Discussion of crowded candlelit ballrooms in Northanger Abbey with JAS New Zealand reminded me of these photos from the 2022 JASNA tour to England. The chandeliers in the Assembly Rooms were converted to electirc lights and stored away for safety during WWII bombings. That’s King George III and family in the portrait. Note the high windows so the riffraff couldn’t look in.
Join the JASNZ book discussion, covering three chapters a week at 9 p.m. Tuesdays Hawai‘i time. Find out how.
Take our survey to help determine the books we will read and discuss during the coming year. Join JASNA and designate Hawaii as your region to ensure you are on the mailing list for in-person and/or online discussions. Already a members of another JASNA region? Email jasnahawaiinei@gmail.com with your name, region and contact information.
The Austens were snowed in when Jane was born in December 1775. In Hawai‘i, we’re just snowed under by the busy holiday season, so we follow the family’s lead and celebrate the April baptism for our annual tea. It was a cozy, scrumptious, fun get-together in downtown Honolulu with a challenging quiz supplied by Gretchen and lots of good chat.
On Saturday, June 25, we will discuss Teenage Writing by Jane Austen, Katherine Sutherland and Freya Johnston, editors, via Zoom at 1 p.m. Hawai‘i Standard Time. In these stories, written “to be shared and admired by a named audience of family and friends … devices and themes which appear subtly in Austen’s later fiction run riot openly and exuberantly across the teenage page. Drunkenness, brawling, sexual misbehavior, theft, and even murder prevail. It is as if Lydia Bennett is the narrator.”
Email JASNAHawaiiNei@gmail.com for the link or join via Zoom.
The book is available from
• Jane Austen Books, $12 plus small shipping charge
• Oxford University Press, $12.95, audio guide and interviews available
• Barnes & Noble, $12.95
• Amazon $12.95 (also available in e-reader and used versions)
Like the Steventon congregation, whose recognition of Jane Austen’s birth and baptism was delayed by a December snowstorm, we will celebrate Jane Austen Birthday in April. Join us for tea at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 1 at Tea at 1024 in Honolulu.
Cost is $40 standard or $45 gluten free menu. RSVP by March 15 by email to JASNAHawaiinei@gmail.com and pay at the door with cash or check payable to JASNA Hawai‘i. The restaurant is located near Chinatown at 1024 Nuuanu Ave.
On Feb. 18, members and guests discussed Ted Scheinman’s Camp Austen: My Life as an Accidental Jane Austen Superfan via Zoom. Reactions were mixed, with some wondering if the title was likely suggested by the marketing department and others noting that their expectations might have been different had they noticed the “Literary Criticism” designation on the back cover before they began reading.
Before Colin Firth there was Laurence Olivier. Like the 1995 mini-series, the 1940 black and white film spurred interest in Austen’s novels. Hawai‘i JASNA members were joined by fellow Janeites from as far as St. Louis and Montreal on Jan. 21 to discuss the merits of various screen adaptations of Pride and Prejudice and debate the best Mr. Darcy and Miss Elizabeth Bennet. The group was united in one opinion: whatever one thinks of the opulent costuming and highly emotive acting in the 1940 MGM film, we might never have had the subsequent productions without it.
Download this quiz to test yourself.
Members Gretchen, Donna and Cheryl enjoyed front row seats for Koa Theater’s production of Kate Hamill’s Pride and Prejudice in December. Directed by Kelsey Baehrens with intimate, minimalist staging, the “bold, surprising, boisterous and timely” comedic take offered a fun, fresh approach blending period-dress and traditional language with modern sensibilities and amazingly quick on-stage costume changes. We look forward to more “theater for community” at Koa Theater.
Although they live on different islands in Hawai‘i, Regional Coordinator Cheryl Ernst, far left, and member Margaret Gill, far right, were together on Canada’s Vancouver Island for the 2022 Annual General Meeting in Victoria, British Columbia. Theme for JASNA’s 2022 AGM was Sense and Sensibility in the City of Gardens. The nearly 700 attendees enjoyed 4 days of of talks, tours, workshops, lively discussions and a screening of Ang Lee/Emma Thompson’s version of the movie, capped by the banquet and ball.
The next AGM is Pride and Prejudice: A Rocky Romance, in Denver, Colorado, followed by gatherings in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2024 and Baltimore, Maryland, in 2025.
Hawai‘i Region founding coordinator Bob Newell answered questions about his first book, a time-travel romance titled Courting Jane during the Sept. 24, 2022 reading group discussion. Bob gamely accepted criticism, shared opinions about the characters, identified locations described in the book and explained some of his plot decisions (including the kissing and ambiguous ending).
View the recorded Zoom session.
The book is available on Amazon in print or Kindle versions or from Barnes and Noble.
Overall, the group gave the book a thumbs up as a good read. Bob doesn’t anticipate a sequel and agrees that a film version would be fun (if unlikely).
jasnahawaii.org 