Have kept something of a low profile this week. Have been sneaking off home after work and keeping out of trouble and nursing the cold that has returned with gusto. However this has given me the opportunity read classic novels soberly in the evening like a Victorian vicar.

My friend Mary Jane in New York says that Pride and Prejudice is her favourite book and a straw poll among some women friends revealed that almost all of them had read it. I am about a third of the way through now and finding it quite funny. It is obsessively about relationships and women jokeying for power. Most of the male characters are saps. In fact it is very like a superior soap opera.
My ex-wife's book One Stop Short of Barking is now on sale, and I saw it prominently in my local bookshop. I texted her to let her know. I am really proud of her for it. She is getting quite a lot of coverage in the press, TV and radio. With any luck it will do excellently.

Last night I saw Maddog in town and we had a few drinks and ended up sitting in a comedy club that we'd found our selves in by accident. Sat through the first half and then left to catch up on chatting. Good as ever to see Bob. We only caught four comedians, nothing really noteworthy. Ended up scarfing pizzas both rather drunk.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Your friend Mary Jane takes great issue with your describing her favorite book as a soap opera (superior or not)! Pride and Prejudice is a wickedly funny satire that turns on three aspects of early 19th-century English society: marriage as a social institution, inheritance laws and customs, and acceptable roles for women. It is both indictment and explanation of the class system in place at the time Austen was writing. There are both odious men AND women; Lydia, Mrs. Bennett; Lady Catherine, the sisters Bingely and even Charlotte are all shown in a very unflattering light. As for the men, they are a mixed bag, as they would be in any society. Mr. Bennett, Mr. Darcy, and Mr. Bingley at times have much, and other times little, to recommend them as decent people. Wickham and Mr. Collins are awful men in the way that many people are awful today; self-interested, self-obsessed, immoral. Eliza is no perfect heroine, although she is an intelligent, witty, and caring one. Women love this book for a host of reasons, not just for the delightful spirited interplay between Darcy and Elizabeth that ends in a happy union. Pride and Prejudice is a step back in time, a detailed, historical glimpse into another era that shows us that people are essentially the same now as they were then, and that women 200 years ago were intelligent, insightful, and funny, despite the societal constraints they lived under. For me, an American woman born in 1960 into a society that viewed, and treated, women as second class citizens, Austens books were, and are, beautiful (and funny!) reminders that woman are (and always have been) creatures that are neither better nor lesser then the men they share the planet with! So there Mr. Kenny! Soap opera my butt! MJ
9:01 pm
Anonymous said…
Your friend Mary Jane takes great issue with your describing her favorite book as a soap opera (superior or not)! Pride and Prejudice is a wickedly funny satire that turns on three aspects of early 19th-century English society: marriage as a social institution, inheritance laws and customs, and acceptable roles for women. It is both indictment and explanation of the class system in place at the time Austen was writing. There are both odious men AND women; Lydia, Mrs. Bennett; Lady Catherine, the sisters Bingely and even Charlotte are all shown in a very unflattering light. As for the men, they are a mixed bag, as they would be in any society. Mr. Bennett, Mr. Darcy, and Mr. Bingley at times have much, and other times little, to recommend them as decent people. Wickham and Mr. Collins are awful men in the way that many people are awful today; self-interested, self-obsessed, immoral. Eliza is no perfect heroine, although she is an intelligent, witty, and caring one. Women love this book for a host of reasons, not just for the delightful spirited interplay between Darcy and Elizabeth that ends in a happy union. Pride and Prejudice is a step back in time, a detailed, historical glimpse into another era that shows us that people are essentially the same now as they were then, and that women 200 years ago were intelligent, insightful, and funny, despite the societal constraints they lived under. For me, an American woman born in 1960 into a society that viewed, and treated, women as second class citizens, Austens books were, and are, beautiful (and funny!) reminders that woman are (and always have been) creatures that are neither better nor lesser then the men they share the planet with! So there Mr. Kenny! Soap opera my butt! MJ
9:01 pm
Anonymous said…
If you liked Pride & Prejudice, try Persuasion - definitely in my top-10 list.
4:05 pm
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