Happy Birthday, Dear Jane!

Happy 240th birthday, Miss Austen! 

Obviously, we all must celebrate appropriately (watching the 1995 Pride and Prejudice would be a good start), and rejoice in Jane's birthday. 

Jane was born on December 16, 1775 to Rev. George and Mrs. Cassandra Austen of Steventon. She was the second youngest of eight children: James, George, Edward, Henry Thomas, Cassandra Elizabeth, Francis William (Frank), and Charles John. Frank and Charles became naval admirals, and James and Henry became clergymen like their father. (Edward was adopted by a wealthy family that needed an heir, and had no profession.) Henry was Austen's favorite brother, and he became her literary agent later in life. Of course, Cassandra was Jane's best friend. 

While Jane did accept one proposal of marriage, she reneged it the day after, and remained unmarried her entire life. Cassandra was engaged, but after her fiance died, she lived with Jane and her mother for the rest of her life. (Rev. Austen died in Bath in January 1805.) The Austen women were financially supported by Jane's brothers, and eventually Jane's own income from her books must have certainly helped their financial situation, at least a bit. 

Most of Jane's novels were written and published while she lived at Chawton Cottage, from 1809 until her death on July 18, 1817. She is buried in Winchester Cathedral, and her books have been continuously in print since 1833. 

In addition to her writing, she was an excellent piano player and dancer. She often traveled to visit her brothers and assist their wives with their children, and in the delivery of her nieces and nephews, and of course she had duties in her own home, which she shared with her mother and Cassandra. 

While Jane said her writing was, "the little bit of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush", she has become an integral part of Western Literature. Harold Bloom has placed her among the greatest Western writers of all time, and there is a wealth of writing about her, her life, her family, and her novels. 

Her work may not be as stormy as the Brontes', or as social conscious as Dickens', but her fine pieces of ivory have certainly brought pleasure to many people over the past century and change. So, happy birthday Jane!

Which austen novel is your favorite? 

Daybook No. 113

Outside my window::

Grey and cloudy. This is helped by my tree, which is glowing in the corner, and the Joy candle I have lit on my counter. I don't mind rainy days and this is a good day to get things done after the holiday weekend. SO much goodness happened, which I'll be writing about below--but suffice to say, I don't mind a rainy day today!

Wearing::

a Pure Barre sweatshirt, Athleta workout capris, and....flats. Yeah. This outfit is AWESOME, right? :) I'm going to be working out shortly, and since I'm hanging out around the house, does it matter what I wear? Well, OK, probably. But  don't care. :) 

In the CD player::

Renee Fleming's Christmas in New York, alternating with Part I of Messiah. And yes, Adele 25 is sitting on my counter, waiting to be heard.

Reading::

Cinder (again), and my crazy stack of Advent devotionals: 

Come, Lord Jesus is my FAVORITE devotional for this time of year. SO much wisdom, so much to pray about. 

Writing::

NaNo is over and I'm not even going to ouch Tempest until January. It is, though, tentatively the first book of a trilogy, so I've done some note taking and brief preliminary planning about those two books. I'm not pressuring myself to write anything substantial in those for awhile, and I'm sort of afraid to until I do Tempest edits. Suffice to say I have a vague idea of the content of those books, but that's all it is right now--a vague idea.

Also working on the new Catholicism series I talked about yesterday.  While I teach first graders, don't think I'm going to use first grade vocabulary and write like you are first graders, lovely readers. We'll use "big people" words and concepts. 

Tidying Up: 

I think I have just about reached the "click point" the book talk about--where you know how much of a thing you need. and you enjoy having. There are a few more books and movies that can go (this is like the fourth round of purging in that area), but I think I'm at the point of saturation. Yay! I didn't think I'd get here when I first started, to be honest. 

The second part of the book talks about finding places for everything. This is another hard thing for me because I have things that I need (like, Duct Tape), but where does it go? (It's too big for the junk drawer, it doesn't fit in the tool box, etc.) So that's what I'll be working on next. 

Since I've decorated for Christmas, there is some chaos around here, because I have to move furniture to put up my tree. But it's all good. 

