with Alan Rickman and Colin Firth. If only I weren't with my BF right now I'd be drinking wine and watching it. Twice.

@hugnkiss:
"It's like Oregon Trail, but with way cuter outfits and fewer oxen."

You are hilarious.

I wish Fanny Price had died of cool. Hell, I wish she had died period. Sorry, re-reading Mansfield Park and wanting to punch Austen in the face. . .

@princessprissypants: died of something cool*

Bleak House is long and has a really off-putting title, but it is amazing! I read it in my 19th Century Transnational Literature class (seriously) and became a total Dickens convert.

The BBC Persuasion is a fantastic alternative when you want to indulge in a little Jane Austen fantasy but don't have six hours to spend on the Pride and Prejudice miniseries. Ciaran Hinds on a boat, swoon.

Alan mmmhm. So sexy, especially his deep,deep voice.

@SARAHISABEL AT 07:40 PM

"@bitterhousewife: I never understood that! Was Jane just such a delicate flower that she couldn't ride a horse in the rain without becoming so deathly ill that she was bedridden for months? Just goes to show that snarky bitches like Elizabeth are much better off."

If I could just stick my 2 cents in, I lived in the UK for quite a long time, and part of that time was in a farm cottage with barely any heating or insulation besides a fireplace (don't ask-I thought it was romantic at the time). The climate there is really damp and cold-once you get wet it's incredibly hard to get dry or warm. Plus, things were so unsanitary in those times-if you got sick enough to have the dr called out for you, there was a good chance that you would be infected with whatever his previous patient had-if it was something serious, too bad for you!

@Catra: My handy layman's guide to Victorian misery says that "putrid fever" was typhus. It was spread by body lice, so odds are she picked it up in London, probably at Mrs. Jennings's place, and was coming down with it by the time of the Willoughby incident.

One of the most controversial academic papers ever about Austen implied that Marianne Dashwood was up nights masturbating when Willoughby wasn't answering her letters. I don't know whether I completely buy it--i was just skimming Sedgwick's essay again--but she did succeed in single-handedly (hah!) reviving interest in Austen studies with that idea.

I love me some Austen. Had a dissertation chapter planned on a particular part of her characterizations. I'm with PrincessPrissyPants on Fanny Price, though. I do not enjoy Mansfield Park even a little. I've read it once (in comparison to having more or less memorized P&P), and tried again several times, only to nearly die of boredom by page 50 or so.

Add me to the Rickman fan club- if I start coughing now will he come and rescue me?

Okay ladies Jane Austen is my favorite author. I love her work and have read all of it twice, at least. So, I can say that no Jane Austen's heroine's do not all die of consumption. As for Marianne, she was depressed and there are physical symptoms for depression in the DSM-IV (you know that little book that the APA puts together to help clinicians diagnose psychological disorders). Stress can also lower your immune system, something else we poor females learned in Principles of Biology, which makes one more susceptible to illness.

But whatever, over generalizations can be fun on a blog. I guess I'm just not particularly in the mood.

@goodcheapfun yeah baby I second the emotion, dont you evenm start to say Austen does anything cheap or weak when it comes to women, writing or literary devices! Not a sinlge one of her ladies dies a silly sexually repressed death! And yes Mansfield Park is the weakest link.. until you read Nabokov's essay on it in his great book Lectures on Literature.. which also includes a superduper analysis on Bleak House. Seriously, read his book ( and re read those) it will blow your mind.

Alan Rickman?!? He always looks like he's on tranquilizers, and something in his voice pings my gaydar.

Smallpox? Psh. Lady Honoria Dedlock picked up the rage virus while running through the streets unchaperoned.

i guess i'm the only one here who *liked* mansfield park. bet i'm also the only one here who doesn't particularly care for elizabeth bennet.

@bitterhousewife: i feel like a big nerd for writing this, buuuuuuut . . . i don't think elizabeth walked to netherfield in the rain. it's been a few years since i read the book, but i do remember miss bingley (the whore) bashing elizabeth when she arrived at netherfield for having a muddy hem. if elizabeth had walked to netherfield in the rain, miss bingley would have insulted her for looking like a drowned rat and wouldn't have focused on the muddy hem. and if elizabeth looked like a drowned rat, darcy probably wouldn't have been able to get beyond her wet, bedraggled appearance to admire her flushed cheeks or whatever.

now, i'm going to go back to not thinking about this book for the next ten years. oh, one more thing: charlotte lucas rocks!

