"All right, folks, make it snappy. I have a date in twenty minutes with a chick named Sloane, and she promises there'll be cake. First!"

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was --"

"How long does that sentence go on for? Criminy, learn what a period is. Next!"

"It is a truth universally acknowledged --"

"Yawnola! Start with an explosion. Next!"

"Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road --"

"I don't handle kid stuff. Next!"

"While the present century was in its teens --"

"Don't touch YA, either. Man, this batch is the pits. NEXT!"

"This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve."

"If I want resolution I'll hire a graphics designer. Next!"

"Now, what I want is Facts."

"Weren't you in here before? What I want now is a bourbon sour, and none of those frou-frou maraschino cherries. Next!"

"I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up."

"Oh, how very clever – no, not the sentence; the fact that my ex-wife is hiring starving writers so she can twist the knife a little more! Tell her if I hear one more word about that yacht, I'm delivering it in a matchbox. All right, last pitch. This had better be good."

"It was a dark and stormy night -- "

"Whoa Nellie! That's brilliant! Get Random House on the phone! If this doesn't get a seven-figure floor bid, I'll eat my hat!"

My preparations have made me think about the difficulties of travel in Regency England. Although travel was getting easier, due to improvements in carriages and roads, it was still an arduous task.

Elizabeth and Darcy spar a little on the ease of travel and distance between family members. Darcy, with carriages and footmen at his beck and call, believes that fifty miles is an easy distance...little more than a half day journey. Perhaps one stop to change horses and to get a little refreshment. Elizabeth (not surprisingly) disagrees, and notes that ease in travel is directly related to ones fortune. Those with less rely on coaches and communal transportation. And ladies need a male travel companion, making trip planning more complicated.

I marvel that, even in Darcy's world of good fortune, fifty miles of travel still takes a half-day. Let's assume that means five or six hours, meaning that the best case is about 10 miles per hour. Our modern minds could not tolerate that rate of travel. My daily commute would become impossible, taking almost two hours each way. And my long-weekend 550 mile get away would involve 55 hours of sheer travel time alone!

"An easy distance, do you call it?" says Lizzy. Indeed.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/features/senseless-sensibility-just-another-jane-austen-adaptation-875661.html

Jane Austen = beloved author of just 6 books (some more popular than others).

Austen novels = out of copyright = moneyspinner for production companies.

Shitloads of other amazing books = out of copyright... hmm

Austen may not own the market as such but her work never seems to go out of fashion. Much like Shakespeare there will always be those who find it stuffy and dull but it will always be loved well enough to make a profit. Profit is a key word, obviously, as nothing is ever produced for the good of the people.

Making a safe profit restricts media output. At this point I get sidetracked - feel free to skip the next paragraph.

*Funnily enough indie films are gaining popularity because they don't tick the safe boxes and we've even started getting mainstream imitation indie films like Elizabethtown which I watched last night and found charming enough though slipped into stalker territory at the end (why Hollywood confuses stalking with affection I'm still not sure, but this film made an effort to have some heart and the mother's character was fantastic). *

What I find irritating is that contemporaries of the great and beloved and the great and unknown never really get a look in, while stupid adaptations and rehashes of the great and beloved (I'm looking at you, Helen Fielding) are spaffed out in abundance because they know the audience will recognise the familiar story and accept it. They are unlikely to hate it. It's sad that that is the bar they are aiming for really: to get as many people as possible to not hate it. Not to create a core of fans, not to challenge people in a 'I'm not sure how I feel about this, you watch it with me and we'll talk about it' way (what with brain-use positively discouraged and all). If anything they want to reinforce the beliefs they think we have already so that we more readily relate to the characters. This is where I come to Bridget Jones.

The book 'Bridget Jones's Diary' was not dreadful. I hated it because I had write my A-Level coursework essay comparing it to Pride and Prejudice and I had been intending never to read it. It turns out Fielding ripped off a lot more from Austen than is first apparent, from which I conclude Fielding isn't very good at writing plots/full length novels. But the book is mediocre, chick lit fodder and it's huge success is unprecedented - I believe the Austen connection carried it a long way.

I may have resented having to read the book but being an avid reader and admiring how much of Pride and Prejudice she managed to cram in there it's not actually the book I have a problem with. Bridget Jones as a character has become a benchmark, a representative of women in our culture, and she is a feeb. A total and utter feeb who can do little to nothing by herself and frequently fails spectacularly. She is obsessed by how she could possibly get men but doesn't consider that these are just two of many men on this Earth and might in fact both be shit. Or just incompatible with her feeble self. She complains feebly about her feeble self but does nothing positive. I have anti-sympathy for her plight.

If I have anti-sympathy for Bridgie you can imagine how I feel about those who compare themselves, others, or the general female population with her. Her example has made it more acceptable to be a feeb. To sit around and whine about your life failing, to be obsessively insecure to the point where you ignore all your friends and to most definitely ignore your friends if there is the possibility of making a highly unsuitable man develop and interest in your feeble self. Bridget Jones gives you the permission to be lazy, to give up caring about things that might make you happy and resign yourself to the feeling that you knew all along that you were rubbish and no one loves you.