Thanksgiving::

I had a great holiday. Did you? I hope you did. Thanksgiving day was in the high sixties here, so we got to hang out on the deck and enjoy the warmth before dinner!

And yes, that's my sister, who came up from Houston to surprise me! She's here until tomorrow. We've had a LOT of fun while she's been here--she helped me decorate my tree, we went to the Penguins/Jackets game with our brother, and we all (us siblings) had a great meal last night at The Barn, one of our favorite local restaurants. Since Mel lives in Texas now, I don't get to see her nearly as often as I used to, and it's always fun when she comes up! 

I also had a great day with my friend Sarah (who made that GORGEOUS wreath two photos up). We had lunch and talked on a rainy Saturday while her husband watched the OSU/Michigan game with some of our friends. She's another friend I almost never get to see, and not nearly as much as I'd like. 

What was the best part of your Thanksgiving Weekend? 

Food Stories: Birds and Biscotti

Since it's Thanksgiving week, I thought I'd share one of my contributions to the Family Feast--Biscotti.

I know, it seems weird, right? But there's reasoning behind it. 

We were going to Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving about six or so years ago, and I thought, I want to bring something to the feast, that's not going to risk damage in the car, that's easy to make, and that can be in the car for three hours without going bad. 

This limited my options. But then I thought: biscotti.

As you know, my relatives love coffee after a meal. Coffee and dessert is a big thing. Biscotti are great with coffee--obviously--and they're almost indestructible! Christopher Columbus had them on the Santa Maria, for pete's sake!

So I brought a container of lemon biscotti with me to dinner at my Aunt Mary's. My uncle, who is a great cook and who was making the feast, seemed intrigued. Everyone ate them with relish after dinner, and my uncle even asked for the recipe, which I provided, because I'm nice like that. 

I've made the biscotti a few more times at Thanksgiving, because my dad likes a good coffee dunker, too. And who knows? Maybe they'll reappear this year. 

Citrus Biscotti

from Giada de Laurentiis' Everyday Italian

2 c. all-purpose flour 

3/4 c. fine yellow cornmeal

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt (table salt)

1 c. sugar

3 paige eggs

1 tbsp. grated orange zest (from about one orange)

1 tbsp. grated lemon zest (from about two lemons)

1/2 c. coarsely chopped shelled pistachios (I leave this out, but if you like them, go for it.)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat baking mat. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt. In another large bowl, beat the sugar and eggs with an electric mixer until pale yellow and fluffy, about three minutes. Mix in the citrus zests, then the flour mixture, and beat until just blended; the dough will be soft and sticky. Stir in the pistachios, if using. Let stand for five minutes. 

Using a rubber spatula, transfer the dough to the prepared baking sheet, forming two equal mounds spaced evenly apart. Moisten your hands with water and shape the dough into two 11X4 inch logs (it doesn't have to be exact). Bake until the logs are lightly browned, about 35 minutes. Cool for five minutes. Using a serrated knife, cut the logs crosswise into 1/2 inch thick diagonal slices. Arrange the biscotti, cut side down, on the same baking sheet, and bake until the cookies are pale golden, about 25 minutes. Let cool before serving.

Notes: 

* Sometimes I just use lemon zest, because I always have lemons around. But use both, if the spirit strikes you, and you remember to get an orange! 

* Nutritionally, here's the info: each cookie has 53 calories, 0.5 g of fat, 11.1 g of carbs, and 1.2 grams of protein (for some reason I ran the nutritional info on this recipe, and scribbled it in my book. So I'm sharing it!) 

What's your favorite Thanksgiving menu item? 

Seven Quick Takes No. 101

I. 

First an addition to the Daybook from earlier this week. I don't know what happened to the text, but I'd written a bunch about Hamilton that inexplicably disappeared after I hit 'publish'. So, I'm rewriting it here. :) 

Phillipa Soo (Eliza Hamilton), Lin-Manuel Miranda (Alexander Hamilton), and Renee Elise Goldsberry (Angelica Schulyer Church) in a scene from Hamilton. 

