From Mr. Mark Twain (one of my favorites although he was horribly misguided about Jane Austen):
Jane Austen's books, too, are absent from this library. Just that one omission alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.
- Following the Equator
I haven't any right to criticise books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.
- Letter to Joseph Twichell, 9/13/1898
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Just as soon as I made it back into town on Friday, I had a message waiting, an invitation to go and see Becoming Jane with the girls from this new Sunday School class that I'm attending. I wasn't sure I wanted to see Becoming Jane,a movie about Jane Austen's life, loosely based in history but enhanced (I think) to make a better movie. And it works. I enjoyed it.
It's really too bad Anne Hathaway's face gets that big on a movie screen because her eyes and mouth frightened me until I got used to the screen size...but that's my only real criticism. I loved the way lines from Pride & Prejudice were worked in and the ending didn't feel as depressing as I thought it might. I still love the fictional Darcy instead of the somewhat more real Mr. Lefroy. And, of course, after I watched the movie, I went headlong into an Austen binge and watched the latest Pride and Prejudice (nowhere near as good as the BBC miniseries version starring Mr. Colin Firth, but good anyway) and Emma (with Jeremy Northam). Sense & Sensibility is up next (starring Mr. Hugh Grant and Mr. Alan Rickman...and a few other people). I wonder why it is that the men are what really leap to mind about these movies...must be the British accent. Mark Twain and I will never agree on the quality of Jane's work but the quotes were too good to leave out. 
I also realized how much more fun it is to go to the movies with the girls. The last movie I went to see in the theater was the newest Harry Potter. I went by myself because I couldn't wait for anyone else to be ready to see it (also starring Mr. Alan Rickman...why isn't there a better movie than Love Actually that has Colin, Hugh, and Alan?). And the movie before that was the third Pirate movie, with the non-door opener...and we all know how THAT turned out, right? A movie with the girls? Much easier to enjoy...no worrying about who's paying or whether or not I can have treats for the movie. And I didn't lock myself out of the house...
