Jane Austen Lives On.

I want to read all of Jane Austen's books.
I want to join a book club.
I want to read my summer away.
I want to fall in love.

These are the thoughts that echo through my head after finishing the two-hour, The Jane Austen Book Club movie. I watched the movie alone, in my room, in my nifty little theater setup (my queen-sized bed faces the dresser that is topped with a DVD player and small, flat-screen TV). Now before you exit out of this browser or decide to find a more noteworthy blog to read, realize that The Jane Austen Book Club movie is not filled with proper English men and woman prancing around at balls and falling in love like her books seem to overflow with. And for the record, from the experience I have with Jane Austen, that is a TERRIBLE description of her novels, but that topic is for another day.

WARNING: Spoilers included.

The Jane Austen Book Club is set in a present-day, New York City-type city, filled with numerous Starbucks Coffee shops, suburbs, yellow taxis, and an airport. Yet, as the story goes on, one might think the story could take place in any sort of community...even one's own. The Jane Austen Book Club is made up of complicated people, a few strangers, but several interconnected. A mother, who's husband just left her for a woman from the office after many years of happy marriage; her free-spirited, lesbian daughter; a family friend, completely obsessed with dogs and completely not obsessed with men; a science-fiction loving man the dog lover invites to distract the divorcee from her problems at home; an older family friend, looking for a man to make her seventh husband; and a stubborn and serious high school French teacher, who is in love with a male student, fights constantly with her uninterested husband, and solely desires to be the opposite of her psychotic, suicidal mother.

The themes the movie addresses are mature: suicide, gay couples, divorce, affairs, etc..., yet grippingly real. The movie speaks volumes, I believe, because the themes are so grippingly real. Today, everyone in the world could relate to one of the many themes, if not perfectly identify with one or more of them. The trick The Jane Austen Book Club uses is the double theme-identifying within the movie. As the group peruses through the six Austen novels--each member responsible for leading the discussions on one--characters draw conclusions, opinions, and themes from the novels based on their own, current situations at home. The lesbian lover sees Austen characters' problems occuring because one or more of them are secretly gay and afraid to admit it. The divorced housewife despises every mention of love, marriage, or forever, and the science-fiction lover simply relates everything to his science-fiction books, a topic the women have a hard time relating to.

As the movie unfolds, the viewer becomes enveloped and involved in each of the characters' lives. The Austen characters remain elusive, unless familiar with each novel, but the Book Club members become close friends to the viewer, as the director forces one to feel the pain Trudy--the French teacher--feels as she attends her own mother's funeral only to witness her elusive husband 'hitting on' a former class rival of Trudy's.

So, in a society filled with sappy, predictable chic flicks such as the most recent, Letters to Juliet, viewers may find hope in a realistic, surprising film. Never fear, however, all ends happily. That is, if you're alright with a woman being married seven times, premarital sex, and gay couples--three aspects of the ending I would definitely have changed.

Poetry's never been my favorite...

So this is the cheesiest thing you'll probably ever read.

A little background first...

After moving home from my first year of college and seeing the massive amount of 'stuff' I have, I decided to sort through EVERYTHING and toss A LOT! My cleaning motto: "If I haven't needed it in the past nine months and it doesn't have immense sentimental value, toss it!" While going through a rough tote filled with middle school and high school memories, I stumbled across some poetry written during high school. They all are very reminiscent of the high school female mind: boys, boys, boys, and whatever activities she is involved in (my love was volleyball). I decided to share a few of the poems I wrote. Feel free to laugh long and hard at their cheesiness.

These first two were written during my sophomore year.

A Remarkable Remembrance - by Kristin Janssen

It is a remarkable remembrance
Fame was knocking
at the door,
Or was it shame?
Four games played.
Two ours, two theirs,
And one left...
Undecided, unpredictable,
Like tomorrow,
Like the rest of your life.
Please God, I prayed,
Don't let me weaken
Under the deafening silence
Of the fidgeting fans
And my tense teammates.
I want to courageously
S M A C K
the
ball
down...
Right in the face of despair!

It is a remarkable remembrance.
Fame was knocking at the door.
Five games played.
Three ours, two theirs.
Thank you God, I prayed.
For letting me
Face my greatest foe!
Amen.


A Lifetime in the Sand - by Kristin Janssen

A footprint is a lifetime
printed in the sand.
A story untold,
Identity unknown.
One man's
laughter,
joy,
and tears,
Scrawled below
on the cool, breezy beach.
Questions unanswered,
Thoughts kept safe,
Hidden below
a few grains of sand.
Where has he been?
What makes him laugh?
Why does he cry?
Whom does he love?
More questions left
drifting alone,
Floating through life,
Now all disappear.
One man's
life,
love,
and prayer,
Kept in the sand
'till the ocean
captures the memories
and washes them away.

This last one was written during my senior year during a poetry unit taught by our student teacher in Compostion/Brit Lit. I'm only including the first stanza to save you from the pain of reading such a pathetic poem.

Lasting Love - by Kristin Janssen

To me, dear one, you are the air I breathe
For love lasts longer than till tomorrow.
Your presence I desire never to leave,
Lest my lungs be consumed with the sorrow.