This musical has been getting a lot of positive press, and at first I was skeptical, because: rap? hip-hop? Whaaaa. No. Emily doesn't like that sort of music. But surprisingly, it works really well here, to tell the story of Alexander Hamilton. Most of us know Hamilton because of one of three things: he died in a duel with Aaron Burr; he's on the $10 bill, or he wrote a lot of the Federalist Papers. But he did a lot more than that. He found the New York Post, was the first Secretary of the Treasury, and served with George Washington during the Revolutionary War. 

The musical is sung-through (I think) and covers his life from his arrival in America as a young man, his graduation from Princeton, involvement in the Revolution, marriage to Eliza Schuyler, birth of his son, rise in Washington's administration, and then his political downfall and death. The musical was written and composed by its star, Lin-Manuel Miranda. Some of my favorite tracks are "Helpless", "Burn", "My Shot", "The Room Where It Happens", "You'll Be Back" (a hilarious song for King George III, played by Jonathan Groff), and "It's Quiet Uptown". 

Anyway, all this to say--give it a whirl. It's probably going to kill it at the Tonys and there's even talk of a Pulitzer Prize win. 

II.

I won NaNo! Yes, it's only the second week of November, but I'm over 50K, and I think there might be a sequel to this novel, because I don't think I can do the story justice in one setting. How crazy is that? These characters haven't stuck with the plan at all, but I've never written anything so fast, and as long as what the characters want works with the plot, then I'm fine with them dictating things to me. 

Right now I'm imagining them as YA novels. But of course anyone can read them. 

III. 

The Confirmation last weekend went well. I was proud of my cousin, and glad she picked a real saint--some of the kids just picked their middle names or something. (I know this because I asked one kid who her saint was--I'd never heard of this--and she said "it's my middle name." Eyeroll. Now, I'm sure there is a saint with that name, but come on, guys!)

IV. 

My Christmas cards are  done! Yay! I always love doing the Christmas cards. I usually start sending them out the first week in December, because some of my friends are in school and go home for the holidays, and I want them to get it before that happens. And I also love sending real mail to people. 

V.

I also binge watched Starz's Flesh and Bone this week. I wish the ending would've been more concrete, since the series isn't being renewed, but I guess it was probably shot before that decision was made? I love anything that has to do with ballet, so this series, which focuses on a fictional ballet company, was something that's like catnip to me. There were several great plot lines. (And also several tired plot lines--crazy artistic director, back-stabbing catty corps dancers, etc. )

VI. 

I'm moving on in Sketchbook Skool, too. Right now we're doing continuous line drawing ,which is something that I definitely need to work on, because my drawings looks crazy right now. Our assignment is to do one, two, and three objects this way, and then do one three object drawing and watercolor it. I'm a little afraid of that assignment. 

VII.

How are you guys doing on your holiday shopping/preparation? When do you put up your decorations? I Usually start the day of the OSU-Michigan game, which is the Saturday after Thanksgiving. 

The Great Jane Re-Read: Persuasion

And so we come to the end: Persuasion. Last, but not least! I'm a big fan of Anne Elliot. 

I've written about Persuasion before, here. 

My favorite movie adaptation is the 2007 one. 

(Side note: Tobias Menzies, from Outlander, plays William Elliot!) 

So, let's talk about Anne, now that we've got the preliminaries out of the way. 

I could not have been as patient and good as Anne Elliot. I would've ripped Elizabeth's head off by the time we'd become eligible to marry. Mary isn't as bad as Elizabeth, but--that's not a great recommendation for Mary!

Anne, though, needs to be calm, cool one, because her father and sisters are clearly not. I imagine Anne is a lot like her mother, whom we never meet. She tries to keep everyone from flying off the handle.  She's sort of a typical middle child, in that sense. She will keep the peace. 

After Louisa falls from the Cobb in Lyme, Mary very strongly reacts to being told that Anne is the best person for Louisa. "Am I not as capable as Anne?" she cries. Well, no, Mary. You're not. You have been petted and cosseted and you barely take care of your children; how are you to take care of such a delicate situation, and keep a cool head? Anne is almost always level-headed and calm. She's ideal in an emergency. 

All the men in story, other than her father, see Anne's worth and value immediately, and they do not overlook her. Indeed, William Elliot and Charles both prefer Anne to her sisters, and Charles only married Mary because Anne turned him down. 

