Pronunciation, Stamps, and Litanies

Another from Problems of a Book Nerd:

Word. Or rather, so many words. Like 'thoroughly' and 'characteristics' from my childhood years (I had, as Mike Myers' character said in View from the Top, the emphasis on the wrong syllable.). I had to look up 'timbre' (tam-bur, apparently) just the other day, which is odd, considering that I took voice lessons for years. And 'hubris' has baffled me for years, so I just looked it up now. Hyoo-briss. Weird.

Also, Jane Austen stamps from the Royal Mail. American mail, you should be so awesome.

This week's writers' link comes from Terpsichore over at Egotist's Club: a litany for writers. Here are a few lines which spoke to me most powerfully, and which I ought to pray regularly:

From tepidity of convictions and weakness of thought, reason, and diction,
Good Lord, deliver us.
From vacuity of substance and fatuous compositions,
Good Lord, deliver us.
From misuse of our time and distractions in our research; from antipathy for labor and the soul-weight of sloth,
Good Lord, deliver us.
From needless verbiage which obscures truth and sense,
Good Lord, deliver us.
From incorrect data, false testimony, skewed perspectives, incomplete citations, and misleading rhetoric,
Good Lord, deliver us.
From disorganized ideas; from overused tropes and clichéd plots; from plot holes and inconsistencies,
Good Lord, deliver us.

I think I need to print this out and stick it in the back of my breviary. Or hang it on the wall here in my writing corner.

Happy 200th Anniversary, Pride and Prejudice

After playing some Italian songs, Miss Bingley varied the charm by a lively Scotch air; and soon afterwards Mr. Darcy, drawing near Elizabeth, said to her—

"Do not you feel a great inclination, Miss Bennet, to seize such an opportunity of dancing a reel?"

She smiled, but made no answer. He repeated the question, with some surprise at her silence.

"Oh!" said she, "I heard you before; but I could not immediately determine what to say in reply. You wanted me, I know, to say "Yes," that you might have the pleasure of despising my taste; but I always delight in overthrowing those kind of schemes, and cheating a person of their premeditated contempt. I have therefore made up my mind to tell you that I do not want to dance a reel at all—and now despise me if you dare."

"Indeed I do not dare."

Elizabeth, having rather expected to affront him, was amazed at his gallantry; but there was a mixture of sweetness and archness in her manner which made it difficult for her to affront anybody; and Darcy had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really believed, that were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger.

On January 28, 1813, publisher Thomas Egerton released Jane Austen's second novel to the world—and now, two centuries later:

Quiz: How well do you know Pride & Prejudice? I scored a hundred percent on the questions which were actually about the book. Hey, quiz people, no fair penalizing us for not knowing trivia about adaptations and pastiches and what not.

Apparently in modern-day Britain, parents are more likely to consider marriage as linked to financial security for their sons than for their daughters. The Telegraph has that story.

Tour Britain, Austen-style! I'm drooling. Chatsworth House, a possible inspiration for Pemberley, is bee-ee-ay-yootiful.

Shannon Hale has released a couple of clips from her upcoming movie Austenland! Also, here's director Jerusha Hess talking Pride & Prejudice with Time Entertainment.

I'm still watching The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Lizzie's at Pemberley Digital right now, and today's episode was SO CUTE. I thought so, anyway. The Daily Dot has brief anniversary tributes from some of the cast and crew.

Need some adaptations, pastiches, spinoffs and the like? Here's JaneAusten.org's list of films and Wikipedia's list of literary adaptations. I doubt the latter is complete, but it'll get you started. Here's a Goodreads list that'll go further. There are 189 items on that list, as I write this.

Merch: Pride & Prejudice 200th Anniversary coffee mug, trivia game, note cards, board game, book charm necklace, and... it looks like Forever Young Adult already did this section for me. Thanks, Megan.

Time to raise a glass of wine and toast the author. Here's to you, Jane!

Currently Re-reading: Sense and Sensibility

12/12/12, 12:12, just for the heck of it.

Fellow readers, I have struck out on two of the last three books I've read—at least as far as finding them amenable to a thoughtful review. One I simply didn't understand, and the other contained morals too shocking for me to speak of with any objectivity. The third, I reviewed last week.

This week, then, I decided to re-read some Austen. After a short dither, I picked up Sense & Sensibility.

Which I enjoyed and admired more than ever. I can never get over Austen's genius; despite open moralizing and massive quantities of the 'telling' instead of 'showing' so derided nowadays, the beauty and conflict of the characters carries the story perfectly.

Character portrayal is one of Austen's greatest strengths. Edward and Colonel Brandon are both thoroughly good, but the former is painfully shy and prone to stupid mistakes, and the latter is morose. Elinor is heroic but can be annoyingly didactic, and Marianne may be the last character in Western fiction whose straightforward romantic tendencies are played as unsympathetic. And that's just the primary set. There's kind but vulgar Mrs. Jennings, affectionate but mercenary John Dashwood, friendly but thoughtless Sir John Middleton, sour but sincere Mr. Palmer, and Lucy Steele, who takes cold-hearted feminine manipulative tendencies to startling depths.

Oh, and then there's Willoughby—whose appalling confession to Elinor holds a weird honor: it's perhaps the most touching scene of believable human selfishness I've ever read.