How can this character be based on Lizzie Bennett? Bright, sparkly, proud, sharp as a tack Lizzie; the young woman who loves her friends, despairs of her parents, and won't accept the condescension of Mr Darcy - refusing him until he shows a little respect rather than humiliating herself as his feet. I expect I am just repeating what half the internet have said already but all my grated feelings came up again and I had to get them out.

“The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on the list. I've read 59.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you love.
4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.
5) Reprint this list in your own blog. (This list in no way represents the top 100 books. It's missing the Iliad and Odyssey by Homer. For shame.)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

As you can see, I've struck out no books, as they are all readable - eventually.

For so long, it felt like family, all of us together, celebrating holidays, laughing, learning. But the sub-text was always there, a dark, hidden stream running beside our years of relationship as two couples. Sexual frustration. Loneliness. Grief. A bit, perhaps, of sublimated rage. We unplugged the cork, he and I, and the delicious poison inside nearly killed me. Serious fault-lines in my marriage were exposed, finally, in the tragic climax. Surprise, surprise.

In the eighteenth century, wealthy Georgian ladies, especially English ones, waved [fans] at masquerade balls, and wore them as a fashion accessory with almost every outfit that they owned. There were daytime fans, white satin bridal fans and even mourning fans painted with grisaille, i.e. black, white and grey. Classical fans, brought from Italy, replaced the luscious rococo of the French. As well as drawing attention to beautiful and perfectly manicured hands, these items played a big part in delicate flirtations. In fact, a whole 'language of the fan' had developed in England in Tudor times which became especially popular for middle and upper-class Victorian women who were courting. A folded fan placed against a lady's chin told a gentleman that she found him attractive, for example, while snapping a fan shut was a curt dismissal! No wonder that the sixteenth century English writer, Joseph Addison, stated: "Men have the sword, women have the fan and the fan is probably as effective a weapon!"- Life in Italy, Handheld Fans

The following passage was written in the U.S. in mid-nineteenth century America. It describes an oppressively hot day in church in which so many ladies were fanning themselves that they created a significant breeze for others. "One old lady must have been thinking of a dancing-tune to which her feet kept time in the days of her youth, as her fan kept time with a regular hop, skip and jump, not at all like any psalm-tune I ever heard." The author goes on to describe fans made of red and yellow, or resembling a great palm-leaf, or made of a peacock's tail or turkey feathers, their delicate  ivory or sandalwood sticks and guards creating clicking sounds.

Those two young ladies who sit where side glances cross very conveniently from the crimson-cushioned pew occupied by a single gentleman, have consecrated theirs to the most effectual display of their ruby lips and laughing dimples, and I am kind enough to hope it will not be "all in vain," and, as I have hinted, really think fans are often put to a worse use. No insignificant thing is the little flutterer, whatever may be its form or fashion - how many smiles and frowns and titters it hides, to say nothing of the blushes that take shelter behind its graceful folds. Many an ague fit have they given me; yet on the whole, I am not sure that I would banish them; were they the authors of ten times as much mischief, for I think it would cause a flutter among ladies, that would be more deleterious.

Into what a consternation they would be thrown if suddenly deprived of this relief in all embarrassments; and it is a curious fact, that in all heathen as well as all Christian nations, it is a favorite shield of the gentle sex. In all histories of queens and courts and festivals, the fan is conspicuous, whether it be among the Princes of Christendom, in India or China, or in the Islands of the seas. The true reason is that it is so graceful an appendage, and so kind a helpmeet in a moment of timidity or an hour of idleness." -Minnie Myrtle, The Ladies and Their Fans, New York Times, June 30, 1854

Other links on the topic:
• Click here to read my other post about fans: The Language of the Fan
• See an example of a Gray Regency fan
• Vintage fans - several beautiful examples are shown on this site
  
• This 18th Century Fan at Ruby Lane Antiques is for sale
• The Fan Museum contains a wealth of information

Top Image from: Hagley Magazine: Fan Exhibit

Diagram of fan: The Fan Museum

"his perfect indifference, and your pointed dislike, make it so delightfully absurd!" Mr. Bennet, Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 57

Gentle readers, Please join us for the second in a series of six diptych reviews of the revised editions of Jane Austen's six major novels and three minor works that were released this summer by Oxford World's Classics. Austenprose editor Laurel Ann is honored to be joined by Austen scholar Prof. Ellen Moody, who will be adding her professional insights to complement my everyman's view. 

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

Oxford World's Classics Revised edition, (2008) 

Laurel Ann's Review 

Any reader of the novel Pride and Prejudice, be it novice or veteran, has certain expectations and apprehensions based on its incredible popularity and renown. The same can be said for the media, whose recent over-use of its famous opening line, ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged...' can be found repeated in the opening of many a news, magazine or blog article announcing some creditable or dubious connection to Jane Austen's characters or plot. Interestingly, it has become the meme of the day passed along and re-used by those who want to appear in the know, but are sadly missing the point. It is debatable if Pride and Prejudice's profound truths can be reduced to just universally acknowledged one-liners. If the novel was that easy to figure out we would not care two figs about it, and after nearly two hundred years, it would have been lost to obscurity! What one can expect though is so much more; an engaging plot that keeps you thinking and re-evaluating characters every step along the way, witty, sharp and humorous dialogue that others wish to emulate but never quite achieve, and a love story which just might reign supreme for all eternity. With all of these expectations before us, who could not be a little intimidated?  

The Oxford World's Classics new edition of Pride and Prejudice might just meet your need to read and explore Jane Austen's classic novel. This edition presents the reader with a wide variety of supplementary material to help you along in your discovery of the universal truths in Pride ad Prejudice. Like many editions, it supplies us with an unabridged text that has been carefully edited by prominent scholars since it was first published in 1813. ‘Carefully' is the operative word here, since the debate is on about what has been changed or removed from the text. I will again defer to my learned co-reviewer Prof. Moody to delve into that arena. In addition to the brief biography of Jane Austen, select bibliography, chronology of her life, and two appendixes on dancing and social status that are repeated in each of the six editions in this series, (and previously mentioned in our first review), this volume includes a twenty-six page introduction by Fiona Stafford, notes on the text including a publishing history, textural notes and explanatory notes unique to this edition filled with insights and facts neatly organized and easy to find. 

Writing an introduction to one of the most beloved and highly scrutinized novels in English literature is a daunting task indeed. My sympathies went out to Fiona Stafford even before I had read one word. Pride and Prejudice is so many things to different people, and not everyone's pet project could be addressed within the limit of space. I just hoped that she might enlighten me in some small way about a truth or insight that I had previously missed. She did not. But like one of the main themes in Pride and Prejudice, accounts by different people of the same events can have different truths. We all judge by our own unique agenda, so what I saw as lacking, another reader might find diverting. She did however, hit upon some interesting points; how the strength of our convictions can cloud our belief and disbeliefs, the divergence and attraction of different personalities, and how truth or the misconception of it can alter our judgment and future happiness. 

The truth may be uncertain in Pride and Prejudice, but on this fact I am convinced. I had difficultly writing about this introduction even after taking copious notes. This can be a telling sign to its clarity and content. I did however find one point of amusement when the author mentioned that characters can be distinguished by their speech patterns and gave examples; "Lydia's use of ‘Oh Lord', Miss Bingley's ‘Abominable', Mr. Collins' ‘Lady Catherine de Bourgh', and Mary Bennet's lengthy, but largely content-free sentences distinguish her from her vivacious sisters." This is definitely true of Austen's unique characterizations, but this introductions ‘content-free sentences' certainly distinguished it from any other vivacious introduction that this writer has the pleasure to read. 

Besides my disappointment in the introduction, the remainder of the supplemental material including the very helpful explanatory notes and the extensive chronology were a delight. For the new student the additional material is a must to understand the full context of the novel; - and for those Janeites who are ready to start your annual re-reading of Pride and Prejudice, pick up this edition. It is a perfect size to stash in your handbag or brief case, and whip out when the next debate ensues about whether Mr. Darcy was too proud, or just shy. 

Please join us again for the next review of Mansfield Park in August. 

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
Oxford World's Classics
Oxford University Press, Rev. Ed. (2008)
Trade paperback, 333 pages, ISBN-13: 9780199535569
James Kinsley, editor 

Supplemental Material
Fiona Stafford: Introduction, Explanatory notes, Textural notes,
Vivien Jones: Select bibliography, Chronology and Appendixes

Prof. Ellen Moody's Review

Reputedly a romance, a novel many novel-readers
feel called upon to have read:  _Pride and Prejudice_

Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet, Pride and Prejudice (1995)

Gentle readers,

Here we are again, with diptych reviews of what turns out to be a reissue by Oxford in 2008 of its 2004 edition of _Pride and Prejudice_. As I did for the 2008 reissue by Oxford of its 2004 Sense and Sensibility, I will complement Laurel's review, and provide contextualization in the form of a brief survey of recent editions of the novel, film adapations available, and a discussion of how and why _Pride and Prejudice_ has come to be such a well-known title and widely-distributed book.

I again agree with Laurel: the latest Oxford _Pride and Prejudice_ is not quite as good a buy as the latest Oxford _Sense and Sensibility_.  The two have exactly the same supplemental materials:  brief biographical note, bibliography, chronology, and (by Vivien Jones) appendices on rank and social status and on dancing.  The difference is the introduction and explanatory notes are by Fiona Stafford.  So this Oxford half-way house series (half-way between those series which have an overload and those which have too bare an apparatus) does not tailor each edition to the specific novel.  The publisher may assume their readers will not buy all six books, but the reader minded to do so will buy the same supplementary materials six times[1]. Fiona Stafford's explanatory notes are full and very helpful; but her introduction is disappointing because much of it (to be fair, not all), and its central perspective rehashes the many times previously-discussed theme of misleading first impressions, preconceived judgements, and slow self-recognition, for which (to take just one previous example), Tony Tanner's essay provides a brilliant and lucid exposition[2].

Elizabeth Garvie as Elizabeth Bennet, Pride and Prejudice (1979)

To move to context, then and now: in the case of _Pride and Prejudice_, there cannot be any clear battles drawn over which texts to print and (if appropriate) emend.  As with _Sense and Sensibility_ we do not have in whole or part any manuscript version by Austen of _Pride and Prejudice_. This is lamentable since it's thought that, like _Sense and Sensibility_, our present _Pride and Prejudice_ is a much revised originally epistolary novel; it was probably the "manuscript novel, comprising 3 volumes, about the length of Miss Burney's _Evelina_," which Austen's father sent out to a publisher in November 1979, only to see it immediately rejected.  To have self-published a second book this length would have been a second costly venture, so perhaps to get _Pride and Prejudice_ accepted by a publisher, Austen "lop't and cropt" (Jane Austen's letters, to Cassandra, 29 January 1813), i.e., cut and abridged her book somewhat ruthlessly.  With the respectful attention _Sense and Sensibility_ had garnered, she was then gratified to sell the copyright outright to Egerton for 110 pounds.

Thus Austen had no control over the printed texts of _Pride and Prejudice_ at all. She was displeased by the divisions of the volumes in the first 1813 edition, blunders in paragraphing and a lack of clarity in the way the novels' dialogues were printed, but the quick second edition (in the same year) and a third (1817) show no sign of her participation and the usual errors have begun to creep in.  So there is no printed book which reflects her final decisions. The default custom is to reprint the first edition with emendation (doing basically what Chapman did), but sometimes collating the second and third.  The latter option is what was done for Oxford by James Kinsley in 1970[3]. Only with hindsight, did Austen know she could have made much more money. There is no sign she had the slightest inkling that this book above and beyond all her others would at first gradually and then suddenly by the later 20th century become a best-seller.

In her review Laurel has pointed to P&P's status.  It was at first an immediately popular book among its contemporary Regency reading public.  continue reading 

 Illustration by Hugh Thomson, Pride and Prejudice (1894)

http://www.megaupload.com/pt/?d=TPFHYTAB

Tamanho: 451Mb
Áudio: Inglês
Legenda: Português
Formato: RMVB

At my last job, my co-workers organized a book club, and we met once a month to discuss a book, and decide what to read next. These women were largely college-educated, great readers, and yet almost none of them had heard of Jack Kerouac. I was appalled. Instead one month we read a paperback crime novel, written by the sister of another co-worker. I won't name it, it was dreadful. Factually, the author seemed to have done a good deal of research into the subject matter, but the characters were cardboard-thin stereotypes of the genre. My reading time is precious, and limited. I don't want to waste another minute of my life reading that kind of drivel.

As Flannery O'Connor said, "There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good writing teacher."

I was at Jan's watching "Becoming Jane" when it occurred to me how much I really appreciate british literature, literature in all aspects at that. Almost four years from graduating from my alma mater, it seemed to have been stemmed from taking my honors and ap classes with Ms. Stith. 

At the time I could have probably gave two shits about what I was taught and did substantially okay for keeping a good GPA sake. Watching this diluted and romanced biography of Jane Austen's life and early beginnings of her classic "Pride and Prejudice", just gave me that chilling thought of--damn I really did listen and love. It probably didn't show at the time, but now its more apparent to me than ever. 

I've always enjoyed English and not many can or would love to say that. I'm definitely not a math person and not very good with numbers. Nor can I even say I'm much of book head. I guess when I do finally find the time and focus on a literary work, I can fall in love. It amazed me how much I knew about Jane Austen and "P & P" when I was explaining the story. 

I suppose you can also say it was a forced read due to high school graduation requirements. I agree, but I think I should thank Ms. Stith for introducing me to British Literature and the few female authors who made my peers cock their eyebrow in confusement on the material, smile when and understanding came, sweat when something wasn't read, and finally fall in love with the book when finished. 

This was just a thought.

How people ought to spend their time

I think time-use falls into two broad categories - think of it as a spectrum. On one side you've got time invested for enjoyment, on the other time invested in furthering yourself (improvement). So when I went to watched The Dark Knight that was a pretty much purely on one side of our spectrum. When I studied bankruptcy law it was basically on the other side. I live a pretty lucky life, so most things I do involve both. I'm writing this post mainly because I enjoy it, but I also think that I'm making myself and the world better in my own way. I go to work to put something on my resume and in my bank - but also because I enjoy what I do. So most things I do fall around the middle of our spectrum.

Now let's imagine a vertical axis called 'magnitude'. The higher the dot, the better it is and doing its thing. The lower the dot, the worse. So when I do something like cutting my nails, I'm doing it not because I enjoy it, but rather to 'improve' myself. But I really don't get a lot of furthering done with that time, so the dot goes low on the graph. Alternatively, if we take something like walking on the rocks at the end of the breach, we get a different result. I walk at the rocks because I enjoy it, and it happens to be my second favourite thing in the world. So we'll place that dot really high. See how this is working?

At the end of the day you get a sweet-spot on the graph. The ideal thing to do with your time is something that falls in the middle and at the top. Something which you like doing, which improves you and something which does a lot of both Things to avoid are things which fall into a bottom corners.

Back to Novels

Novel reading on this graph is a poor performer. Ask first where it's falling on our spectrum in terms of improvement and enjoyment. Some argue that being able to tell a story is a critical skill and that reading helps us learn to construct sentences, use grammar and spell correctly. While this is true, I'd argue that novels actually intentionally mislead us about the world. When we interact with others or hear non-fiction stories we learn how others will act and react. This is very useful because, combined with inductive reasoning, we can have a go and predicting the world around us.

Fictional stories pretend to be on the same playing field, but they're really deceiving us. If we were to read/watch a lot of Jane Austen we would build a picture of how men should act and how women will respond when they act that way. But to try and apply that in reality will lead invariable to disappointment. So I think reading fiction actually inhibits your knowledge of the world rather than improving it. All fiction is really good for is escapism.

How much you enjoy escapism is really a matter of taste. But I think in the 21st century there are far better methods of escapism than the novel. If you enjoy immersing yourself in a fictional world - choose a digital interactive world populated with other people. That way you can get fictional settings with non-fictional human contact. The novel is simply a relic from a previous age of fiction and story telling. We can tell stories in better ways than that today - we don't need novels anymore and we shouldn't want them.

My symptoms: I can't remember, with ease, the big words, the $2 words. And I have difficulty reading books or even longer articles these days because my mind wanders and I'm easily distracted, and I lose my train of thought in tangents.

The diagnosis: My brain is being altered by the Internet. I read an article a few weeks ago by James Fallows on theAtlantic.com, titled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" I was excited to read about academic and literary types reporting similar symptoms. Fallows wrote:

And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

I have been re-reading some Jane Austen novels recently, and find it nearly impossible to stick to it for very long. It was frequently sheer will-power to get through a chapter at a time. My inner conversation, as I'm reading, goes something like this: "Hmm...Rosings Park. I wonder what the film location was for the 2005 version...I'll look that up now...no, keep reading…...I did like Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in that PBS version though...what is the actor's name from the Joe Wright version--Matthew something? I'll just look it up quickly on imdb.com...no, stay...do NOT look anything up…...keep reading." And so on. I even have difficulty making it through movies these days, too, for the same reason.

I was lucky to grow up in a family where we always had dinner together and talked about our days. Inevitably, a volume or two of the Encylopaedia Brittanica would end up at the table. It was part of the table clearing ritual: clear the dishes, wipe the table, and re-shelve the encylopedias. I already had the propensity toward this kind of behavior, and growing up in a family like mine cemented it. So I was prone to being an information addict.

Access to information is a great thing. I confess my addiction. But how much is lost when there is no longer a need for retention of information? And if the way we think and learn is so deeply affected by how we access and process information, who will do the deep thinking?

Me? I’m just a gleaner.

Kitchen at Uppark

2 Bucks, a Welsh sheep, a doz. Ducks, - 4 Hams, dozens of pigeons, and Rabbits, Flitches of Bacon, Lobsters and Prawns; a Turtle of 120 lbs; 166 lbs. of Butter, 376 Eggs, 67 Chickens; 23 Pints of Cream, 30 lbs. of Coffee, 10 lbs. of Fine Tea; and three lbs. of common tea.

41 Port; 7 Brandy; 1 1/2 Hold of strong Beer; while Musicks cost £26 5s 0d and another chef to assist Moget cost £25; another 2 Bucks added cost £11; 2 more sheep cost only £2 10s, and another 2 carp £1 10s 0d. - National Trust, Investigating the !8th Century. p 26

One can only surmise that too many royal visits could deplete even the wealthiest family coffers! In January 1817, the Prince Regent asked Antonin Careme, the famed French chef, to cook a meal at Brighton:

On 18 January 1817, George invited the greatest (and most expensive) chef in the world, Marie-Antoine Carême, to prepare a unique and extravagant dinner in honour of the visiting Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia. Carême had previously cooked for Napoleon, the Rothschilds and the Tsar. But on that cold night in 1817, Carême outdid all his previous achievements - creating 127 dishes. The evening's pièce de résistance was a 4ft-high Turkish mosque constructed entirely out of marzipan, although there were pigeon pies, saddles of lamb and a hundred other delicacies. So pleasurable was the feast that the Prince Regent exclaimed: "It is wonderful to be back in Brighton where I am truly loved." - Blow Out! History's 10 Greatest Banquets

Read more about food, entertainment, and the master of Uppark in the following links:

• The Dairy Maid and the Master of Uppark
• An English Meal
• Regency Dinner Parties and Etiquette
• Antonin Careme: Chef Extraordinaire During the Regency Era
• An Extraordinary Banquet
• National Trust, Uppark
• Prince Hosts Regency Banquet

ENGLISH COUNTRY DANCE CLASSES
IN PLATTSBURGH, NY

A series of 6 Tuesday night classes,
starting Tuesday July 22, 2008

Teaching by Wendy Gilchrist

TIME: 7 pm to 9 pm

DATES: July 22 & 29, August 5, 12, 19, 26

PLACE:
Langlois-Racine Dance Studio
34 Riley Avenue, Plattsburgh, NY

COST: $30/person for the series (6 classes)
Register at the door at your first class
(Registration form attached, more available at door)

INFO:
Sharon Schenkel at lylfaceem@aol.com or 518-643-0310
Wendy Gilchrist at 518-563-1834

VERMONTERS: Contact Wendy Gilchrist if you'd like a ride to class from the ferry landing in Plattsburgh (that is, you'd go on the ferry as a foot passenger). You must be at the Plattsburgh ferry landing by 6:15pm. Contact Wendy at wgilchrist@cvph.org or leave a phone message a day ahead at 518-563-1834.

CLASSES IN VERMONT: Wednesday nights in August at the home of Tom and Val Medve. Drop in, no advance registration required. Suggested donation $3 per person per class. For more info, please contact Val at valandtom@verizon.net or 802-899-2378.

Jane Austen

I was flattered by my reception and I enjoyed sweets and suffered tea (I am a coffee drinker by habit). One woman asked whether I was the guest-speaking graduate student! Gertrude (or "Gerdy"), our matriarch (but nothing like Catherine de Bourgh or Lady Denham), made me so lopsided with compliments that I was subsequently balanced through Greenish outpour in Gainesville's Mega Comics, where I spent the last quarter of my afternoon. My only regret is that our next meeting is two[-many] months away!

If Jane Austen thought that her novel Pride and Prejudice was too light, bright, and sparkling and wanted shade, then author Maya Slater has made up for any deficit by crossing over to the ‘dark side' in writing her re-telling of the story entitled Mr. Darcy's Diary. Not only are we privy to Fitzwilliam Darcy's most intimate and revealing secrets, we see the story of Pride and Prejudice told wholly from the male perspective, and gentle readers, be prepared. It's a man's world in Regency England, and dare I say, Fitzy is no saint! 

The story opens with Mr. Darcy as a house guest of the Bingley's at Netherfield Park the night of the Meryton Assembly. Caroline Bingley is up to her ususal kow-towing activities and insists upon embroidering slippers for Darcy, even though he inwardly fumes that he has no use for them. He is ruminating over sister Georgiana's letter, and sees no solution to her predicament, the particulars of which are not yet known to us. The party arrives at the Assembly rooms and there is little of interest for him. Seeing the dance unfold from his perspective is an interesting vantage; the rooms, the music and the "superfluity of raw young ladies eager for dancing partners were all disenchanting to him". His breeches are too tight so he does not sit down. Beyond the perfunctory dances with his two hostesses, Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, he saw nothing in the room to tempt him. No mention is made of his slighting our heroine Elizabeth Bennet, but this is Mr. Darcy's diary after all, and an event of no consequence to him would surely not be recorded in his diary. 

The diary continues in this first person narrative as Mr. Darcy relays his thoughts, concerns and observations over the timeline of events in Pride and Prejudice. It is not hard to image that Darcy might have written a diary, since he is so eloquent in communication in the original novel as seen in his famous "Be not alarmed madam" letter to Elizabeth Bennet addressing the charges laid before him after her rejection of his first marriage proposal. It might well be one of the most compelling and convincing letters in literary history, so like most young ladies whose imagination is very rapid, I will jump from one well written letter to surmising his ability to write a diary in a moment.  He is after all, Mr. Darcy. He "has no defect. He owns it himself without disguise." 

A diary by literatures most alluring hero is an intriguing concept, but when I originally read the title, I had to blink. Not only is it exactly the same as the US paperback edition of Amanda Grange's previously released Darcy's Diary, there are several books sharing the same premise; Darcy's Story: Pride and Prejudice Told from a Whole New Perspective, by Janet Aylmer; the Fitzwilliam Darcy trilogy by Pamela Aiden, An Assembly Such as This, Duty and Desire, and These Three Remain; Darcy's Passions, by Regina Jeffers; The Confessions of Fitzwilliam Darcy, by Mary Street; and the one that started this Darcy avalanche, The Diary of Henry Fitzwilliam Darcy, by Marjorie Fasman. Wait! There appears to be another in the queue, Mr. Darcy's Dream, by Elizabeth Aston due out in February 2009. Enough! Do publishers think that Janeites have the memory of a hairbrush and can be so easily duped? Do we really need yet another retelling of Pride and Prejudice from Darcy's perspective? Oh rot and bother I say! 