I have found home. Women who love Alan Rickman! And in my book, he doesn't just improve Severus, he is responsible for my long-held (and justified!) faith in Snape.

God I am a dork.

Never knew there were so many Alan Rickman lovers!

If I swoon now will he come catch me?

Alan Rickman fans - here is the video for you! I think Texas are kind of lame, but I'm happy to watch this one anytime..[www.youtube.com]

Yays, Rickman.

@bitterhousewife: Jane rode a horse to Netherfield, and soon after departing, it began to rain. Elizabeth walked to Netherfield the next day. It wasn't raining, but Elizabeth did get a bad case of the "muddy hem."

@hugnkiss: Oregon Trail!! That's how I got through third grade. "Inadequate Water"

"Truly, Madly, Deeply" Can I get a witness?

@alexela: Valid point. In my defense it was at least 8 years ago I put any serious effort into my Austen obsession... I do remember the hem-related snark, though :)

@alexela: Yeah, you're right. *Jane* gets sick from riding there in the rain, but Elizabeth walks over the next day (having been told of Jane's illness) through the mud.

I said this on another thread, but for you ladies who love Alan Rickman, I cannot recommend the movie Closetland highly enough.

@princessprissypants: Word. I saw the moive before I read the book, and reading Mansfield Park was a complete disappointment... I was rooting for Edmund to run off with Mr. Yates or something. And was it just me or weren't Fannie and Edmund second cousins? Ewww....

@oudemia: I think it's because Lizzie is just not as "delicate" as Jane, which is part of her appeal to Mr. Darcy. I could run a marathon in the snow, but my sis catches cold from a stiff breeze. And you're right alexela: it wasn't raining when Lizzie walked to Netherfield.

Don't get me wrong, I like "Mansfield Park", I just thought Fannie was a big crybaby. I wanted to reach thru the pages and tell her to grow a pair.

Gotta say I'm a little unimpressed with the weak constitutions of these 19th c. ladies. For first-rate, Britney-caliber trainwrecks it seems one has to go back to medieval accounts of female saints and mystics. -- Of course, the gentleman over whom these ladies were freaking out was, invariably, Christ. But that just makes the whole spectacle so much more entertaining.

@ceejeemcbeegee:

I also thought they were first cousins--moms were sisters? Or was that movie magic?

I remember in a lit class discussing the psuedo-incestuous relationships in these old novels. (Think also Cathy and Heathcliff, who were raised as bro and sis.) Could actually be construed as feminist since women couldn't be legally owned by a brother-type. Still kinda icky, but in that light, made more sense the appeal of these two-close-for-comfort relationships by female authors.

Make that, weren't owned by a brother type if father/husband were in the picture.

Imagine: Alan Rickman vs. Colin Firth, wrestling in the streets like in Bridget Jones' Diary. I would rush to Colin's side and sooth his wounds and walk away from Alan with never a look back.

Jezzies, don't bother reading Bleak House. Instead, rent the BBC miniseries starring Gillian Anderson, who plays Lady Deadlock. Not only will you understand why she died, but you will be witness to hours of Gillian's endless beauty. (Seriously...the series is beautifully shot and is FABULOUS.)

No Alan Rickman, alas.

Anyone ever read Daisy Miller? She catchs malaria from being out in the wrong area of Rome at night. A lot of it had to do with poor understanding of certain illnesses, so a woman catching ill from a soaking in the rain was not thought to be unusual.

The Alan Rickman love warms my soul, though I'd take anyone down to get at him. His voice alone could set off ripples of joy. And Colin Firth is a very close second.

Catch if you can the 1998 PBS Wuthering Heights with Matthew MacFayden as Hareton. Wow....just wow.

@ceejeemcbeegee: @lolainblackglasses: It was considered perfectly okay to marry even your first cousin in those days. Fanny and Edmund were first cousins. Their mothers were sisters. Mr. Collins was a cousin of the Bennet girls, and would have married Lizzie if she would have had him. And Jane Eyre considers marrying her first cousin, as well. Even today, it's not considered medically to be a dangerous degree of consanguinuity, unless you have certain serious genetic problems. More ick factor than anything.

@missthing: The thing i like about Mansfield Park are Austen's descriptions of Fanny's aunts and how the cousins are spoiled. There's real anger there, real pain. As description, it borders on cruel, and its no wonder that Austen's social circle began to fear her satirical eye.

@s_crewe: Yes!

@TheFormerJuneBronson: Marrying cousins was still going on in the upper classes last century. Just looked at the royal families of Europe, they are all weaved together. This is also why hemophilia ran rampant.