Anne also does not share her family's insistence on protocol and rank. "They should know what is due to you as my sister," Mary says to Anne about the Miss Musgroves visiting them. Elizabeth and Sir Walter cannot wait to make the acquaintance of their aristocratic relation, Lady Dalrymple, and Anne almost withdraws from it. She knows that as the daughter of a baronet, she has a certain rank, but she doesn't lord it over people. She also won't put Lady D's party above her visit to her friend Mrs. Smith, which greatly angers her father. "To place such a person ahead of your family connections among the nobility of England and Ireland! Mrs. Smith!" he rages. But Anne will not be cowered by her father's fury.

The Elliot family: Sir Walter, and (l-r), Anne, Elizabeth, and Mary. 

But under all that coolness, she very much regrets losing Frederick. Her love for Frederick is much deeper than she'd admit to anyone, no matter how cool she tries to play it in public. She knows how wrong she was to reject him, and to care more about the opinion of others over the feelings of her own heart. 

Frederick is ENTIRELY too hard on Anne in the beginning. She was young when they were in love, and he punishes her  for being persuaded by other people, or influence by them, even though she's now eight years older. He seems reluctant to let go of her, but also wants to punish her for breaking his heart. Well, Frederick, she broke her own heart, and I think she's been punishing herself enough, thanks. 

But it's clear that Frederick still loves her, even when he's busy with the Miss Musgroves....who, while they're sweet, are what Mr. Bennet would call "very silly girls." (Not that Mr. Bennet does much about the silly girls!) He can't stand to have anyone else be attracted to her, or pay her attention. (The scene between Frederick, Anne, and Walter is a great example of this.) 

The story is, at heart, a story of second chances. One of my favorite Jane quotes is found in Persuasion: 

The only privilege I claim for my own sex...is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone. 

Anne is constant to Frederick, even when she has no hope of ever seeing him again.

Anne at a musicale in Bath (before she goes chasing after Frederick.) 

One of the main settings of the novel is Bath, which both Anne and Jane disliked heartily. Anne's consolation is that she has a friend in Bath, especially since Elizabeth has no need of Anne. "She is nothing to me," Elizabeth tells Mrs. Clay (the lawyer's who has set her cap on Sir Walter). Elizabeth, of course, immediately tries to snare the heir to her father's estate, William Elliot, who is a cousin of theirs.  Elizabeth is in even greater danger than Anne for being "left on the shelf"--she is almost thirty. She must marry soon, if she is to marry at all. 

William at first appears worthy. He's a lot like many of Jane's other rakes--Wickham, Willoughby, Henry Crawford. They all look nice and shiny, but then we realize their deficiencies, as Anne does.  Of course, William beguiles Anne at first, as much as she tries to deny it. How many people have paid attention to her in her life? Not many. But Harriet, her delightful friend, informs her of his true character. That little scheming man! 

Frederick might be Jane's most ardent hero--his letter to Anne in the novel is certainly more ardent than anything we get from Edward, Edmund, or Mr. Knightley, or even Darcy. 

One of the reasons I really like Persuasion is because it's a more grown-up love story. It has a sort of elegiac quality to it, which makes sense, since it's Jane's last novel. I don't think she knew that, at the time--she had plans for other works, including "Sandition" and "The Watsons"--but the overtone to the story is autumnal and very much in the way of things ending or transitioning. Fortunately for Anne and Frederick, they're good transitions, into their natural relationship of husband and wife. 

Anne and Frederick 

Seven Quick Takes No. 82

I. 

I am super excited to share my first giveaway with you! You can read all about it here. Enter often. (Well, as often as you can....)

II. 

The weather is going to be perfect this weekend and I don't know what to do with it. Do I go to the Irish Festival in Dublin (OH, not Ireland. :-P)? The Violet festival? Do I just hang out at the pool? So many options, so little time. And the State Fair started this week, so there's always that. Seeing a butter cow is a fun thing, let me tell you. 

III. 

I am almost done with the washcloth, which means you might--might!-- have something new to read about in the Yarn Along this week. I know that excites you so much! I'm still reading Middlemarch, though, and I have to read Emma this weekend since it's the next in the Jane Austen Re-Read. That post will be up on Thursday. 

IV. 

