Advent With Austen: Sense and Sensibility, Chapters 10-22

Before I start talking about the second part of Sense and Sensibility (which, just so you know, is all SHOCKING and EMOTIONAL and so so good) I just want to draw your attention to the blurb on the back of my copy, which is just so... you'll see. Observe:

"Why are the most irresistible men always the most unsuitable?Sisters Marianne and Elinor couldn't be more different. Marianne is desperately romantic and longing to meet the man of her dreams, while Elinor takes a far more cautious approach to love.
When the two of them move to the country with their family, miles away from London, there is little prospect of finding anyone at all. But then they meet their new neighbours- including kind Edward Ferrers [sic] and the good looking, dangerous Willoughby- and it seems happiness may be just around the corner after all.
Things aren't always as they appear to be, though. Soon both sisters will need to decide who to trust in their search for love: their family, their new friends, their heads- Or their hearts?"

I mean, where do I even begin with the things that are wrong with this blurb?! I mean, firstly, way to make one of the greatest novelists, probably ever, sound like some second rate Chick Lit author. And, seriously, Edward Ferrers?! And this same Edward Ferrers (whoever he is) is apparently 'kind'. I've literally seen NO evidence of him being especially kind, and I'm like 150 pages in. The blurb writer, who is apparently some kind of moron, has also apparently not even read the book, since 1) They move to Devonshire (the 'country' apparently) from Sussex, NOT from London, Sussex also being miles away from London, 2) Edward Ferrars lives in Sussex and they move away from him, they don't meet him after they move, and 3) it doesn't suck. Unlike this blurb. Eurgh.

Anyway, I'm going to move on from the terrible blurb and not let it bother me anymore. Probably. Because, in this second section of Sense and Sensibility, there's so much drama and trauma, so many entrances and exits, and Elinor remains incredibly awesome (example: in response to Willoughby's waxing lyrical about their cottage "were I rich enough, I would instantly pull Combe down, and build it up again in the exact plan of this cottage." She responds "with dark narrow stairs, and a kitchen that smokes, I suppose?" God, I love that woman.) Surprisingly (sort of) Marianne is kind of awesome too! I mean, there was all that silliness over the horse ('Willoughby's giving me a horse!' 'Well obviously we can't keep it.' *pouts and looks a bit grumpy*) and she totally wallowed for pages when Willoughby went away (entirely mysteriously- as was Colonel Brandon's exit to London, all of which makes me go 'hmmmm...') but then she also does things like this:

"[Edward] was the only person in the world who could at that moment be forgiven for not being Willoughby; the only one who could have gained a smile from her; but she dispersed her tears to smile on him, and in her sister's happiness forgot for a time her own disappointment."

Awwww, Marianne! I love you now. Even though Edward turned out to be all annoying and wearing THE HAIR OF ANOTHER WOMAN in a ring. Which, I don't know if it's just me, but I find really creepy. I mean, I know photography hadn't exactly been invented yet (hence why we don't really know what Jane Austen looked like) but hair in a ring? Very strange!

We met some new characters in this part of the novel, and my absolute favourite of all of these was Mr Palmer, the insipid Lady Middleton's brother-in-law. Now, I don't normally take in a lot of the secondary characters in Austen novels because I like her heroines so much, and so kind of only see secondary characters in terms of their relation to said heroines. So, if they're not that important to the heroine, they're not too important to me either. In Elinor's eyes, Mr Palmer's general grouchiness in public is a result of having a wife who is so silly (although I did appreciate the discussion of her pregnancy because, in Emma, I didn't get that Mrs Weston was pregnant until she actually had the baby!) and Elinor disapproves of it as an affectation. In my eyes though, this:

"Lady Middleton... exerted herself to ask Mr Palmer if there was any news in the paper.
''No, none at all,' he replied, and read on."

I approve of sarcasm as a lifestyle choice, and I always will!

So, basically, at the end of this section, there are so many questions to be answered. Will Elinor have a nervous breakdown because Edward belongs to another? What have Willoughby and Colonel Brandon been doing, and will they ever come back? Will Mr Palmer come back and be all grouchy and sarcastic again? And can I even remember the other (unimportant) sister's name? (Margaret?) Such questions I have, hopefully some of which will be answered in next week's installment!

