Dear Readers,


I now consider this blog to be my Juvenelia. Have fun perusing the archives, and find me at my new haunt, here.

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

This Week in Jane + An Update

TWIJ:

Cold Case: Jane Austen : At Jezebel, discussing the Morgan Library exhibit and the new theories surrounding Jane's demise.

Jane Austen Movie Throwdown from Jane Austen Today -

Things That Are True About Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey: At Isak, Anna discusses the sheer joy of reading Northanger Abbey for the first time. I feel you sister--some of us will never have the pleasure of opening a brand new Austen-novel again. But we can live vicariously, and we do. P.S. Henry Tilney is a hottie. Oh yes, a man who knows his muslins is not to be ignored.

Speaking of reading an Austen tome for the first time, I'm absolutely finding Wives and Daughters to be among the best of the almost Jane but not quite novels (AJBNQ?) I've ever read. It doesn't have that broad Victorian scope I'm used to from Gaskell, going more into detail about two families and their sorrows and intrigues, which reveals a more direct debt to Austen's novels of manners. I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying this book, fairest readers. I never want it to end. Which is good, because it doesn't! (Gaskell died before completing it). Any others who've read the book know what I'm talking about?

I still owe you reviews of Netherland, Push, and Whitethorn Woods among others. Will catch up ASAP--it's a terribly busy time of year, is it not?

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:01 AM

    I know exactly what you mean. I think I got a literary high from reading Wives and Daughters. Not only that I read W&D right after rereading Jane Austen and I have to say they do go so well together. One of the best 19th century novels I have read so far.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I so really want to read "Wives and Daughters", dying to really...but it's like Northanger Abbey! Once you read it once, you can never have that pleasure of first reading it again. So I'm storing Gaskell like super special chocolate to be taken out at the right moment! And fortunately Gaskell chocolate never goes bad.
    "Middlemarch" is another book (sides Austen) I wish I could read for the first time again...le sigh!

    ReplyDelete