I have bought my first Christmas present--a book for my grandma. Given that my mom started shopping in May, I am behind. She is the Queen of Christmas. 

V. 

I know you've seen the Planned Parenthood videos on the news and on the web. I can't say anything that hasn't already been said. But I dearly hope that those who are so misguided as to think that these aren't babies that are being killed, by the millions, every year in America, that they will finally see what is really happening in these places. It's not healthcare. It's death on demand. 

Every single life matters, from the moment it's conceived, to the moment of natural death. But we have to start protecting it when its most fragile. 

VI. 

I'm going to a Dominican Rite Mass on Sunday in honor of the feast of St. Dominic, which is August 8. I went for the first time last year and was a bit discombobulated. Let's hope I do better this year--I'll report back. 

VII. 

I'm making progress in my art classes. The assignment this week? To draw part of a piece of toast. Not kidding. So I'm working on that today. 

The Great Jane Re-Read: Mansfield Park

Time for the great Jane Summer Re-Read! Join me! @emily_m_deardo

This week's contender: Mansfield Park.

I've written about Mansfield Park on the blog here.  It was also the topic of my senior thesis for my undergrad English degree, in which I wrote about how Fanny was a model of femininity to be embraced, not ignored. One of these days I'll upload it to the Internets and share it.

My favorite movie version is the 1999 one.

Previous entries in the series: Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility,

So, let's talk about Fanny and Co. 

Full disclosure: I've always liked Fanny. The very first time I read the book, I liked her immediately. In the margins of my Oxford World Classic's copy, I noted that she was like Cinderella to her family, or, in more contemporary terms, a Matilda. No one really appreciates her or notices she's there, except for Edmund, and he's pretty thick. (I like him, but he is so thick. It drives me crazy when he's mooning about Mary to Fanny when Fanny clearly in in love with him!) Lionel Trilling famously noted that no one could like Fanny, but I've found his view disproved by people I've met. It's actually Emma I have a hard time liking, which jives with Jane's assertion that she'd created a heroine that "no one but myself will much like."

Fanny and her family in Portsmouth. 

Part of the problem with MP, I think, is that it comes right after Pride and Prejudice. But I don't think that was accidental. Jane noted that she found P&P "too light and bright and sparkling" in parts, and MP definitely isn't those things. It's still classic Jane--it has brilliant moments and it's an excellent story--but there isn't the witty repartee of Elizabeth and Darcy, or the humor of the Bennet parents. MP deals much more closely with larger ideas of morality, family ties, what we owe other people, and growing up. 

So tell me what you think of Fanny in the comments. I'm really intrigued to know how you view her! 

I don't think Mary Crawford is evil. I think she has a lot of problems, which we might be able to say are because of the way she grew up, but I think Mary and Henry didn't learn to respect people, to see them as people, with their own dignity. They see them as things to use, as means to an end. Mary "loves" Edmund because he seems pliable, and might come into a fortune. Henry "loves" Fanny because she's a mystery to him. But neither of them really understand love, truthfully. They use people for their own entertainment (this is easily seen in Henry's interactions with Maria and Julia). 

Mary and Henry Crawford 

More than any other novel of Jane's, Mansfield Park illustrates how virtue leads to happiness. Fanny, who will never be a "Miss Bertram", has a moral compass and deep-seated sense of goodness that her cousins (who can name all the principle rivers of Europe!) lack. It might be calibrated in Julia, but Maria has lost her chance for redemption at the end of the novel--in the 19th century, she's disgraced permanently. Julia is a lot like Kitty in P&P, in that once the bad influence of her sister is removed, she can be influenced for the better. 

Fanny's ability to remain true to herself, to what is really important--her self-respect, as opposed to her social and financial standing--is one of my favorite parts of the novel. When she returns to Portsmouth after refusing Henry's offer of marriage, Fanny sees how dire her family's poverty is. She realizes that she probably couldn't live like this, not after having lived at Mansfield and knowing that sort of life (and remember, Fanny doesn't even have the Mansfield experience of her cousins. She doesn't have the maids and the dresses and the fancy education and social whirl. But just living in that house, having enough food and being in a clean, neat environment, is more than she'll ever have with her parents.). But still, she manages to stick to her beliefs. No matter how much Henry may appear to have changed, she still can't make herself agree to marry him. She is not so simple as Henry believes she is. 

