I'm so, so picky

[chocolatepot]

Season 2 might have been "Glee's" highest-rated season yet, but showrunner Ryan Murphy has heard a lot of the criticisms about the season -- even from hardcore Gleeks -- and is ready to do something about it.

The creator of the hit Fox show has made his position on Season 3 quite clear: Few guest stars. Less songs.

Who made that criticism? Who was saying, "Oh, Glee is great, the only thing I'd change is take out some of the songs"?

So I put down The Watsons. Skipped to the end, saw that Emma ended up with an OMC, rolled my eyes. (Instead I'm reading When Beauty Tamed the beast, omg, tartanboxers, you were right, so amazing.) So now I will treat you to everything that annoyed me about Aiken's additions.


In Austen's section, Elizabeth says:

"Perhaps Tom Musgrave may take notice of you; but I would advise you by all means not to give him any encouragement. He generally pays attention to every new girl; but he is a great flirt, and never means anything serious. ... A young man of very good fortune, quite independent, and remarkably agreeable, a universal favourite wherever he goes. Most of the girls hereabout are in love with him, or have been. I believe I am the only one among them that escaped with a whole heart; and yet I was the first he paid attention to when he came into this country six years ago; and very great attention did he pay me. Some people say that he has never seemed to like any girl so well since, though he is always behaving in a particular way to one or another. ... [Margaret] is possessed with the notion of Tom Musgrave's being more seriously in love with her than he ever was with anybody else, ... I shall long to know what you think of Tom Musgrave."

My impression from that is that Elizabeth has - not feelings for him, because I think her sighs over Purvis are genuine, but tell me Elizabeth smugly stating that she's the one he was the most interested in right before talking about how silly Margaret is for thinking he was more interested in her is coincidental. I don't think she dislikes him as much as she says, at any rate.

In general, I don't quite trust Elizabeth's judgements of her sisters (I'm not saying she's outright wrong, but I don't think most people are terribly unbiased about their siblings), and I think if Austen had continued, she'd have shown Penelope and Margaret in slightly more sympathetic lights than Aiken took. And anyway - Elizabeth only said Margaret was a little fretful and perverse in private, not that she was a total cow.

In the same conversation:

"I am sorry for [Penelope's] anxieties," said Emma; "but I do not like her plans or her opinions. I shall be afraid of her. She must have too masculine and bold a temper. To be so bent on marriage, to pursue a man merely for the sake of situation, is a sort of thing that shocks me; I cannot understand it. Poverty is a great evil; but to a woman of education and feeling it ought not, it cannot be the greatest. I would rather be teacher at a school (and I can think of nothing worse) than marry a man I did not like."

"I would rather do anything than be teacher at a school," said her sister. "I have been at school, Emma, and know what a life they lead; you never have. I should not like marrying a disagreeable man any more than yourself; but I do not think there are many very disagreeable men; I think I could like any good-humoured man with a comfortable income. I suppose my aunt brought you up to be rather refined."

Personally, I'd use that as foreshadowing and have Elizabeth marry someone Collinsian as soon as their father dies. But Aiken loves happy endings and of course Elizabeth at last gets Purvis and lives happily ever after.

An exchange between Emma and Miss Edwards:

"The gentleman we passed in the passage was Mr Musgrave, then; he is reckoned remarkably agreeable, I understand?"

Miss Edwards answered hesitatingly, "Yes; he is very much liked by many people; but we are not very intimate."

Okay, it's not a lot to go on, but if I were to continue the fragment, I'd have Miss Edwards and Musgrave end up together. For one thing, there's a theory that it was sort of an early start to Emma, so this could be the beginning of a Frank/Jane sort of thing to be revealed at the end.

Lord Osborne is one of the things I think Aiken gets entirely wrong as a matter of fact and not "I'd have done it differently". Austen's description:

Lord Osborne was a very fine young man; but there was an air of coldness, or carelessness, even of awkwardness about him, which seemed to speak him out of his element in a ball-room. ... On entering the tea-room, in which two long tables were prepared, Lord Osborne was to be seen quite alone at the end of one, as if retreating as far as he could from the ball, to enjoy his own thoughts and gape without restraint.

And he tells Tom Musgrave, "Aye, do [find Emma]; and if you find she does not want much talking to, you may introduce me by and by."
Whereas Aiken says he

... was fair-haired and had narrow, patrician features; his manner varied between callow, unsure, awkward, and then suddenly supercilious - as if he thought himself above his society, yet was not certain of his welcome.

And there's a bit where she says he has no sense, but I can't find it again to quote.

It seems clear to me that Lord Osborne is shy and just socially awkward, but Aiken just went to "proud". And he comes off as kind of a rattle in her part of the book.

Even more egregiously, Mrs. Blake is described as Mr. Howard's "widow sister" on her first entrance, but for some reason the epilogue states that Mr. Blake died off the coast of Portugal like it took place during the action of the story.

And my general problems: as I already said, the ending is super pat for everyone; she disregarded the interview canon (which she also did in her Emma sequel); Emma is a perfect angel, never saying anything sharp or doing anything naive. It kind of makes me want to try my hand at finishing it myself, to be honest.

ETA: Oh! Forgot the most annoying bit. In skimming through the rest of the book, I noticed to my horror that after vol. 1 of Mr. Watson's collected sermons is published (after being prepared by Emma, of course), Aiken totally used the bit from Austen's life with the Prince Regent ~giving permission~ for her to dedicate the next volume to him. And, you know, she did that in Eliza's Daughters, too, with Elinor writing Austen's novels. So much no.

Comments

[epea-pteroenta.livejournal.com]

I haven't read The Watsons but I do want to now - and not Joan Aiken's version! It's interesting to consider how it could have finished. Yeah, definitely want to read it! The quotes you copied are very intriguing!

[chocolatepot.livejournal.com]

It is so intriguing. What I find the most interesting is the way it's so rough - I can't help but think that if she'd gone back to it, she'd have expanded and eased into it so that you aren't meeting someone new every other paragraph, and continually having backstory information thrown at you, because I don't think her beginnings are usually so abrupt. It's really too bad Mr. Howard doesn't do anything in the original; I've got no idea what sort of romance they would have had or what his character's like or anything. Whereas Tom Musgrave is all over it. Bad boys: much more fun to write, sometimes.

The fragment's on Pemberley.com - http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/watsons1.html