Wonder of the World

I have only read around 100 pages of Andrea Levy's Small Island, but already her characters' voices are tumbling around my imagination. While Hortense is unintentionally funny, Gilbert goes for the laughs.

Regarding the shock of bland English food to his Jamaican palate:

"How the English built empires when their armies marched on nothing but mush should be one of the wonders of the world."

Austen at her saucy best

I just finished reading Jane Austen's Lady Susan for the first time.  I've read all the major ones (Emma, S&S, P&P, Mansfield, etc.) many times but had never read this one.  LS seems to me a complete departure.  This heroine is completely unlikable for anything except her infamous schemes and flirtations.  How unlike Lizzy, Emma and Elinor!  Lady Susan has many very funny lines but this one seems to best sum up her character and motivations:

"Where there is a disposition to dislike, a motive will never be wanting." - Lady Susan, letter 5, Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson

She has determined to make Mr. DeCourcey like her simply because he seems determined no to do so.  And boy, does she!

An evening with my Forsytes

Flipping through one of my favorites tonight.  I love those Forsytes.  This is why:

"When a Forsyte was engaged, married, or born, the Forsytes were present; when a Forsyte died—but no Forsyte had as yet died; they did not die; death being contrary to their principles, they took precautions against it, the instinctive precautions of highly vitalized persons who resent encroachments on their property." - The Forsyte Saga: Man of Property by John Galsworthy


Life as a possession.  Very Forsyte.  Very Galsworthy.

Summertime (or Summer Time)

I cannot keep a schedule this summer. Every day there is either too much fun to be had to keep my time well planned or we're so exhausted from our fun that I just want to do nothing.

From Jane Austen's Mansfield Park:

"Oh! Do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch." 

Oh, Miss Crawford, a rare moment that I agree with you!

Forgiveness without Forgetfulness

From Volume 3, Chapter 15 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice:

Mr. Collins writes of Mr. and Mrs. Wickham: "You ought certainly to forgive them as a christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing."

Mr. Collins, the esteemed rector of Hunsford, gives such an amazing illustration of his notion of Christian forgiveness.  Thou shalt forgive, but apparently, never forget.  This brought to my mind a great post on the Texas Faith blog: What is the sin in your faith?  Read all the responses: very powerful, challenging stuff.

Rapid Passion vs. Slowly Building Affection

To me, this is a common theme in so many Austen novels.  The happiest couples are the ones who do not rush into a passionate affair, but take their time in getting to know the character of their partners.  Think, in this instance, of Lydia and Wickham vs. Lizzy and Darcy.  Or Mr. and Mrs. Collins vs. Jane and Bingley.

And in the midst of the Wickham/Lydia elopement, Lizzy has this thought in chapter 50 of Pride and Prejudice:

"But how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture."

Lovely Chapter 14

Chapter 14 of Northanger Abbey holds two of my very favorite Jane Austen quotes.  So much brilliance in one little chapter!

Catherine takes a walk in the country with Mr. and Miss Tilney.  First they discuss novels.  Surely Mr. Tilney does not like novels as Catherine does.  He has more important things to read.  Mr. Tilney answers thus:

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."

I pull this one out of my brain to use against people as often as possible.

Also, this one:

"A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."

Folks unfamiliar with Austen assume that her writing is stiff, archaic, formal.  This last line proves what I love best about her.  When her tongue is planted in cheek, she is at her best. To me, she is as valuable for her wit as she is for her romance.

More wine!

From Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey: 

"There is not the hundredth part of the wine consumed in this kingdom that there ought to be." - John Thorpe

And there we have the one and only admirable thought spoken by John Thorpe in the entire novel.

the fate of Marianne

From Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility:

"Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate.  She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her own conduct, her most favourite maxims."


I have just finished re-reading Sense and Sensibility.  I haven't read it as many times as Pride and Prejudice, maybe only twice before.  But these sentences never shouted out to me before as they did during this recent reading.

These sentences appear in the closing paragraphs of the novel; but to me, they could easily stand on their own at the beginning of an entirely different story: one whose heroine is Marianne, not Elinor.  These words remind me so much of the opening of P&P.  You know the words by heart, I'm sure:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." 

Just as this opening of P&P tells the entire story in one sentence, so these lines from S&S give us Marianne's journey in a few simple words.  Magical!