I had the amazing opportunity to see Whit Stillman’s Love and Friendship in March at a screening at the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University. If you have ever seen a Whit Stillman movie (Damsels in Distress, Metropolitan, Barcelona, etc.), you’ll have an idea of what you’re in store for—intelligent humor that irritates some viewers. I’ve never quite understood why that would be the case, but if you want a review that touches upon that, then I suggest you read “An Exceedingly Brief and Entirely Incomplete Defense of Whit Stillman’s Damsels in Distress” on Nitrate Lights.
Tag: epistolary novels
“It must be under cover to you.”: Austen and Epistolary Novels
Lady Susan is one of the more complete pieces from Jane Austen’s juvenilia. With that being said, it still has an abrupt ending that one could only wish would have been more thoroughly finished. Even so, it’s not exactly uncharacteristic of Austen to wrap her novels up in nice pretty bows, which is what happens in Lady Susan though much more quickly. I believe the reason for this can be found in the form of the novel itself. It is an epistolary novel, and if you have ever read any, you will know that a story can only be carried so far through correspondence. To that end, she even writes, “This correspondence, by a meeting between some of the parties and a separation between the others, could not, to the great detriment of the Post Office revenue, be continued longer.” (pg. 101). Simply put: she got tired of it. Who can blame her?
Taking the Waters 