Devouring Books: A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde

The most important thing you need to know about this play is that it's very DRAMATIC, and there's a big secret (which I guessed before it came out, which isn't all that impressive because it sort of becomes clear once you know who everyone is) but it's all cleverly hidden behind the kind of scathing social commentary that Wilde is so extraordinarily good at. Even though, at times, I couldn't quite tell whose side he was on (the side of purity/morality, or the 'anything goes' attitude of the English upper class) I feel like, in the end, he chooses a kind of healthy middle ground, and a compromisey way of living that means one can be happy.

In my 40p charity shop copy, someone has written in the back the issues that they think (or have been told) are the most important in the play. These are: the place of women, concept of duty, social class, romantic love, marriage, suffering and the individual in society. Jealous as I am that they got to read this for educational purposes (it's really great, and much better than a lot of the plays I had to read at school and college) some of these things sound dreary to discuss so I'm choosing to ignore them. Suffering and the place of women are two things that interest me though, so maybe I'll talk about them. Possibly. We'll see.

So basically, this play is a lot of rich people sitting around and being awful and decadent and unaccepting of any way of life but their own, and also being extremely mean about Americans (sample: Lady Hunstanton: What are American dry goods? Lord Illingsworth: American novels. And also, "All Americans do dress well. They get their clothes in Paris." OUCH!) They're all such terrible terrible people, and yet they're kind of aware of this and they don't really care. They're all invested in a kind of nihilism that only the rich can afford to have- nothing really matters, earnestness and believing in things is pointless, and so they might as well just do whatever they like when they can (which, I'm pretty sure, means just generally all having sex with each other and sitting around being mildly witty and awful!)

Contrasted with this awful cast of rich people who see no meaning in anything, are the American, Miss Hester Worsley, her English betrothed Gerald Arbuthnot, and his mother, Mrs Arbuthnot- the 'woman of no importance' of the title. If you're bright, it quickly becomes apparent that,*SPOILER* although Mrs Arbuthnot purports to be a widow, she's actually a disgraced woman, and the father of her child is Lord Illingsworth, who, before this fact comes to the forefront, has already been basically the most nihilistic of all the characters, and, to me, the frigging worst. *END OF SPOILER. KIND OF* What this all means though, is that, while Lord Illingsworth gets to go on living exactly as he always has, without shame or responsibility, Mrs Arbuthnot has been weighted down with, not the burden of her son, but with the guilt and shame of what she's done, or rather what she has allowed Lord Illingsworth to do.

And here's where I get a bit confused about what Wilde's views on all this actually are, because the disproportionate guilt that Mrs Arbuthnot carries with her (and the self-flaggelation she continues to inflict on herself [not literally]) doesn't seem like the right way to live, but the nihilistic upper classes views surely can't be it, either? I think that the ending offers some kind of a middle way to all this: *ANOTHER SPOILER. ISH* While Gerald wants his mother and father to get married so that his mother doesn't have to deal with the shame anymore and his father has to be punished, Mrs Arbuthnot absolutely refuses to do this, since she can never love the man and it would just be a forced arrangement on top of all the suffering she has already done. At this point, Hester, who has been called a puritan the whole way through, says, of marrying Lord Illingsworth: "That would be real dishonour, the first you have ever known. That would be real disgrace, the first to touch you." And I think that leads us down some middle moral ground, where you don't necessarily have to do 'the right thing' but, really, 'the thing you can live with yourself with.'*END OF SPOILERATION* And so I think that Wilde is on the Arbuthnots' side. Sort of. Maybe.

Because, according to Wikipedia (totally reputable source), Wilde described Lord Illingsworth as himself. Which kind of makes me think either 1) he was consumed with self loathing and stuff and wanted to make a character who was like him as nauseating as possible, or 2) I totally hate the upper classes too much, and they're the people we're supposed to be listening to in this whole situation. If it's 1 then, you know, sad, but if it's two then I just don't know what to do with this play and I can't really cope with the upper classes being right. Like, I want Mrs Arbuthnot to stop hating herself and being ashamed and stuff as much as anyone, but not at the expense of, oh, I don't know, her SOUL! So now I don't know what I'm thinking. Other than, if this really is "the weakest of the plays Wilde wrote in the nineties," then boy do I need to read more Wilde plays!

