Reading List

It was a good Christmas for books, thank you friends and family.

I have already rampaged through P.D.James's murder mystery sequel to Pride and Prejudice, Death Comes to Pemberley. Despite steering clear in general of 'sequels' and other related imaginings as not possibly anything other than second-rate cash-ins that toy unforgivingly and insensitively with the themes of the original, I risked this one - I think due to the genre shift, it seemed safer that my impression and interpretation of the original would remain intact. Brilliant read, although I could have managed without the didactic digression on the history of the jury system and judicial appeals...

The Vintage re-release of Westwood is also a thing of beauty and a joy forever: a lovely matt paperback with lustrous thick cream pages and a evocative front cover. With Stella Gibbons's best known novel Cold Comfort Farm being one of my standard rainy day / 'mean reds' books, I naturally expected similar scouring literary satire and witty, quotable lines. Not so. This is maturer, sadder - as cynical, yet bittersweet and melancholy. Perhaps because it is a later-life novel, perhaps influenced by the impact of the Second World War. Beautiful reflection on infatuation, love and the intersection of seemingly unconnected lives.

Guardian Style has already been dipped into post-prandially over quite a few dinner tables. Finally, I know how to spell Gandhi (never Ghandi) and what the singular form of referendum is.

I am plunged into Claire Tomalin's biography of Jane Austen right now. I love her. Claire Tomalin, I mean, although, of course, also Miss Austen. Her biography of Nellie Tiernan (The Invisible Woman) was, for me, the first to open my eyes to alternative insights to the myth of Dickens, National Treasure. Already, the Austen novels' emphasis on money, class and power is becoming beautifully contextualised and Jane's only just been born.

Back to the sofa, I think, to pick up where I left off...

Insipidity and Intrigue‏

Image originally uploaded to Flickr by shawnzrossi

I have been re-reading Mansfield Park, my least favourite Jane Austen. My favourite is Persuasion, for romance, although Pride and Prejudice is funnier.  

I am finding Fanny Price much less insipid than previously: I am surprised at her wry insight and sly observations, and am discovering that she has a more vivid and animated inner life than I recall. I think this passed me by on first reading, perhaps because I was too young? 

Also, I am noticing inordinate amounts of seduction and intrigue, frequently openly discussed by the characters. Noblemen kidnapping innocent young ladies, unwed mothers, underage elopements, co-habitation, runaway wives and women "under the protection" of men who are not their husbands ... I wonder ... What a fab PhD that would make!