Mary and Marylin: the girl in the glasses finds love

Marilyn Monroe in How to Marry a Millionaire

Mary flanked by Mr. and Mrs. Bennet in The Other Bennet Sister

Having finished reading The Other Bennet Sister after having seen the adaption,* I have a number of observations that I intend to write up. But for today, I'll keep it lighter with something that just struck me, a surprising parallel that the director may have alluded to. 

 In both the book and the adaption, Mary's glasses are made into a big deal. Her mother declares she'll never attract a man if she wears them. It's not just Mrs. Bennet's silliness. The assumption that women in glasses were less attractive persisted well over century later and is very central to the character that Marylin Monroe plays in How to Marry a Millionaire who wanders around unable to recognize people and bumping into things because she has internalized that a woman in glasses would never attract a man.

As depicted in the clip above, Marilyn's character describes herself as "blind as a bat" without glasses, which is why she holds her books upside down while pretending to read. 

I wonder if the director of The Other Bennet Sister adaption had that in mind in setting up a scene in
which Ryder holds a book upside down while pretending to read. This is not in the book, so I can't help thinking the director thought of some other films in which the upside down book proves the character is not reading. 

tom_handing_mary_out_of_a_carriage_keychain

Much more on the adaption to follow. Watch for my argument that Mary Bennet is closer to a Charlotte Bronte heroine -- with striking parallels to Jane Eyre and Lucy Snowe -- than a Jane Austen one, especially in the adaption. If you are a fan of the adaption, check out The Other Bennet Sister: Celebrating Mary Bennet  collection from Totally Jane Austen. 

*That's the order I'd recommend for others to follow to enjoy both experiences and appreciate the differences without getting bothered about deviations from the book while watching. 

Related

Many Happy Returns, Jane Austen                       

Jane Austen at 250

Jane Austen: Love and Money
Jane Austen at the Morgan
Love and Limerence in Jane Austen
Observations on Jane Austen's Emma
Pride, Prejudice and Persuasion: Obstacles to Happiness in Jane Austen's Novels
Three Janes, Two Governesses, and the Abolitionist Movement   


The Big Bow-wow & Bit of Ivory
Jane Austen's Heroines
Jane Austen and Capability Brown
Pride and Prejudice in Job Applications

Telling a story through letters and posts

Don Quixote is the work that many identify as the first modern novel, a work distinct from epic romances or other high-brow treatments of fictions that were considered worthy of poetry rather than prose.  Of course, that was not an English work, but a Spanish one. The novel genre only arrived in England nearly 2 centuries later, and often the stories were told in the form of letters. 
  
Epistolary novels are set on the premise of the narrator, telling the story to a correspondent. Samuel Richardson opted for the epistolary form for both Pamela and Clarissa in the 1740s.  About a half a century later, Jane Austen used that form in Lady Susan.  Some decade or two afterwards, Mary Shelley framed the story of the archetypal mad scientist, Frankenstein, in her novel of the same name by having the story related by the sailor who picks him up on his sea voyage in letters to his sister. However, as the novel gener took off during the 1800s, most dropped the epistolary device, even if they were written in first-person. 

It hasn't disappeared altogether, though, modern treatments tend to mix the letters with narrative, often from different points of view, as in  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.  Some contemporary novels substitute emails for letters and sometimes also throw in texts or social media style updates in telling their stories. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a novel that is relayed solely through tweets, possibly grouped under hashtags rather than traditional chapter titles. 

But I wonder if anyone has attempted to tell a story through an online community bulletin board. I know that some reveal an awful lot about their lives through their posts -- about having children, having financial difficulties, attempts at getting a job, attempts at getting a loan, divorce, and calls for outright handouts.  That's all from one person's posts over the past 3 or 4 years. For writers of fiction, I thought that such an account could  form the central line of a narrative from which several key characters branch off. 

Related interest:
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2013/06/jane-austens-heroines-from-extroverted.html
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2014/02/poetry-difference-between-practice-and.html