The stereotypes of Jane Austen usually boil down to the petticoats and Colin Firth's bare chest. In recent years this has grown to include sea monsters, zombies and now, dildo-wielding Bingley sisters in the reissue of Arielle Eckstut’s Pride and Promiscuity.
Pride and Promiscuity came with a warning; ‘you will be shocked, especially by the first story’. I had just finished The Death of Bunny Munro — chuckling, I spotted the hot pink spine and flipped open the book, glancing too quickly at the jacket to spot the beautiful line drawing includes open legs, naked breasts and penis sprouting plants. I was shocked, but entertained and very amused too.
I can’t help but be a little curious. Would Austen have envisaged her work being taken along such paths when she held pen to paper? Possibly.
Austen’s humour and truth about human nature, which has resulted in fans such as Winston Churchill, show her intelligence and open outlook. Her work creates such diverse readings, of social documenter — and the most common misreading of girlie romantic — that she is perfect for adaptation. In my humble view, book to film adaptations are a reading of a work which shouldn’t be damned for their lack of faithfulness to the text, but relished for their innovative inspirations from the source.
Her constant popularity since publication means each generation of filmmakers, writers and adapters will have an opinion of her and naturally daydream of stories derived from her work. The stolid ‘faithful’ adaptations of literal plot notes completely lack any faith in Austen at all. Limiting such varied and entertaining writing to regurgitations of the same costume drama would quickly tire audiences and would have deprived me of one of the funniest ponderings on my namesake I have ever known.
