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"My characters will have, after a little trouble, all that they desire." - Jane Austen

 

Becoming Jane
I have only known Jane Austen by name, and have not read any of her books before. I do not think I am one to like a movie of Old England times. But I find it quite impressive how this movie can draw me in. Perhaps it is because it has so much to do with myself; I have always liked a movie that I can relate to. Although the movie is fictional, but it has, after all, been brought together based on researched facts of Jane Austen's life, so it cannot be that far from the truth.

Jane Austen (starring Anne Hathaway) has a mother (starring Julie Walters) like my own. Someone who seeks only the best for her own daughter, but seems to have conveyed her best interest in desperate ways that may have wounded the daughter's heart. "I could live by my pen, Jane said meekly. "Pen?" Mrs Austen repeated, sounding rather offensive. "Let's knock that notion out of the head once and for all." Not to say that she is a bad mother, because when it comes down to it, in practicality, she is right. She just underestimates the uncommon path her daughter is heading down.

And a father (starring James Cromwell), much like my own. Someone who will always put her daughter's own desires above the rest, no matter how impossible or childish it may seem. Yet, at the end of the day, it was his wife that he sided. Out of fear or out of concern, a daughter may not know. Deep down, he did not want her daughter to suffer the way he did most of his life. Deep down, he knew that his wife is right, as much as it hurt him that it contradicted her daughter's well-wishes. "Nothing destroys spirit like poverty," her father had told her.

Not much has changed since the 18th century. Most authors still do not have the best life. Never mind the famous JK Rowling, or Dan Brown, or John Grisham, or Stephen King. Beneath the few that hogged the New York Times Bestseller list, are the many trampled bodies of unsuccessfully emerging writers. So, the chances of gaining fortune from merely writing books are slim, if not none.

Surely enough, Jane Austen did not marry, keeping true to her word to not wed without affection. But how many writers out there have already succumb to dependence to a significant other of higher income, and how many writers followed her footsteps, remaining in her clouds of romance and succeeded in doing so.

 

Hunting and Gathering
Compare to Audrey Tautou's earliest works - Amelie and A Very Long Engagement - I do not like this movie much. Probably because it is just like any other romance movie out there: girl hates boy, they started harbouring likeness to each other, like grows to love, yada yada. It does not have the unique plots and characteristics in the previous movies she was in. But I have to give credit to Françoise Bertin (Paulette), for her acting struck a core in me that I never knew still existed.

I have always felt a pang of envy whenever my friends talk about their grandparents with such love in their stories. How well they get along with them elderlies and how much they miss them when they are away studying overseas. I cannot really chip that of my own grandparents because they are not around anymore. And to be honest, I have not been the best granddaughter when they were around either. Which is something I regret, I suppose. Not really something that makes me loose sleep at night, but definitely something that dwells at the back of my head unconsciously.

My heart feels alright when I see old folks walking down the streets around me, or when I see grandmothers fooling around with their grandchildren. I was a rebellious little teenager when I was young, and I often ask myself, would I have gone on alright with my grandmother if she were still around. Would I have learned to love her more. Maybe I will go ask her when I make a trip to her grave at the cemetery. I have a feeling it gets quite lonely up there, regardless of the swelling number of graves spilling out onto the narrow lanes.