Devouring Books: The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

I'm in a conflicted position with The Book Thief because, on the one hand I cried at the end (well, just before the end actually, but nearly the end) and not even a tiny bit but like streams and streams of tears, which tends to mean, you know, that a book was really good! But then, on the other hand, during the whole rest of the book I was kind of going "hmm... well it's ok, but I'm not exactly overwhelmed with joy while I'm reading this", and I didn't really ever have an urge to read it, you know, I just kind of read it because it was there. So it wasn't bad, but it wasn't exactly great either.

There were some things I did like about it though. Having Death as the narrator (which I think is its main selling point) was, I thought, quite a novel idea, and setting it during the second world war in Germany meant that Zusak could put in a lot of ruminating about the nature of war, and how, even though it seems like death thrives in these kind of situations, actually it's just a time where he/it has to work really really hard- a kind of 'humans call upon death to do all the hard work, whereas death itself is actually blameless' idea, which I found fascinating.

But. But but but. The actual meat of the story: basically following the exploits of this girl Liesel (the Book Thief of the title), her foster family and her best friend Rudy and his family, fell so so short for me. There are a lot of different reasons for this, but it's mainly because the entire book seems to be an exercise in forcing us into loving particular characters (basically all the main ones) whilst also letting us know that bad things are going to happen to them (since, you know, Death is narrating and there's really only one way he's going to know what happens to them) and by the time you're crying at the end, you sort of feel cheated because this is what Zusak wanted from you all along, and this is the only thing the book has been geared towards. Everything else is meaningless.

And take this, for example- Liesel's foster family take in a Jewish man for a whole reason that we didn't really need to know, and then he stays in their basement, nearly dies; and just when you think Zusak is going somewhere with this, the Jewish guy has to leave and that's the end of it. It's such a random thing, and while it means that Liesel gets a friend and someone who encourages her to write and think of stories, it all seems kind of unnecessary once he's gone, because they haven't really saved him, and none of that was really relevant. Now, I've just read a Guardian review putting this whole story arc at the centre of the novel, and as the most important thing in it, but it certainly didn't feel that way to me while I was reading it- rather than being involved with Max's suffering, it seemed to be more about how good taking in Max made Hans as a human being. Which is fine, but I don't think that it should be described a Holocaust story, because that's more of a side thing than the main event.

I think what annoyed me the most about the book was the fact that it was extremely emotionally manipulative, and just, in general, not that well written. Nonetheless, it did, like any book, have its moments, like:

"'Max' [the voice] whispered. 'Max, wake up.'
His eyes did not do anything that shock normally describes. No snapping, no slapping, no jolt. Those things happen when you wake from a bad dream, not when you wake into one."

"You want to know what I truly look like? I'll help you out. Find yourself a mirror while I continue."

"You bastards, she thought. You lovely bastards.
Don't make me happy. Please, don't fill me up and let me think that something good can come of any of this. Look at my bruises. Look at this graze. Do you see the graze inside me? Do you see it growing before your very eyes, eroding me? I don't want to hope for anything anymore. I don't want to pray that Max is alive and safe. Or Alex Steiner.
Because the world does not deserve them."

"I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating he human race- that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words so damning and brilliant."

"I am haunted by humans."

And yeah. All that reads really nicely. And it is. It's just that the rest of the story is lacking something- it doesn't go far enough for heartbreak, and yet it's too sad, and there's a threat of something too sad for it to ever be anything else. Overall, as well, I find that I've been more moved by stories that actually were about the Holocaust, and that were far less geared towards 'making you cry', and more motivated by just telling you what happened. The best example of this I can think of is Maus, which doesn't at all demand tears from you, but which I can never help but cry at. So, you know, read that instead.

Top Ten Tuesday

I'm telling you straight up, I'm definitely going to fail to do a top ten today. But, what I'm going to do instead is indulge in a little nostalgia, because my childhood reading? Was all about 2 series of books. I think I was technically a bit too young to read both of these sets of books (as in I think they both started in the eighties) but I love love loved them and seriously couldn't get enough of them. Aren't you just so eager to find out what they are now? Well...

