Jane Austen's Persuasion

The other night I was flipping though the channels bored and stopped when on PBS when i saw young girls with their hair up and dressed in 1800 time period fashion were talking in lovely English accents. I had no idea what it was at first, but i am a sucker for any film from this time period as i loved reading books that took place then. Come to find out, after a while, that i was watching Persuasion by Jane Austen. I really enjoyed reading this story, as all of Jane's books, when i was young teenager maybe 15. At that time I had never had a boyfriend or kissed a boy and the books were so romantic and sweet and just the kind of thing to make love seem so perfect.

I had never seen the movie from this particular book, in fact i did not know that one had been made! In a way i found it almost comical now in my married state. I mean as romantic as all these small glances at each other are, and the occasional hand holding as one stepes into a carriage.. it seems there is not much actual courting. Which makes me wonder how well a marriage would do if you hardly knew each other beyond the silly crush and trembling heart that accompany a romance in the beginning stages. In the movie Anne Elliot did not go on one date with Captain Wentworth, in fact they hardly even speak at all. Yet he proposes marriage and i suppose they lived happily ever after. I guess I read too many books like this growing up. I really thought that would be how it was... just romantic and perfect. Who knew that after the marriage you would have to work so hard at compromising and such? And even though we talked for hours upon hours while dating there were still things i didn't know about Cory until I lived with him. I thought it would be interesting to see the sequel to Jane's books, you know where they are married and what happened next. I wonder if it really was feasible to work out, i wonder how many marriages from that time period were unhappy when the young bride woke up to the reality and day to day unromantic side of a marriage.

I still found my self sucked in to the movie, wishing I could wear dresses like that and spend all my time taking long walks in the country side and going to dinners and dances all dressed up fancy. My sister Thora is in England right now while her husband attends oxford and i could just picture her strolling through the fields of green... so Thora put on a long skirt and go take a good walk like all the heroines of Jane did! You can tell me all about it!!