It hasn’t quite been Ten Days that Rocked the Jane Austen World, but this past week or so has brought us several memorable Janeite teapot storms:
–On September 13, the Jane Austen Festival of Bath, England, assembled enough fans in Regency costume to break the record set just last summer by the Jane Austen Festival of Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville snatched the title from Bath in the first place, so it’s pretty clearly Game On for next year. Once again, national honor is at stake.
–On September 14, en route to her crowning as Miss America 2015, Kira Kazantsev let the world know that she’s a Janeite. Unfortunately, this great news – Jane Austen, tiaras and swimsuits! Perfect together! – was drowned out by the derision heaped upon the typo in the on-screen tagline announcing that Kazantsev “loves anything Jane Austin.” Whoever was responsible had probably used up all his/her mental bandwith making sure “Kira Kazantsev” was spelled right.
–And today the long-delayed, eagerly-anticipated-though-not-by-me movie version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is due to start filming at last. The big news du jour is that two stars of the hit HBO series "Game of Thrones" – Charles Dance, who plays the ruthless and cruel Tywin Lannister, and Lena Headey, who plays his equally ruthless and cruel daughter, Cersei – have been cast in as-yet-unannounced roles. (I’m guessing Mr. Bennet and Lady Catherine – no reason Lady C has to be a wrinkled old crone, given that her daughter is at most thirty.)
I’m hoping this doesn’t mean we’re in for scenes in which the complexities of the entail are explained while a couple of naked women mud-wrestle in the background.