Top Two Childhood Favourites


The Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley High!- I always group these two series of books together in my brain because they were essentially 80% of my childhood reading. For me, there was nothing else, apart from those seven girls who liked babysitting maybe a little too much, and those paragons of unhealthy relationships with other people, the Wakefield twins.

I'm being wholly unfair about these books now, because hindsight, as well as quite a few very very amusing snarky blogs about both series; has given me a whole new perspective on them (in fact, reading those blogs were my very first introduction to book blogs, on a slippery slope of an afternoon when I was just trying to find out something about one Babysitters Club book- and look at me now!) But really, I couldn't have loved them more! I never wanted to be a babysitter, but I so badly wanted to be friends with the girls in the club- mainly with Dawn, Stacey and Claudia, but I would have put up with the others too just to hang out with them and go to their sleepovers and just generally hanging around them. I also used to get my sister to quiz me on Babysitters Club knowledge, and let's just say there was never anything that she knew that I didn't! Any time there was a new load of Babysitters Club books at my local library, I had to get them all out at once, and always read them before the three weeks I had them for was up.

I just loved them! I went to the Cayman Islands on holiday when I was 9, and in a bookshop they had AMERICAN COVERED Babysitters Club books, and I swear I nearly peed my pants, and the fact that I only got two of them speaks volumes about my self control that's sadly vanished around books in recent years! For that same holiday, though, I also had my very first Sweet Valley High books for plane reading and whatnot, and oh my gosh I was hooked! I couldn't have wanted to live anywhere more than Sweet Valley, California; and whilst I thought I was already on a level with the Babysitters Club crew, and could be their friend right away, the whole Sweet Valley gang was the kind of gang I aspired to be part of. I quite severely wanted to be Jessica (because she was the most 'fun', a more mature look at her reveals her to be a sociopath) and to have her group of competitive and mildly evil friends, as well as a long line of attractive boys, who would do anything to be my boyfriend.

Needless to say, my teenage years were unlike both the child obsessed ones of the Babysitters Club, and the frightening scenarios of Sweet Valley High, and may I just say, thank GAWD! Nonetheless, I loved them and will always carry them in my heart, much as I now like to mock them all mercilessly, as well as looking at others who do so on the internet (if you were a Sweet Valley High fan too, click on the link to The Dairi Burger right there on the right- you won't be disappointed!) Good role models? Not necessarily. But an all consuming childhood obsession? Undoubtedly.

How about you? Did you have a few go-to book series as a child, or were you far more well rounded and well balanced than me?

Devouring Books: Hood by Emma Donoghue

Before I read Room in May this year, I knew Emma Donoghue only for writing that super-acclaimed book (and, I think, super-acclaimed for good reason) and, at the time, I didn't even know she was a lesbian author. Not that it makes any difference at all, but the thing I find is, most GLBT writers tend to focus on GLBT issues, which is fine and all, but I think stepping outside that is a good thing too, as I think its good for anyone to step outside their comfort zone from time to time.

What Donoghue does in Hood though (and let's just be aware that this was only her second novel, and ohmigosh it's amazing) is that she tells a story that is both focused on a GLBT issue, as well as a wholly universal one too (in fact, I'd argue that it's much more universal than not). What Hood is all about is death and mourning, specifically the death of our heroine Pen's lover of 13 years, Cara, and is set in the week after Cara's death- that week where, you literally have no idea what you're doing, what's going on, funeral arrangements are set in motion and things are happening, and yet you're not really present for any of them, just vaguely aware that they're going on. Donoghue captures so so well all the wildly different emotions that go through you when someone, anyone, you love dies, and if this book had been any more realistic I would have been an utter mess, to be honest.

It's such an interesting book as well though, because although the death of someone you love is a universal thing, Pen has to face some extra circumstances that hardly anyone else has to think about. She is essentially a widow, only, since basically nobody 'mainstream' knew about her relationship with Cara, she has to pretend that it's only her housemate who has died, a death that would obviously still be difficult, but a lie that masks the love that they held for each other, and just how difficult this entire thing is for Pen. As she says, if her husband had died she would get 2 weeks off work, no question; because it's her housemate (and there's no chance of revealing their actual relationship to her boss because her boss is a nun, and whoops, there would go Pen's job!) Now, this book was written in 1991 (I think... it's set in 1991, anyway) and I would like to think that with Civil Partnerships and homosexuality being a more widely recognised thing (I don't mean widely recognised, but you know what I mean, right?) that, you know, if a man or woman's long term partner was killed, they'd get the same recognition as those in heterosexual relationships. Except, I suppose, if you work at a Catholic school, but in that case you really can't be helped anyway...

