BOOK 178: SENSE AND SENSIBILITY: JANE AUSTEN

Sense and Sensibility is a novel by Jane Austen, published in 1811. It was published anonymously; By A Lady appears on the cover page where the author's name might have been. It tells the story of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne, both of age to marry.

The novel follows the young women to their new home with their widowed mother, a meagre cottage on the property of a distant relative, where they experience love, romance and heartbreak. The novel is set in southwest England, London and Sussex between 1792 and 1797.

The novel sold out its first print run of 750 copies in the middle of 1813, marking a success for its author, who then had a second print run later that year. The novel continued in publication throughout the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

Jane Austen wrote the first draft of the novel in the form of a novel-in-letters (epistolary form) sometime around 1795 when she was about 19 years old, and gave it the title Elinor and Marianne. She later changed the form to a narrative and the title to Sense and Sensibility.

Austen drew inspiration for Sense and Sensibility from other novels of the 1790s that treated similar themes, including Adam Stevenson's "Life and Love" (1785) which he had written about himself and a relationship that was not meant to be. Jane West's A Gossip's Story (1796), which features one sister full of rational sense and another sister of romantic, emotive sensibility, is considered to have been an inspiration as well. West’s romantic sister-heroine also shares her first name, Marianne, with Austen’s. There are further textual similarities, described in a modern edition of West's novel.

The book has been adapted for film and television a number of times, including a 1981 serial for TV directed by Rodney Bennett; a 1995 film adapted by Emma Thompson and directed by Ang Lee; a version in Tamil called Kandukondain Kandukondain, released in 2000, starring Ajith Kumar (Edward Ferrars), Tabu (Elinor), Aishwarya Rai; and a 2008 TV series on BBC adapted by Andrew Davies and directed by John Alexander.

FILM 1548: SISTERS

TRIVIA: Paula Pell wrote the two roles of the sisters just for Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.

Pazuzu, the name of the imposing drug dealer played by John Cena, is also the name of the demon that possesses the young girl (Regan MacNeil, played by Linda Blair) in The Exorcist (1973).

BOOK 149: BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE MUSEUM: KATE ATKINSON

Behind the Scenes at the Museum is the first novel of British novelist Kate Atkinson. The book covers the experiences of Ruby Lennox, a girl from a middle-class English family living in York. The museum of the title is York Castle Museum, which includes among its exhibits the facades of old houses from the city, similar to the one in which Ruby's family lives.

By interspersing flashbacks with the narrative of Ruby's own life, the book chronicles the lives of four generations of women from Ruby's great-grandmother Alice to Ruby's mother's failed dreams.

Ruby's own life is told in thirteen chapters, written in the first person, documenting key periods in Ruby's life from 1951 ("Conception" beginning with the words "I exist!") to 1992. Between each chapter are (non-consecutive) flashbacks that tell the story from the point of view of one of the other members of Ruby's family—including her great-grandmother Alice, her grandmother Nell and her mother Bunty.

BOOK 118: NAKED: DAVID SEDARIS

Naked, published in 1997, is a collection of essays by American humorist David Sedaris. The book details Sedaris’ life, from his unusual upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, to his booze-and-drug-ridden college years, to his Kerouacian wandering as a young adult. The book became a best-seller and was acclaimed for its wit, dark humor and irreverent tackling of tragic events, including the death of Sedaris’ mother. Prior to publication, several of the essays were read by the author on the Public Radio International program This American Life.

Naked won the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Non-Fiction from Publishing Triangle in 1998.

FILM 1208: PRACTICAL MAGIC

TRIVIA: According to Sandra Bullock in the commentary, in the scene where Gillian and Sally get drunk with their aunts and they sling insults, the actresses actually got drunk. They were drinking some very bad tequila that Nicole Kidman brought.

The black dog that follows Sally's (Sandra Bullock's character) husband Michael (Mark Feuerstein's character) on the day of his death is no accident. According to several cultural traditions (mainly those of the British isles and Latin America), a sign of impending death can take the form of a black dog.