Persuasion
There is nothing better than turning on the TV, hitting the wrong channel and instead of getting what you are used to (like another episode of Law and Order) only to stumble upon the BBC's version of Persuasion at the very beginning.
I love Jane Austen. Her books are funny and clever and her heroines are all delightful. There's Catherine Moreland, everyone's favorite nineteen year-old. (She actually tells the man she loves that she thinks his father killed his mother. Its hilarious, in a schadenfreude kind of way.), And, Emma, everyone's favorite matchmaker. Fanny Price, who is quiet and overlooked but his good and wonderful and in the end gets the guy. There's the Sisters Dashwood and let us not forget Elizabeth Bennett and her sisters.
And, there's Anne Elliot. Ah, Anne. This book is so wonderful and so painful. Anne Elliot is old for an unmarried woman of her time and this is made worse for her because she was once young and in love and her Father (and Godmother) didn't approve of the match. Her father and her older sister have been living outside of their means, and so they have to let their home in order to pay off their debts. And, who should rent it? But Admiral Croft, who is married to a woman who is the sister of her Beloved. Of course. He comes back into her life. He's kind of a dick about her rejection (because he is still bitter and maybe, just maybe has feelings for her). She obviously still cares for him. Its wonderful. You should it. I'm watching it.