Edmund and Fanny. 

Not only do the Crawfords underestimate Fanny, but so does Edmund, who is, for most of the novel, her champion. Edmund never quite sees her as a mature woman in her own right, not until the end of the novel when he sees who Mary Crawford really is. Only once "the charm is broken" does he realize who Mary and Fanny really are, and the stark differences between them. 

what do you think of Mansfield Park? What characters resonate with you? Which characters repel you? And would you ever be in "Lover's Vows"? (I totally would love to do it.) 

The Great Jane Re-Read: Pride and Prejudice

(Other links in this series: Sense and Sensibility; Northanger Abbey)

I've written about Pride and Prejudice here and here.

And people, there is ONLY ONE P&P movie. ONLY ONE.

(If you want some video, click the second link above).

There is no other version. The Keira Knightley version does not exist in my world. Jennifer Ehle is Elizabeth, and Colin Firth is Darcy, and that is all.

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about the book!

• P&P is, without a doubt, the Jane novel I've re-read the most. I used Mansfield Park (which is next!) a lot, obviously, when I was writing my thesis, but P&P has been read, straight through, the most. It's also, coincidentally, one of Jane's shorter novels. It's shorter than Sense and Sensibility,  and it's only 40 pages longer than Persuasion, so P&P is the second-shortest of her novels.
• The action gets started right away, which is another reason I think it's shorter. It's concentrated, in a way. Bingley is introduced on the very first page--the narrative and characters are set, and we're off.

• It's so hard to read the parts of this novel where Elizabeth believes Wickham (does anyone else feel this way?). After you've read it a few times you just want to yell, "RUN AWAY!" The first time you read it, of course, it's a sucker punch when Darcy's letter reveals him about halfway through the novel, and you cannot believe it.
• I love the scenes of Darcy and Elizabeth at Rosings. It's just so obvious that they are more alike than they think.

• 

• I wish we still wrote letters to people. Email is faster, no doubt, but the handwritten quality of letters is so delightful.
• Georgiana Darcy is fun, isn't she? At least I think she's fun. I would love to know more about her, and I wish Lizzie had gotten to spend more time with her. Since this novel is so streamlined, we don't get the insight into the secondary characters that we do in some of the others.
• Whenever I read about Darcy's library, I want to know what's in it. What do you think Darcy would like to read?
• Jane told her family the fates of the other characters--both Kitty and Mary end up married, but I wonder what their husbands were like.

• 

• And: Did Mr. Collins ever inherit Longbourn? Or did Mr. Bennet outlast him? (Probably not, but I can see how that would've mae Mrs. Bennet happy.)

Share your thoughts about P&P in the combox!

'To be very accomplished': Learning to draw

'It is amazing to me,' said Bingley, 'how young ladies can have the patience to be so very accomplished, as they all are.'

--Pride and Prejudice

I often joke that I was born in the wrong century. Not medically--in any other century I'd be dead--but socially. A lot of my skills are in the old-school definition of 'accomplishment', as Bingley talks about in Pride and Prejudice (and which we will be talking about on Thursday in the Jane Re-Read!). I can cook, knit, sew (cross-stitch and mend), play the piano, sing, etc.

'A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved.'

'All this she must posses,' added Darcy, 'and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.'

--Pride and Prejudice

I certainly have the extensive reading down, but I've never been able to draw. Really. My brother could do it, and my grandfather, but not me. Art class in school was never a subject at which I excelled. As I got older, I thought I'd never be able to learn it.

But then Melissa turned me on to Sketchbook Skool. This is an online art school, taught by professional artists and teachers. It's video-based, and each class lasts six weeks. I enrolled in "beginnings," and I'm in my last week of the course.   I have definitely learned to draw!

(I don't know why the second one is wonky...sorry guys!)

Anyway, yes, I am really happy with the progress I'm making. The classes have been so informative and I love the teachers. I'm enrolling in another class next week, because in 'beginnings' we haven't covered everything. We've done watercolors, pen, pencil, colored pencil, and we've learned a bit about technique, but I really need to work on perspective and depth in my drawings.

