Anyone for an Online Book Club?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that even die-hard fans of Pride and Prejudice have not read Mansfield Park. Perhaps because it's significantly less frothy than P&P or Emma, or because readers have little patience with a heroine who spends much of her time shrinking away from notice and watching someone make off with the love of her life.

Let me lay all my cards on the table and confess that Mansfield Park has always been one of my favorites. If the Bennet girls operate under the ticking time bomb of the entail, they at least have each other, their looks, and their wits. In MP, Austen isolates Fanny Price from all possible aid. She has no money, she is separated from her dear brother, she has an overbearing aunt, and she loses her favorite cousin's attentions to that delightful siren Mary Crawford. Fanny is on her own.Though not unintelligent, Fanny is no wit, no life of the party. But while she may shrink on the outside, the girl is rock-solid underneath.

Stay away from this woman.

She is, moreover, a keen, keen observer like her creator, and MP boasts some of Austen's most wonderful creations. The bustling Aunt Norris and indolent Aunt Bertram (whose pug dogs deserve a shout-out of their own). The rival sisters Maria and Julia--who recall Persuasion's Louisa and Henrietta Musgrove, without their good nature. And best of all, Henry and Mary Crawford, the worldly brother and sister pair who come to Mansfield and wreak amorous havoc. Mary has the honor of telling the only dirty joke in Austen, and playboy Henry might be arguably Austen's most complex character. That Jane Austen could so fully imagine (and revel in) "wicked" characters while maintaining sympathy for the "good" Fanny demonstrates her remarkable breadth, as well as the divide in her own heart!

Mansfield Park has been on the old brain recently because, among my many writing starts, I've got a few chapters of a novel "inspired by" it, in the same way the movie Clueless was "inspired by" Emma. Tangentially, this book would fit in the Cass Ewan series because the Edmund character gets mentioned at least once by name in Mourning Becomes Cassandra or The Littlest Doubts (I'll have to search on Google Books to remember where!). We'll see how it goes. The draft is a little messy so far, but I'm on Chapter Five. If it makes it over the Chapter Six hump (where my failed novels all go to die, or at least go into limbo), I'll keep you posted.

And this one, with her inexplicably loose hair!

All of which is to say, would anyone like to join me for an online MP book club? Get your hands on a copy (free on Kindle and, I imagine, Nook) and read the first three chapters. We could meet back here next week, or try it "live" on Facebook or Twitter. So far I've gotten two readers to join me. Anyone else?

Warning: DON'T watch the movie adaptations! Apart from the ancient BBC version (in which everyone is oddly hideous), the more recent versions are complete flights of fancy. Okay--not complete flights of fancy, but NOT the book, in any case. They will ruin you.

I warned you about these guys

In the 1999 film version, the filmmakers thought Fanny wouldn't be exciting enough on her own, so they filled her mouth with feisty speeches and scenes lifted from Austen's own juvenalia, after which it didn't make sense for such a spirited creature to be crushed the way she is. In the 2007 BBC blondie version I could not get past the hairdo and sexpot Fanny. And then just take a look at the old BBC cover and tell me if you could spend several hours watching such people. Ay ay ay.

Now that we've cleared that up, let me know if you'd like to join us!

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Let's kick off our virtual book club with two general questions (please answer here, so everyone can see and respond):

1. What is your favorite Austen book, and why?
2. What is your favorite TV or movie adaptation of an Austen book?