![]() ![]() Stillman’s Susan, though regarded as a “fiend” by members of the ruling class whose lavish households she disrupts, is presented with an almost worshipful glee. Since that first breakthrough in Austen erotica, film and TV adaptions have become a discreetly torrid stream of flirtation and fussy decor, exposed bosoms in closed carriages, and provocative banter timed to the stately beat of formal dances.Įnjoyable as it is, this buttoned-up, tea-drinking porn has tended to obscure Austen’s most basic inclination, the one that makes her novels so contemporary: Throughout her so-called marriage plots - in which financially imperiled women consider matrimony as the likeliest way to guarantee an economically comfortable future - Austen always follows the money.Īs does Lady Susan Vernon, our delightfully outrageous main character. Darcy, emerging wet to the skin from a lovesick dive into a country pond. ![]() Oh, the thrilling combination of hot glances and cold courtesy! Screenwriter Andrew Davies began to sex up her novels for an increasingly appreciative public in 1995 when, in the beloved BBC-TV series version of Pride and Prejudice, he gave us an overheated Colin Firth as Mr. ![]() Of course, fans enjoy watching the romantic adaptations of Austen novels, too - we’ll take what we can get. Susan stands alone as a blithe schemer, unapologetically out for what she can get in the genteel world of extraordinary hypocrisy that is Austen’s England. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |