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View Poll Results: What’s your favorite Jane Austen novel? | |||
Northanger Abbey | 2 | 5.71% | |
Sense and Sensibility | 1 | 2.86% | |
Pride and Prejudice | 13 | 37.14% | |
Mansfield Park | 1 | 2.86% | |
Emma | 4 | 11.43% | |
Persuasion | 5 | 14.29% | |
Something else | 1 | 2.86% | |
I have yet to have the pleasure | 5 | 14.29% | |
Austen’s awful | 3 | 8.57% | |
Voters: 35. You may not vote on this poll |
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03-05-2022, 01:59 PM | #16 |
the rook, bossing Never.
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03-05-2022, 02:08 PM | #17 |
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I've have the first Reginald Hill book from the library. I'll give it a go. The series sounds like it could be interesting.
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03-05-2022, 03:35 PM | #18 |
o saeclum infacetum
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The first Dalziel and Pascoe book isn’t one of the strongest; you’d be better off starting a few books in if you really want to get hooked on it. Too much Pascoe and not enough Dalziel, IIRC. Pascoe’s your typical sensitive detective and not especially compelling.
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03-05-2022, 06:26 PM | #19 |
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Where's the option for those of us who really don't care? I certainly don't dislike Austen, but I'm not mad for her books either.
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03-05-2022, 06:46 PM | #20 |
o saeclum infacetum
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You can take the poll literally; which is your favorite? For some, their favorite might be among their all-time greatest reads, but for others, it could be just the best of a mediocre to middling lot.
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03-06-2022, 01:22 AM | #21 |
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I first read/inhaled the main 6 novels when I was 12 - the omnibus edition was available through the bookmobile and we were only allowed one book so I frequently went with multi books to last the whole week.
When I was young it was Mansfield Park as I felt in affinity for Fanny's life in a large family, but Persuasion is the adult favorite. Anne is both a sympathetic and realistic character, and you feel her pain. |
03-06-2022, 03:37 AM | #22 | |
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I've just downloaded Charlotte Lennox's "The Female Quixote" (published 1752), after I saw mentioned that this was one of Austen's influences for Northanger Abbey. |
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03-06-2022, 05:50 AM | #23 | |
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Both very beautifully set up by HarryT. (I miss him) Pride and Prejudice I have read many many years ago so it will be a reread. I haven't voted because it is the only book of Austen that I have read. And thus the best. |
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03-06-2022, 07:18 AM | #24 |
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I've read other first books in a series where it was said they were not all that good yet they were good enough for me to keep going. I'll stick with the first one as I have it. Just have to put it on my Reader and star it today or tomorrow.
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03-07-2022, 10:12 AM | #25 |
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Coincidentally, I went and saw a play of Sense and Sensibility yesterday. It was entertaining, but reminded me of why I am not interested in Jane Austen's work.
I can only care so much about a bunch of scheming people who are destitute, yet live in beautiful houses and have servants. That's just my personal taste. I'd be more interested in novels about the servants. Something similar that I far prefer is Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House. Of course, it is also sixty years newer. |
03-07-2022, 07:38 PM | #26 | |
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A fantasy by Caroline Stevermer |
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03-08-2022, 01:27 AM | #27 | ||
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Another one is Rose Lerner's "Listen to the Moon". It's about a starchy valet and a happy-go-lucky maid who find themselves without jobs. The vicar needs a butler, but he'll only employ a married man and his wife. It's very good, recommended! (And here's a blog post she wrote about working conditions and living conditions of servants in the Regency.) Quote:
Returning to Austen, I strongly recommend "Pride and Predators", an article in Michigan Law Review (link to the PDF here) written by Heidi Bond (who writes romances under the pen name Courtney Milan). It's part of a series where lawyers write about classic books from a legal point of view. Excerpt (warning: Major spoilers for Pride and Prejudice!) Spoiler:
...and rereading it now, I had forgotten how brilliant it is. The conclusion -- especially the final sentence in the article, consisting of a single one-syllable word -- is a masterpiece. Last edited by hildea; 03-08-2022 at 01:53 AM. |
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03-08-2022, 09:26 AM | #28 | |||
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But the Ibsen play, maybe it was his writing, maybe the translation, but it was such a page turner. I haven't been able to see a live production of it here in the States. But I have watched a couple of film versions (those are also difficult to find over here). I do see the Jane Fonda version is available for $2 on Prime Video. Can't remember if I've seen that one yet. Quote:
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03-08-2022, 12:20 PM | #29 |
o saeclum infacetum
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That was a fascinating read, thanks.
[Some spoilers for P&P] I do argue with some of her analysis, especially with Wickham’s ability just to walk away from his gambling debts. He’d have lost his commission in any case and then what? In light of that, I can see his running away with Lydia was a move of desperation, not just sexual predation; he’d have been no worse off and there was always the possibility of being able to get some money out of Mr. Bennet. Also, marriage was the only possible way of saving the situation for Lydia. No matter how she managed the trauma as she aged, if she developed any self-awareness at all she would have realized it. But I quibble. It was a powerful indictment of Wickham as sexual predator and as Milan points out, Austen was spot-on about the psychology two centuries before it was an identified “thing.” And the universal themes of money and power/powerlessness are endlessly interesting. Anyone who thinks it’s just the wealthy having a whinge has no understanding or empathy at all for women who could be left next to destitute. I read an engrossing book about younger sons in the Regency and the point was made that in a typical Regency family of comfortable/moneyed means with six children, only three could expect to be as well off as their family of origin. In the winner-take-all system of inheritance, younger sons at least were given a means of subsistence/support in the army or the church, or were fitted out in law or medicine. But the daughters? I always thought that Lizzy and Jane were far too blasé about the increasingly likely ruin they faced. Did they think the Gardiners would take them in? They had children of their own to provide for. Lizzy should have been far more understanding of poor Charlotte. Speaking of whom, good for her! She saw her chance and took it. And speaking of the Gardiners and winner-take-all, a case in point. The son got an education; the daughters got bupkes. |
03-08-2022, 02:20 PM | #30 | |
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