So anyway, apart from the 'well, I can't tell people I'm a lesbian and my girlfriend has just died and therefore nobody will know what I'm going through' thing, Pen's journey through the first week after Cara's death is so extremely realistic. Everything is there- the near breakdowns, the sense of not knowing what to do next, a kind of identity crisis, of who Pen actually is if not 'Cara's girlfriend'. All such natural thoughts and feelings, and all heartbreaking and so sad. What Donoghue does so magnificently, though, is fusing the past and the present, having Pen fall back on memories and dreams to reveal what their relationship was like, and then returning to the brutal fact of the present abruptly and harshly. It's really seamlessly done, and also reveals a tendency for extreme honesty within Pen- the fact that, she doesn't try to pretend that their relationship was perfect, or that she always agreed with all of Cara's actions, but that still, she loved her, and she misses her. It's seriously just so sad, but also so good.

I'm going to sort of not say more things now because you should read it yourself and break your heart a bit too. But what I'm going to end with is a quote that I think shows both the GLBT specific, and universal nature of this book all in one: "Nowadays, 'invisibility' was supposed to be the big problem, but the way I saw it was, all that mattered was to be visible to yourself." Pen is specifically talking about gay people being under-, or not, represented on the tv; but that all that's really important is to be honest with yourself about what your sexuality is. The way I see it though- isn't it important for all of us to be visible to ourselves? To try and figure out what it is we want, so that we can be as well equipped as we possibly can to get it? I think yes. So go, and remember to always be visible to yourself.

Belated Readathon (and Belated Posting For It!)

Update (1.15am)- That's it you guys, I'm calling this shizzle. My bath was miraculous, if a teensy bit hot, and my word count now stands at a respectable 370 pages ish? Which isn't bad considering I didn't really dedicate much of my day to reading. Like, at all (Buffy and TV took precedence today. Go figure). I'm more than halfway through Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself now (my verdict so far: Not as good as Never Have Your Dog Stuffed. But then, I don't massively love reading speeches, so that's pretty much as expected) and I've read Act One of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (which I used to love more than A Streetcar Named Desire, but now I'm not so sure... Interesting). But anyway, I will be cheering y'all on in my sleep, and DON'T STAY UP PAST WHAT YOU'RE CAPABLE OF! I speak as a friend, and from experience (in Dewey's Readathon, the 4 hours of sleep I allowed myself were the greatest of my life. Consider that.)

And, whilst I know the readathon's over, for me at least, I still have reading aims for the weekend, namely to read the rest of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself tomorrow. Which shouldn't be too hard, and then I can write MANY blog posts, which is good because I've kind of run out after having been way ahead for ages cause of the last Readathon. So, yay. Have fun for the rest of the night guys!


Update (10.30pm)- I have finished A Woman of No Importance! Go me! A whole 94 pages of reading done AND I super duper liked them! I think that puts me at (*does rough calculations in brain*) 250 pages of reading today. Which, actually, is better than I thought. I mean, it's like one proper book, right? I'm off to have a bath now, with Alan Alda to accompany me. But hopefully not actually, because hello, wrinkly! Keep plugging away at the reading everyone (hypocritical command, don't even tell me!)


Update (9pm/I hour and 45 minutes after my first post)- I technically shouldn't even be updating because reading? It is not going fabulously. I did, however, manage to buy some christmas presents online, make dinner (during which I read, ooh, 11 more pages of Alan Alda) and I read the first act of A Woman of No Importance. All is not lost! I can still make up some time on this!

I've finally turned the TV off anyway (Futurama=distracting), have the She & Him Christmas album playing in the background, and have consumed roughly my body weight in Quality Streets (hey, it's Christmastime y'all!) I'm prime for some juicy juicy reading. Maybe.

