The Literate Kitty

  A newly-orphaned girl finds her happy life upended when she’s unceremoniously shipped off to an irritable aunt whom she’s never met.   Both are relieved when the young woman is old enough to get a job as governess to another unwanted girl... and when she winds up falling in love with her boss, it feels like a fairy tale come true. The fairy tale takes a nasty turn, though, when she discovers that the man has been keeping a very big secret from her... and once again, she’s all alone. And it’s there, in the void, that she finally finds herself. Sound familiar?  (Hopefully that’s a rhetorical question, and you instantly recognized the plot of Charlotte Brontë’s  Jane Eyre .) But it’s also the basic premise of a clever reimagining of the Gothic classic, in Natasha Lester’s mesmerizing novel,  The Chateau on Sunset .   When young Aria Jones finds herself abruptly dumped on the sidewalk outside of an imposing hotel on L.A.’s Sunset Boulevard in 1957—so foreign ...

Something especially delightful happens when one of your favorite books is made into an equally-brilliant show or movie. Suddenly, you have the option of creating all the scenes and images in your head, as you read, or feeling the words in the book, as you watch.  Following are a handful of what I consider to be perfect filmed versions of... well, perfect novels.  1). Persuasion - The 2000 production starring Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds is, as far as I'm concerned, the absolute BEST version that has ever been (or will ever be, for that matter) made of this beautiful story.  Root brings a quiet and touching dignity to her role as the long-suffering Anne Elliot, and it’s truly rewarding to see her bloom once joy has, after a protracted absence, returned to her life.  Likewise, the craggy Hinds is simply sublime as Captain Wentworth; he is by turns stern, standoffish, yearning, and finally, indescribably happy when he knows for certain that his beloved Anne will not ...