There are times when it's really frustrating--don't get me wrong. Some of my drawings are much better than others. But I see something good in every piece I do, so that's definitely a step forward.

SBS is a great example of how the Internet can be awesome. I never would've tried to do this if I hadn't gotten the recommendation from Melissa, and I never would've found these great teachers. I can move through the classes at my own pace, right tin my house. It's not something I have to leave my house to do, which is nice.

Summer is a great time for experimentation and learning new things--are you doing anything this summer like this? Or can you draw much better than I can? :)

The Great Jane Re-Read: Northanger Abbey

(If you're new here, read the beginning of this post to get the ground rules/ideas.)

I wrote this about Northanger Abbey last year.

My favorite movie version is this one, from the BBC (click the photo for details):

OK, so let's talk about the book:

I really like Catherine--do you? I mean yes, she has some silly moments, but generally, she's not a bad kid, especially for one who has never been away from home before and is thrown into social situations she's never been in before. She's much more sensible than, say, Lydia Bennet! (Whom we'll talk about in the next installment.)

I just wanted to throttle the Thorpes. I always feel that way, but this time it was with special vengeance. Isabella is just so silly and stupid! Not to mention money grubbing: "Oh, I love James! Oh, no I don't, his income is too small. Oh, wait, I love him again! Because no one else will have me, la!"

And John? How in the world does he think Catherine wants to marry him? He rivals Mr. Collins in his stupidity of women, but at least Mr. Collins was never as outright rude and coarse as John is.

General Tilney is a really interesting character, isn't he? He terrifies his daughter and obviously Henry has his own problems with him. He's not a model father, that's for sure, although I don't think any of the readers ascribe such villainous deeds to him as Catherine initially does. :)

Speaking of that, I love the scene when Catherine finds out that the papers are just laundry lists. It's sort of like Ralph in A Christmas Story: "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine? A crummy commercial?!"

Have you read The Mysteries of Udolpho? It's still in print, amazingly--Oxford World Classics has an edition that I'm pretty sure is only still in print because of Northanger Abbey. It's not a bad read, if you're interested in digging deeper into Catherine's favorite genre.

The next time Jane will set a book in Bath will be Persuasion, her last completed novel, and the novel isn't entirely set there (much like NA isn't entirely set in Bath--it's funny that we have to wait so long to get to the titular abbey, right?). Anne Elliott is not quite as sanguine as Catherine is about being in Bath, that's for sure.

Catherine's family seem so jolly, doesn't it? 10 children, but also her parents seem to be really down-to-earth, practical sort of people (Although I imagine you'd have to be, in order to have 10 children and not be completely nuts.). She might be--I'm just now considering this--the most practical mother in Jane's writing. Mrs. Bennet is not. Mrs. Dashwood sort of gets there by the end of the novel, but she has her moments of crazy. There is no Mrs. Woodhouse in Emma, nor is there a Mrs. Elliot in Persuasion, although Mrs. Elliot seemed to be a very lovely person, based on Anne's remembrances; but Sir Walter wasn't exactly a peach to live with. What do you think?

The Great Jane Re-Read: Sense and Sensibility

We're doing this slightly out of order--I read S&S first this year, so we're starting there.

Since this is the first post on the Jane Re-Read, let's do some basic ground rules:

1) Yes, she's Jane here. I can't call her "Austen" like I would "Dickens." Jane just seems like a friend to me. Hence, Jane.

2) Abbreviations: S&S--Sense and Sensibility; P&P--Pride and Prejudice; MP--Mansfield Park; E--Emma; P--Persuasion; NA--Northanger Abbey; JA--Juvenilia, (not her initials. :) )

3) In each entry--which will come up every two weeks--we can talk about anything related to the book. I'll post links to other things I've written about the particular book, and I'll also post my favorite movie version of each book (there are multiple versions of every book except NA, I think.)

4) I won't summarize the book. You can google it for that. I'm assuming you're going to read (or have read) the book. So it'll just be notes. So, if you haven't--spoilers, y'all.

Ready, y'all? Let's start with Jane's "darling child," S&S.

I wrote two pieces about S&S here and here, and my favorite version of the movie is the 1995 one, although the BBC's latest effort is more faithful to the book, overall.