And so it was with a cynical and heavy heart that I cracked open yet another Darcy discourse ready to rip it to shreds like Lydia Bennet's famous bonnet. Grumble. The first few entries of the diary were pleasant enough. The language and style was respectful to Austen's, the story line consistent with Darcy's view, and the characters well thought out. A good beginning. My interest builds as I realize that I am reliving Pride and Prejudice from a new perspective, and told by an author who understands the novel, is well researched in Regency history and can turn a phrase quite neatly. Better and better. Whoa! Darcy has just admired a housemaid's 'pleasing embonpoint', removed her starched white apron and tumbled her on his bed! (Ok, I just heard the pounding exodus of Austen purist as they run out the back door.) The hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. This is not the Darcy that we know from Elizabeth Bennet's perspective, and the author has just made her point. 

Uncertain if I could get past this bit, I trudge on. We follow Darcy to London with his faithful valet Peebles in tow. Their Jeeves and Wooster relationship is amusing. I smile. Darcy unknowingly crumples up his leather gloves in a coat pocket, scuffs his boots, and wants to wear the wrong clothes for the wrong occasion. It is of little consequence to this wealthy and overly confident man, but Peebles is beside himself. I laugh. In addition to Charles Bingley, we are introduced to Darcy's friend, George Byron. Yes, the poet and notorious, "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" Byron. He lives up to his reputation and influences Darcy into dubious deeds that most Regency men of his position in society amuse themselves with like cards, drunken debacles, and escapades with women. At this point we are experiencing Darcy from a totally male point-of-view, but the transition into events that Austen would never have included in her heroine Elizabeth Bennet's female world, are more acceptable because this author's skill at making Darcy's diary so believable and amusing is effortless. By the midway point in the diary, it has become a page turner, and I am totally captivated. 

So how did author Maya Slater woo a Janeite who openly admits contempt for renovators who sex up or steal Austen's good name? She actually did not have to. Once I abandoned my expectations of reading another prequel, sequel or re-telling bent on ripping off Jane Austen's stories or characters, I realized that this was not Elizabeth Bennet's Pride and Prejudice, but Mr. Darcy's, and Maya Slater was not renovating Jane or sexing up Lizzy but telling a man's story. What other authors have attempted in their Darcy re-tellings by mirroring Jane Austen's text word-for-word, has been replaced by sheer creativity and respect. Slater expands our understanding of the plot and characters that Jane Austen introduced, and makes Mr. Darcy's Diary unique and yet blend-able to the original story. It made me laugh-out-loud repeatedly as she expounded on the smarmy antics of Caroline Bingley whose continued attempts to worm her way into Darcy's affections fall flat, fume over the officious arrogance of his aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh, hiss at the deceit and destruction caused by that lout George Wickham, and revel in a love story that I read as freshly and intensely as the first time this writer experienced the original many years ago. That, gentle Austen readers, is quite an achievement. Even Mr. Darcy might consider Maya Slater worthy of inclusion in "the half a dozen women in the whole range of (his) acquaintance that are truly accomplished." 

Mr. Darcy's Diary, by Maya Slater
Orion Books, London (2007)
ISBN: 9780753822661
Trade paperback, 248 pages

• Watch an interview of author Maya Slater as she discusses her book, Mr. Darcy's Diary
• Read the publishers blurb about Mr. Darcy's Diary at Orion Publishing Group online
• Read an online interview of author Maya Slater as she discusses Mr. Darcy's Diary
• Read a PDF file of an extract of the novel Mr. Darcy's Diary

Dr Gay makes a wonderful case for Jane Fairfax to be compared with the type of characters portrayed so well onstage by Sarah Siddons; these characters usually went mad, killed themselves, or simply died. To sustain the proposed connection page 128 has the following parenthetical claim: Austen, of course, knew well where Jane [Fairfax] really belonged as a character: she told her family that Jane did not long survive her marriage to Frank [Churchill].

Told her family made me conclude that A Memoir of Jane Austen was the source; but that cannot be, for here are all the statements regarding the 'future' of Austen's characters in the 1871 edition:

"She [Jane Austen] certainly took a kind of parental interest in the beings whom she had created, and did not dismiss them from her thoughts when she had finished her last chapter. ... She would, if asked, tell us many little particulars about the subsequent career of some of her people. In this traditionary way we learned that Miss Steele never succeeded in catching the Doctor; that Kitty Bennet was satisfactorily married to a clergyman near Pemberley, while Mary obtained nothing higher than one of her uncle Philip's clerks, and was content to be considered a star in the socitey of Meriton; that the 'considerable sum' given by Mrs. Norris to William Price was one pound; that Mr. Woodhouse survived his daughter's marriage, and kept her and Mr. Knightley from settling at Donwell, about two years; and that the letters placed by Frank Churchill before Jane Fairfax, which she swept away unread, contained the word 'pardon.' Of the good people in 'Northanger Abbey' and 'Persuasion' we know nothing more than what is written..." (pp. 148-9)

Did Dr Gay mix up Mr Woodhouse's demise with the Frank-Jane 'pardon'?? Or does a more extensive list of what happened to Jane Austen's characters after the book(s) ended exist elsewhere??

