You couldn't make it up dept. no.72: an interesting view of literature

[fpb]

From a recent "Looking for" thread in one of the HP fanfic sites:
I'm looking for any stories that are reminiscent of a Jane Austen novel in plot and characterization.

I don't mind slash, in this case I'd prefer it...

"Austenesque" slash. Right.

Comments

[filialucis]

My turn to be completely silenced, I think. :O

[cjmr.livejournal.com]

So would Austenesque slash involve the characters looking at each other across a ballroom, sighing, and imagining lurid slash scenes?

Or would it involve the characters writing long florid letters to each other describing what they'd like to luridly do?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I like your imagination. Frankly, I did not even know where to begin.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

That's bad Regency romance.

Austen is more likely to have the characters thinking satiric thoughts about one another, and conversing caustically about same.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I still think cjmr has it right. For a start, what the expression Austenesque conveys to me - whatever the original questioner may have wanted - is cheap knock-offs. Second, I can imagine little more likely to be sentimental and cheap than a slash genre imitation. Can you?

(In most "You couldn't make it up dept." posts, you are not supposed to take the matter very seriously. This is definitely one of those posts.)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Ah--I see. my impression of Austenesque slash was just to substitute guys instead of heroines for the heroes to court.

I expect you're right.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

ON the other hand, you've got a point too. I don't suppose there really is any right or wrong in this kind of issue. It just depends on the way you think the author will get it wrong. The thing is, I was having so much trouble envisaging slash for one of the most severely moralistic writers in the English canon, that cjmr just enlightened me.