Once In 200 Years: Lizzy Bennet Sultry, Full-lipped, Tanned Hottie

Brooke Allen:

"For no filmed version of an Austen novel is really satisfactory: Of all 19th-century novelists, she dwells the least on the physical surfaces that are the essence of the cinematic art." 


Howard Jacobson:

"If we declare ourselves, as readers, to be on the side of life, the question has to be asked what sort of life we are on the side of. Life governed by the rules of respectability and fear? Life rounded at the edges with all the horror turned away from? Life seen whole and steadily with all the breakages and shaking taken out? I don't mean to set up false dichotomies. I would never say of those great writers whose work clearly falls outside the category of non-redemptive, even anathematising black-heartedness I am championing that they make us "feel good". Jane Austen's vision is a fraction from being a despairing one, her final chapters are dispensations of kindness, like the fifth acts of Shakespeare's comedies, in which we are spared bleakness by a hair's breadth, though we feel its presence all around."

The world is celebrating 200th birth anniversary of  'Pride and Prejudice', a novel by Jane Austen.

As is always true of most of such celebrations in the West, there is a lot of passion and there is a lot of commerce.

The New York Times on February 13 2013 gives us a glimpse of the way the covers of Austen's book have changed over the years. View it here.

It is such a delight but also made me wonder if I had seen anything like this in Marathi. I haven't.

Janine Barchas says in the article:

"Let’s just be honest about our superficiality. Even when it comes to the high-­minded business of literature, people do judge books by their covers. Perhaps that’s why Amazon produces glossy mock “covers” for its disembodied e-books, to be inspected and decided upon alongside the traditional print offerings.
Book covers may be especially important when it comes to the classics. After all, many of us have a general sense of, if not a thorough familiarity with, the contents within. Perhaps more than anything else, these covers show what matters to prospective buyers. Two centuries of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” are particularly revealing about the novel’s broad and sustained popular reach..."

In Marathi we can surely do such a study for a lot of saint-poet literature.  

courtesy:  Marvel's 'Pride and Prejudice'

"In 2009, Marvel tried to turn young women into comic book readers by issuing “Pride and Prejudice” as a graphic novel. The cover art plays down — even disguises — the book’s sexy interior. On the outside, a primly presented Keira Knightley look-alike, drawn by Sonny Liew, graces a spoof of Seventeen magazine. Inside, the illustrator Hugo Petrus characterizes Lizzy Bennet as a sultry, full-lipped, tanned hottie."

I wonder if Amar Chitra Katha has any plans to create a comic book based on P & P. If they do, which Indian hottie will it be? Vidya Balan, Priyanka Chopra, Katrina Kaif, Kareena Kapoor...