I do have Le Faye's Reminiscences of Caroline Austen to check, but see nothing there in a cursory look; I do not own Caroline's My Aunt Jane Austen, but have searched through MA Austen-Leigh's Personal Aspects of Jane Austen and find no mention of 'fairfax' or 'churchill' - so I throw open the question for discussion:

Did Jane Fairfax, according to Jane Austen, not long survive her marriage??

I am not one of those irrational Harry Potter people who whines about every subplot and change the screenwriters make trying to condense an 800 page book into a two-hour movie. Although, I am glad that they realized that they should break down Deathly Hallows into two movies. However, I really get annoyed when books are ruined unnecessarily.

Persuasion Spoiler Alert:

In this particular instance, they have Eleanor Anne running all over town chasing after Captain Wentworth who apparently has super-natural powers to evade her. Even though she follows him out the door of her home two minutes after he leaves, he somehow makes it back to his housing, writes her a letter professing his love for her, commissions a friend to take it to her, goes for a walk with his sister and brother-in-law, and starts working his way back to her house about a million steps a head of her. Would it have been so terrible to follow the book? I think I'll stick with the older version starring Ciaran Hinds.

I remember being annoyed the same way with the ending of Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightly. Elizabeth and Darcy both go wandering around in the fields barely dressed at sunrise. I understand that the filmmakers wanted to put their own hand print on the old story, but that change was just unnecessary. There is a reason that Miss Austen's novels are so revered; they are perfect as they are. (Why is that last phrase ringing a bell? Ah, yes, Colin Firth, I mean Mr. Darcy, says the same thing to Bridget Jones.)

While Austen's works seem destined to be the most butchered on screen, I wonder about other adaptations at times. The one that currently comes to mind is Lost World by Michael Crichton. I thought this sequel to the brilliant book Jurassic Park was pretty good, if a bit intellectually fluffy. But any resemblance between the book and the movie version was strictly coincidental. The only reason they are slightly forgiven is for letting me see Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm again. Jurassic Park III was slightly closer to the second book but not really. Now that I think about it the first book adaptation had some unnecessary changes, too, like reversing the ages and talents of the children. In the book the little girl is so annoying that as my dad says, "You almost hope she gets eaten by a dinosaur."

So, my plea to screenwriters and directors, "Please respect your audience. Depend on the strength of the story to make your movie strong. And don't change things unnecessarily." Yes, I understand that Neville had to give Harry the gilly-weed instead of Dobby, but why in the world did the maze have to be turned into Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors?

Emma (mit Kate Beckingsale)
Stolz und Voruteil (mit Jennifer Ehle und Colin Firth)
Verführung

alle drei sind liebevoll und detailgetreu gemacht, nur hier und da wurden noch Szenen hinzugefügt, die im Buch nur am Rande erwähnt werden, bzw zwischen den Zeilen zu lesen sind. Und ich finde das gar nicht schlecht.

Normalerweise finde ich britische Produktionen immer etwas steif und unnatürlich, doch allein schon durch die Vorlage von Jane Austen kommen witzige Wortgefechte und der Sinn für diese Zeit sehr lebhaft rüber. Zudem hatte ich das Gefühl, dass bei der BBC einfach alles stimmte, die Kleidung, das Benehmen und die ganze Umgebung.
Die Hollywoodproduktionen von Emma (mit Gwineth Paltrow) und Stolz und Voruteil (mit Keira Knightly) sind sicherlich farbenfroher und mit "unserem Schönheitsideal besetzten" Charakteren und daher wohl auch zugänglicher für die Meisten. Gewinnen tun beide Produktionen auf ihre Weise und jeder Fan der Bücher wird diese Filme verschlingen, wie ich es getan habe.

Naturally about 3 1/2 into my viewing, with one nap in between, and a couple of breaks, begins the comments from my husband. Things like "OMG, what are you watching? What is that drama?"

To which I indignantly reply, "JANE AUSTEN!"

"Did she write it like that?"

Sigh, I guess it is really a chick thing. And let`s face it, Jane Austen books put on film, really are the ultimate chick flicks.

So after watching two versions of "Pride and Prejudice", the next day I watched "Emma" (the Gwyneth Paltrow version)

and after that I felt compelled to watch a version of "Northanger Abbey". I made it about half way through it and then something happened. I was clearly overloading on chick flickness. I felt almost physically ill from it.

I then realized I had to do something to counteract the problem. And came up with this:

South Park is in fact the EXACT opposite of Jane Austen films.