I want Emma Thompson to write my life.

I was late to the Pride and Prejudice party, I’m the first one to admit. I didn’t read it until shortly before (or maybe just after?) I had Gracie, so I was older. I remember reading the book and thinking it was okay, but not really all that…until the first proposal scene. Or maybe it was later at Pemberley? Okay, so I don’t remember the details. I just remember it was love not at first sight, but later in the plot. Then I was all, “Ohhhhh!” and I thought I got it. Until I watched the “real” version of the movie (the Colin Firth version, naturally). Then I got it.

I became a bit of a Jane Austen fan after that. I studied the book, analyzed the book, devoured the movies – any and all versions I could find – and repeated over and over again. When I wore myself out, I thought I had maybe better check out some of Ms. Austen’s other books. I turned next to Sense and Sensibility. And hated it.

Oh, it was awful! The characters were silly and the few characters who might have become quite interesting – Elinor, for example – were underdeveloped and dangled hopelessly in plot that sort of ambled around as if the scenes were scattered accidentally about the pages. It was a mess – and not even a hot one. So I gave it up.

I ran through Emma (which I adored), and Mansfield Park (which I can’t remember) and Persuasion (which I have dubbed “the best of the rest”). My sister and I watched “Becoming Jane” and bawled our eyes out because we will be Jane and her sister – alone together until we die. Oh, shoosh. We are not dramatic. Much.

And then, finally, accidentally, I watched the “Sense and Sensibility” movie that has been out forever with Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman (hurrah!), and Hugh Grant. It had been so long since I read the book that I couldn’t remember what happened – only that one sister was silly and one was sensible and both end up romantically entangled, natch. I thought it was good, but not nearly Colin-Firth-in-”Pride and Prejudice” good.

Still, when I saw the movie on sale for $3.99, I might have picked it up for Christmas. And then I might have watched it twice this weekend, back to back, while I was wrapping presents. Really, I don’t know how it fell into my DVD player and started itself! I was all amazement. In any case, I decided I really, really liked the movie and decided to give the book another whirl.

Oh. my. god. I honestly have no idea what happened, but the book and the movie are two entirely different stories! Okay, they’re sort of similar and most of the plot structure is there, and I still have about half of it to read, but…the book’s a bloody mess! No wonder I didn’t like it! Things are happening out of order and some things happen that haven’t really and there are different characters and oh! Not good!

No wonder Emma Thompson won an Oscar for the screenplay adaptation – she added structure and created a beautiful story out of so much raw material! If she could create that from that – imagine what she could do if she scripted my day-to-day life!

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Tags: literature, movies