Jane Austen made me a Bolshevik!
Right! My local PBS Station is featuring “The Complete Jane Austen” on Masterpiece Theatre this month. I slept through “Northanger Abbey” so my Austen experience remains incomplete. I’ll catch up someday. “Persuasion” torqued my jaws! The story opens as our heroine Ann and her family are moving out of their stately home. Her father, Sir Walter, is relocating and renting out the manor because while they’re aristocrats and all, they’re broke. Eight years earlier Ann had been “persuaded” to break off her engagement to a naval officer, because her dad didn’t think he was noble enough for her. Pah!!!! As the love story part of the book moves along, there’s quite a nice ending. But wow, Sir Walter and his ilk of people left a bad taste in my mouth. They don’t work, but they look down on people who do, like Ann’s true love. They visit each other, have dances and gossip, and ridicule folks said to be “in trade”. The servants and farmers are shadow people in Austen’s world. Silent people in the background.
And then moving across Europe, 50 or so years later, I see the same “sort” figuring prominently in Russian literature. Czarist Russia had “lesser nobility” all over the place- more posh folks that didn’t work. Anna Karenina could have been an English novel. Anna was a desperate housewife that ruined her life and caused a big scandal all for her desire of a handsome Count, who was pond scum.
I’m afraid that if I’d been a scullery maid and witness to the goings on of this bossy idle class, I think I would have been standing in front of the Winter Palace with a torch too!
So if I just enjoy the Austen as love stories, I’m good. If I start thinking about the larger Society, I get all Leftist inside.
Bad News for Vanity Fair: I checked out an issue of Vanity Fair magazine from the library. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the articles I’ve read so far. Wow, articles that I want to read. There was a long piece about Michelle Gilliam, aka, Mama Michie- from her days with John Phillips to now. Also, a distressing short article claiming that Truth or Consequences, NM is going to become a trendy art enclave. Oh lord no, please- no artsy folk in T or C! Keep it a place for regular Joes! (If the artists move in, the tourists will come and it’ll be Santa Fe all over again. Build a wall and keep them out!)
What I mean about bad news is they have all these interesting ads- for Prada and Dooney Burke, Ralph Lauren, Nicole Kidman for Chanel, etc. Their ads are aiming for that “prototypical” 30-35 yr old woman that spends money like water. The thought process is that maybe the VF reader will put down the magazine, jump in the Beamer and head over to Rodeo Drive and pick up some designer stuff. Uh- editors, publishers- if I like your magazine, you aren’t reaching them. I’m 20 years older than your target marketing group and live way far from NYC or Beverly Hills. I wear jeans, sweatshirts and final markdown tops. When I wear a watch, it’s Timex, not Rolex. I drive a Neon for crying out loud!
My suggestion is dumb down the magazine. Have things like “Katie Holmes on Botox vs. Chemical Peels” instead of “The Economic Ramifications of the Bush Administration”
If you are going to keep publishing such good stuff, maybe you ought to run ads for places people like me shop, like Lowe’s!
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