The moniker for the new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice is likely to be ‘the Kiera Knightley version’, but I am going to campaign for ‘the one with the pig’ until someone does a Wishbone-type adaptation with Babe animatronic technology (starring the pig) or puppet pigs (move over Miss Piggy, I don’t want a Muppet version!). I’m amused by the fuss the pig is causing – ‘It shouldn’t be in the house’ – ‘How many times must I explain it’s not in the house’ – ‘It’s too rural and makes the Bennets seem too poor’ – because I suspect the distaste probably stems more from the implication intended by juxtaposing the stud pig with Mrs Bennet gloatingly sending Jane over to Bingley at Netherfield:
iW: Then you have this pig walk by and he has enormous balls.
JW: That’s not something we thought of before we saw the pig. Then when we met the pig, we were incredibly impressed by him. I’m rather interested in the fact that a family like the Bennets would only own female pigs. They’d hire the male pig to come in and, as they call it, cover the sows, at a fee. I kind of liked the parallels between human and animal procreation.
This rather puts new life into a rather jaundiced cartoon I did a few years ago:
The only other Austen cartoon I made was this one of Charlotte shrewdly eyeing off Mr Collins:
Of course you could add cartoon bubbles to the pictures in the Jane Austen Colouring Book.