For readers who have never read Austen and would like to try, I usually recommend beginning with the shorter, tighter, more emotionally rewarding Persuasion. Sense & Sensibility's storyline meanders a bit, and it champions propriety against indulgence of passions, which makes it generally harder on a modern audience. That's part of why I like it, of course; the critique of common vulgarity comes as a relief, and Marianne's character trajectory and Elinor's example convict me of my own weaknesses in the most encouraging way possible.

But the story has strengths enough. It's more physically detailed than some of Austen's work—the moment where a nervous Edward ruins a pair of scissors by using them to cut up their own sheath never fails to make me smile—and the contrast and interplay between sensible Elinor, whose narrative arc climaxes in a burst of emotion, and passionate Marianne, whose story resolves in the prioritizing of rational choice, is dramatic and beautiful. It's less subtle than Pride & Prejudice, but at moments it's almost more vivid.

Austen paid for the publication of Sense & Sensibility herself, her first published novel and the last one she ever had to pay to produce. That just about says it all.

Pride and Prejudice and Facebook

Re-posting by request.

"Oh!" cried Elizabeth, "I don't wish to get on Facebook to-day."

"Why not?" said Bingley. "Do you not keep up with your friends?"

"My friends, yes. The people with whom I am intimate, and am comfortable being so. But Mrs. Phillips had a visit from the apothecary, owing to a recent ailment, and like as not will be offering a tour beneath her gown. Wickham will certainly have put forward either an insufferable meme or a picture of some young lady in an unladylike attitude, and Mr. Collins will post twenty links in the space of four minutes, all of them proving him to be as priggish nowadays as ever he was. I had much rather respect my acquaintances from the distance at which circumstance has placed us than despise them familiarly."

"But all of those acquaintances are your relations."

"Worse and worse! Mere acquaintances may be fairly laught at. One cannot laugh at the follies of one's own, and should therefore know as little of them as possible."

"Did you not unsubscribe from Wickham, at least?" said Bingley. "I thought you had."

"Yes, several times; but Facebook has re-fashioned itself again, and now I am forced to see everything he writes."

"Odd! Jane has not complained of it."

"Of course not. She is the sweetest creature in the world. I make no such pretensions."

Routine Disorder and other stories

No, if you're wondering, I have not given up on Top Ten Tuesdays, despite my three-weeks-running failure to participate. The last two weeks have just not played nice with my usual routine. It's been difficult to keep track of what day it is, let alone of what things have to be done on the given days. Being sick all this week has not helped. And none of the last few Top Ten questions have been easy enough to dash off in half an hour.

Theoretically, next week should be sane.

* * *

You wouldn't think it would be hard to grow zucchini, but out of ten seeds planted, thus far one has come up:

(no, all ten weren't planted in this four-pack pot)

But the roses have started blooming!

...as have the poppies:

...and the peonies.

More roses!

It's rained all week, which... at least it was the week I was sick. Here's hoping for a sunny weekend.

* * *

Gratuitous cat picture, snapped over the top of my computer just now:

One of Maia's favorite pastimes: hanging out with Lou while he works.

* * *

Writers' link of the week: As someone who has no problem whatsoever spending twelve hours a day at the computer, here's Jennifer Hubbard on The Walking Writer. Honestly, the general idea behind this piece is one of the reasons I have a garden. Anything to—well, honestly, to get my butt out of the chair occasionally.

* * *

Music and random amusement of the week: OK, this is not actually music. But I've been thoroughly enjoying the Lizzie Bennet Diaries on YouTube. It's a modern-day retelling of Pride and Prejudice, done entirely in vlogs, and the acting and scripting are really well done. Best of all, it's four-minute videos uploaded twice a week, which means that even a snob like me who never has time for television can make time to watch it. And I have, oh yes.

No guarantees that the attitudes toward marriage will be of Austen's caliber. Or anything like. That disclaimer aside—this is just too much fun to not link.



Full (though not yet complete; the series is far from finished) playlist here.

* * *

Of course, if you really want some music, there's always Mozart's Voi che sapete from La nozze di Figaro, which melody you may remember Lizzy singing in the Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle version of Pride and Prejudice (otherwise known as The Best Adaptation Ever).

* * *

If you're like me, and you were prevented from seeing the Venus transit by heavy cloud cover—sheesh, it's hard being a stargazer in the Pacific Northwest—here's a lovely NASA video of it.

And now, happy weekend! To all of you.

Another Thursday Question and Free Austen Ebooks

Calling all Jane Austen fans!... at least, Jane Austen fans with Kindles or Kindle for PC (it looks like these might also be available in pdf.) George let me know this morning that Books on the Knob has a list of Austen's novels and Austen-related books, currently available free from Amazon (thanks, George!) Exciting? Oh, yes. I'm not usually a fan of Austen sequels—how can anyone expect to live up to the original? But I'll be at least looking into these.

Also, after poking around the internet, I've found a few more questions about books that I'll probably ask on Thursdays, at least from time to time. Some of these are a little more in-depth, so we'll go one by one. As with the old list, feel free to answer on your own blog if you like. If you do, please link back in the comments, so I can go read it!

Last week we talked about our fiction-induced idiosyncrasies, and I loved reading everybody's catch phrases and inspirations! Some favorites: "Brightly, brightly, and with beauty" (Masha, from Stranger in a Strange Land); Pollyanna's Glad Game (Rachelynn); seeking and finding wonder (Mr. Pond, Smith of Wooton Major and The Golden Key); and apparently I'm not the only one who can't stop themselves from using Gollumspeak on occasion. Good to know, George. :)

This week's question: If people looked at your bookshelf, what conclusions do you think they would draw about you?

I am very curious about this.