The Secret Dreamworld of a Jane Austen Fan

I just realised such a title could be seen as an announcement of something which it is not to someone who has not heard of this series, but no, it is not. It is merely the title of a series that I have fallen completely in love with during the winter.

For anyone not familiar with it this is a new BBC series, season 1 was first aired last year and season two is has just been released, based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth. It is set in East London, in the poorer areas, by the docks, in the 1950′s and is, as you can tell by the title, about midwives.

I saw someone write about it somewhere and thought it sounded interesting, so watched the first episode and was instantly charmed. I told my mum about it and she is not only also a fan of period dramas but has also an interest in the subject of midwifery and has on more than one occasion assisted and helped other women when they’ve give birth. So I thought it was a series that might interest her, and I was right. She fell in love with it just like I had and we have watched, with great enjoyment, the two seasons together.

The main character, nurse Jenny Lee, arrives in the first episode to Nonnatus House, a house/nunnery in the east London area called Poplar, here a group of nuns and two other young nurses all work as midwives, tending to all the hundreds of women in the area who are having babies. It is, like I said, a poor where the people live in bad conditions alot of the time, with large families and plenty of children. So the nurses have their job well cut out for them. For Jenny Lee it is a bit of a shock to come to this place which is so different from the area where she grew up, and assisting mothers in their little crowded homes with children running around her feet is certainly not what she is used to or what she was expecting to encounter.
Through the series there is, of course, many babies and many birth stories, but there is also so much else. There is a multitude of different characters you encounter, and many different stories. There are stories that make you laugh and there are stories where I struggled to not cry, there is joy and sadness, death and romances. Its not all birth and babies even though of course that is very big topic and an important one.

I just love this series. I love the mix of stories and people that fill it, it’s one of those stories that I get so in to it I feel like I almost know the characters. I love the time it is set in, I have romantic image of the 50′s and have been in a “50′s mood” quite often recently, listening to music from back then, trying out vintage-looking hairdos, wearing bright red lipstick and drooling over pictures and dresses from the time.
It does in a way though amaze me, when watching this series, how much has happened since then. The 50′s is not that long ago. My mum was born in the same year the second season is portraying, and she is not in any way old! But still there is so much that has changed since then, and within the medical world things definitely have evolved (not necessarily always for the better but in most cases, it has certainly evolved)! It just fascinates me, it wasn’t long ago at all, yet in some ways it feels like it was.

I would do a lot to get my hands on this outfit! Some of the dresses worn are just amazing!

I shall stop my ramblings and just say that I most heartily recommend this series to anyone who has not seen it but who love a good long period drama (the seasons are both 8 episodes each I think, and with a lovely Christmas special in between them) with plenty of good stories in it. It is funny, enjoyable, well made and touching and just in every way really good. If you ask me. And yes, there are plenty of cute little babies!

Oh and I just recieved a book I orederd from Amazon. Now I have something to quench my thirst for more of this series until season three comes out!

I know that a long time ago, probably a couple of years ago now, I posted a trailer for a movie called Scents and Sensibility. This is a modern “adaptation” of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and I heard about it for the first time before it was even out yet. But then I sort of forgot all about it, it slipped my mind and I never watched it. Until very recently when a friend of mine saw a copy of it in a shop and mentioned it to me, knowing how much I love anything Jane Austen. That reminded me and I went ahead and watched it.

I always struggle a little seeing these modern “adaptations” of Jane Austen novels, because the Janeite snob in me doesn’t like people changing her stories. But at the same time I do enjoy watching anything that is even remotely connected to Jane Austen.

This movie, Scents and Sensibility, is a movie about two sisters called, yes you guessed it, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. Instead of being the daughters of a wealthy landowner with a great estate who dies, these two sisters are the daughter of a sucessful business man in Los Angeles. And instead of dying their father is sent to jail for swindling lots of money. So Elinor and Marianne are forced to give up the lifestyle they have known and been used to and go out and find jobs, only to discover that they have been tainted by association and practically no one wants to hire them.

Eventually they both find work however, Elinor as a janitor at a spa where the receptionist is called Lucy and the owner just happens to have a brother by the name Edward Ferras… Marianne works in an office, where one of her colleagues just by chance has the name Brandon… Not difficult to guess how this is going to end is it?

Marianne has a passion for flowers, and a hobby for making nicely scented lotions of them. After noticing how many people like this lotion and want it this is something the sisters decide to work more on, hence the name of the movie, Scents and Sensibility.

This is not a very great movie, it feels like quite a weak attempt at an adaptation of Jane’s book. But even so I did enjoy it. I will say this about all the modern adaptations I have seen, this one, From Prada to Nada, Bride and Prejudice and Clueless, that even though none of them are good as adaptations of the books they are inspired by in my eyes (though I do rather like Bride and Prejudice) I enjoy them as movies where I can try to find all these references to the originals. Where characters are introduced and you hear their name and instantly know how it’s going to end. I get frustrated at alot of changes they make, or twists they put to the story, but at the same time I like seeing how they incorporate the characters and events into a modern setting. I think this proves so well what I am constantly telling people who ask me about Jane Austen, what is so great about her books and how she can still be as popular as she is. One of the reasons I think that is because you can relate to the characters and their trials and tribulations. Jane Austen wrote about people, and people don’t change. Even if society has changed, fashion and technology has altered and and evolved people’s feelings and characters remain the same. And that is why you can take the characters from a Jane Austen novel, pull them out of the early 19th century and move them to the 21st and it still works. I think this is one of the big reasons (one of many many reasons) Jane Austen is still so well loved today. And it proves also that a good story never dies. No matter how many times you tell it and how many times you remake it, people always want to do it again and again and again.

Oh dear, I was going to write a short little post about the movie, not a sermon on the virtues of Jane Austen’s writings. Again… But it never ceases to amaze me, and I can’t seem to praise Jane enough!

Seeing how 2011 brought no less then two modern adaptations of Sense and Sensibility I was expecting 2013 to bring no less when it comes to Pride and Prejudice! I guess we shall see, the year is still young