Lost in Austen

[kerravonsen]

I took a break from Doctor Who, and watched "Lost in Austen". After I got over the cringingly embarrassing scenes near the start (I don't cope with embarrassment well) I got pulled in. And at the end of part 2, I was going "Oh noes!" and very sad for the heroine. And there were worse things to come, oh my.

I liked this because it's the best kind of fanfic, the best kind of AU:
* it takes one "what if" and runs with it
* it stays faithful to the characters, and canon as we know it
* and yet manages to speculate beyond canon without violating it
* it manages to make a number of the characters more sympathetic than they were in canon
* it wasn't predictable; it was a comedy of errors, a Mary-Sue story in which Mary-Sue stuffs everything up, despite her best intentions.

Comments

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

You make me want to see it! I'd read some bad reviews on LJ so I wasn't keen, but I should see if I can get hold of it now.

[kerravonsen]

I think it helps if one approaches it as AU fanfic. What did the bad reviews say?

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I can't really remember now. That the girl was too modern and didn't fit in?

This reminds me; I should get the next Darcy book.

[kerravonsen]

That the girl was too modern and didn't fit in?
That is absolutely true. It was, in fact, one of the points of the story; that if you get magically transported into the genteel past, you aren't going to fit in. It would have been rather strange if she had fitted in. Not that she doesn't try her best, of course. She isn't ignorant. But she does make slips, and then tries to recover from them; some attempts being masterful bits of improvisation, and some not working so well. That's part of the humour.

I consider it a kind of self-insertion fic; that is, a Mary-Sue story in which Mary-Sue isn't Sue-ish, but realistic. Being fanfic, of course it is pointless watching it unless one is familiar with the "canon"; it definitely draws on the Colin Firth BBC version of P&P (in fact, Colin Firth gets mentioned...)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Then I suspect those how didn't like it didn't know the source, and I'm pretty sure one of them has never read Austen. OK, I'll have to get this.

[dawnmist]

Oh good - I was hoping you would enjoy it :)

There's a lot of stories I enjoy that you don't (mainly because I don't see plot holes/characters behaving out-of-character/etc most of the time), so while I thought you would enjoy Lost in Austin...it's a relief to know that you did.

[kerravonsen]

8-)
Thank you for being an enabler. (grin)

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Glad you like it too.

[kerravonsen]

8-)
I hadn't even heard of it until dawnmist mentioned it.