The Write Thing

Yesterday night, perhaps in anticipation of the never so globalized Saint Valentine’s celebration, I watched a movie that, apparently, was quite successful in the US a while ago. It is called The Jane Austen Book Club, and it is based on a book by the same name written by Karen Joy Fowler. The action basically takes place in book club meetings between six people who gather around the task of analyzing six of Jane Austen’s novels. Unlike many of the reviews I read after seeing the film, I simply loved it. There’s nothing to do about it: we all like or dislike things according to our mood. My mood yesterday was exactly the mood that could go with this movie. It is a comedy, romantic, full of unbelievable and poignant characters…what else can you ask for in Saint Valentine’s eve?

I think that, once more, the reason why I particularly liked a movie that many people might find slightly basic or superficial was because of Dame Jane. It brought back memories of the good old days when I made literary discoveries as I prepared for my university graduation. One of those discoveries was, precisely, Pride and Prejudice. No matter what you think of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, I certainly found out in my teen years that Ms. Austen and I had lots of opinions in common. In literary terms, perhaps the major value of this movie to me was that it put me in touch with Jane Austen again, and made me plan a strategy to get hold of a new novel of hers to read.

This morning, I got myself a copy of Austen’s Emma. They say that we do not choose books, but that books choose us. Let’s see if Emma made a good choice. Probably she did.