I've just finished a chapter set in Hollywood in 1945 and I'm impressed.
The attention is on the obsessive pursuit of a successful actress, Mimi Harrison, who has a passion for Jane Austen, by a ruthless millionaire turned studio owner, Jack Leonard, whom she refuses to take to her bed.
I was fascinated to see how Jack, a man with an acute insight into the weaknesses of others but who avoids all introspection, and who is paying attention to Austen as a strategem for getting in Mimi's head, admires what he sees as Austen's attraction to bad boys. Jack never reads Austen's novels. He has a screenwriter write treatments of 'Sense and Sensibility' for him and finds himself admiring Willoughby and wondering why Austen gave him such a happy ending. Jack, of course, is a 1940's version of Austen's bad boys, but with a twist He has Wickam's passions and Darcy's self-discipline, a frightening combination,
There's also a scene where the studio head pulls a Harvey Weinstein on Mimi, who fends him off. The contrast between his attempt at rape and Jack Leonard's patient but relentless hunt for submission turns Jack from bad guy to something more complicated.
0