S&S was originally titled Elinor and Marianne, and Jane took time off between the first draft and the published version we know as S&S. She wrote the first draft when she was younger, but it wasn't published until several years later. Her family relocation to Bath, the death of her father, and the fallout from that made for a peripatetic life. Finally, her brother Edward settled Jane, her mother, and her sister and best friend Cassandra , at Chawton Cottage in the village of Chawton. It was there that Jane revised S&S, P&P and NA, and wrote MP, E, and P. 

Much of S&S deals with a topic Jane was intimately familiar with--what happens to the wife and daughters of a man when he dies. The Dashwood women do not fare nearly as well as the Austen women did. Jane's brothers all pooled their resources to provide for Jane, Cassandra, and Mrs. Austen. (Cassandra was engaged, but her fiance died in a shipwreck.)  Regency society was very hard for unmarried and widowed women, and that's illustrated well in the novel. Without Sir John's easy rent terms for Barton Cottage, the family would've been very hard pressed to find anything near their former situation. While the Dashwood women now live in a cottage instead of handsome Norland Park, they still have at least one maid and a manservant, and are able to live in an approximation of their former life (none of the women have to work, for example, to earn money). But their lives could've been much easier if John Dashwood had kept his promise to his dying father.

The closeness of the two sisters is also true to life for Jane. Jane endowed Marianne with several of her qualities: Marianne adores Cowper (Jane's favorite poet), and shares some of Jane's personality; also, Jane was the younger sister (and second youngest child in the Austen family). It is easy to imagine Cassandra as Elinor, especially since Elinor is an artist, as Cassandra was. The closeness of sisters is examined in many of Jane's novels, but particularly here and in P&P (with Jane and Lizzie). In Persuasion, Anne Elliott isn't close to either of her sisters; Fanny Price in MP is close to one of her younger sisters, and Emma's older sister, Isabella, is a sort of non-entity since she is married and lives in London, not Highbury, with her husband and children.

It's interesting that only MP deals with brothers--Fanny is very attached to her brother William, who serves in the Royal Navy (as did almost all of Jane's brothers). Edmund Bertram treats Fanny like a sister for much of MP, but they're cousins. There are no "true" brothers in any of the other novels: In S&S, he's the girls half-brother, from their father's first marriage; there are no Bennet boys, which is a major plot point, and both the Woodhouse and Elliott families have only girls. (This is also a major plot point in Persuasion, not so much in MP.)

I have a lot in common with Marianne. We both love music and romance and poetry, but I also have a bit of Elinor in me. I would never act like Marianne does in the ballroom scene in London, for example. The old-fashioned girl part of me waits for the man to approach and to do the asking. Like Elinor, I'm aware of social norms and what's acceptable behavior, and 99% of the time, I follow it. (The other 1%...well, sometimes we all go nuts. :-)) But I also am fiercely loyal, like Marianne is, and don't take fools lightly, although I generally use my Elinor side to refrain from saying whatever I think. (See, Marianne and the Middletons.)

Am I the only one who wanted Edward to buck up? You are not in love with Lucy anymore--break off the engagement! I totally support him keeping his word, but come on, Edward! You were willing to spend your life with a woman who drove you crazy because when you were young you made a mistake and got engaged?! Boo.

I think every girl has her Willoughby--that man she falls head-over-heels for, the one that seems so perfect. And then you find out he's not. Maybe he's not a scoundrel, a la Wickham, but he's not perfect, and he's not the man for you.

It's a fine line between Marianne and Elinor. If you stay silent, like Elinor does, you could miss your chance. But if you're overly eager, as Marianne is, it can cause you problems later on. I always wondered what Margaret would end up like--more Elinor, or Marianne? Or a good mixture of both?

Like all of Jane's heroines, Marianne learns a lesson by the time she weds the Colonel (who, incidentally, is never given a first name in the books. He's just Colonel Brandon.), but I think she's happier for it. I think she and Elinor both have good, solid marriages, where both of them can love and esteem their husbands (as Mr. Bennet exhorts Lizzie to do in P&P). 

What do you think of S&S? Are you more a Marianne or an Elinor?