Happy End of Week

Hello everyone,

I plan to respond to all your blogs this weekend. I haven't forgotten you. Many of them are going very well so far. This weekend you are working on the biography of a classmate through interviewing someone. So you have a lot to write already and I'll only ask for a little post on your blog: Please write a bit about what you noticed in the movie of Bridget Jones versus the book. How did the director "forward" the book into the movie? Was it successful? Post your reactions/criticisms/favorite parts.

Something to consider you may also respond to (or respond to instead of the above): The novel used to be considered a "feminine" form of writing: silly in comparison to science or history or philosophy. Jane Austen first published Pride and Prejudice in 1813, and it was extremely popular. Helen Fielding based Bridget Jones's Diary on this novel, which Austen described in a letter to her sister as:

The work is rather too light, and bright, and sparkling; it wants [i.e. needs] shade; it wants to be stretched out here and there with a long chapter of sense, if it could be had; if not, of solemn specious nonsense, about something unconnected with the story: an essay on writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the history of Buonaparté, or anything that would form a contrast and bring the reader with increased delight to the playfulness and general epigrammatism of the general style

My question to you, especially if you have seen or read Pride and Prejudice is how is this being "forwarded" into Bridget Jones's Diary (movie and book)? AND how is it all gendered? If we no longer think of the novel as inherently "feminine" or "specious nonsense," how did Fielding still accomplish the same feeling (if you think she did) in her novel?

Here's one way I see:


By the way, this is Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in the BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice.

Please remember that you should be responding int he comments section on your group members' blogs. Catch up on that this weekend, please.

Oh, I have a poem up on my personal class blog that you might find interesting too.