So, I was supposed to start the Belated Readathon (graciously hosted by Amanda of Dead White Guys, go see her, she's funny!) at 7am my time, at which I LAUGH because I haven't seen 7am for at least, ooh, 4 years? But anyway, I read a bit of Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself by Alan Alda first thing, and then sort of... well, I watched the last two episodes of Buffy (weepathon!), and then I had to watch the making of documentary thing, and then I had to go places, and now it's kind of now. Yeah.

But, fear not, whilst I was going places and a bit when I got back, I managed to finish A Streetcar Named Desire (which was a re-read. But still) and I approve of it wholeheartedly! And now I'm trying to choose between Alan Alda (and I'm determined to finish his book before Monday because I can't can't CAN'T renew it at the library again [well, I can. But I don't want to.]) and A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde, which is tempting me because it's so SHORT and I like to achieve. So I don't know.

It's wholly possible that I'll update again before I go to bed. But I might not. Way to be vague, me!

Advent With Austen: Sense And Sensibility, Chapters 1-9

I've read Sense and Sensibility I think twice before, but the story has somehow never really managed to stick in my brain (it's the same deal with The Great Gatsby, for some reason) which I put down to having read it before my poor little brain could handle it (I was probably about 18 the last time I read it, but that was speed reading on a Thursday night before a seminar, so I think I can be forgiven!) So anyway, I decided to take part in Reading Fuelled by Tea's readalong of it as part of Advent with Austen so I'd be forced to think about it over 4 weeks, and then definitely remember it (just like I'll always remember The Help. The fucking Help...)

Anyway, best not to dwell on these things, and to distract myself with the awesome that is Jane Austen. And the start of Sense and Sensibility is truly great. There's a lot of setting up of future things, and since I vaguely know what's going to happen (I know who Marianne marries, for example, and some other stuff that I won't give away yet in case you haven't read it) it's really fun to see all the 'Captain Brandon loves you' and 'ooh, isn't Willoughby handsome and heroic' things because I know how well they end up!

Let's talk about Brandon and Willoughby, now that I've mentioned them. Clearly already set up as Marianne's love interests, Colonel Brandon is Ollllllld, although he does listen nicely to music; whereas Willoughby has rescued Marianne from, you know, a twisted ankle, swept her off her feet and into the house, and doesn't that sound romantic?! And let's think: Marianne is a complete slave to her emotions, and to beauty and all that stuff, so who do we think she's going to like more? Old still and silent Brandon, or sexy young hero Willoughby? I think we all know the answer to that, but we'll find out more next week!

Wow. I just managed to make Sense and Sensibility sound like a Soap. Must stop doing that. So anyway, it's clear that Elinor is the sensible one in the family, since she doesn't go around behaving like an idiot all the time (and I swear I used to think Elinor was boring, and Marianne was all cool and emotional- this must be what growing up is like) and, poor Elinor, her mother is exactly like her sister (there's another sister but Austen doesn't seem to want to get into that so I won't either. Poor Margaret.) so she's left being all practical and sensible and just generally not being silly all the time. Observe:

"Elinor saw, with concern, the excess of her sister's sensibility, but by Mrs Dashwood it was valued and cherished. They encouraged each other now in the violence of their affliction. The agony of grief which overpowered them at first, was voluntarily renewed, was sought for, was created again and again. They gave themselves up wholly to their sorrow, seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection that could afford it, and resolved against ever admitting consolation in the future."

Don't they sound exhausting to be around?! That much emotion, doubled, all the time? Wow. Just wow. Poor Elinor.

Elinor isn't cold-hearted though, far from it- I think this is why Austen makes it clear that she has a boyfriend (or, you know, the early nineteenth century equivalent of a boyfriend) from the beginning, so that we know that, sensible as she is, she is still capable of love and feeling emotion, just as much as her sister and mother, but just in a less life consuming way. Hence, another reason I love Elinor, and also she says this about Edward: "'At present, I know him so well, that I think him really handsome; or at least almost so.'" Ok, so lukewarm ending, BUT it totally reminds me of this bit in Doctor Who where Amy says that when you know someone for a long time, their personality starts to be written over their face and then you find them beautiful ("Rory's the most beautiful man I've ever met" SOB) and I love that in general, and now I'm starting to think that the writer of that episode totally read Sense and Sensibility! Or, possibly, I'm the first person to have ever made that connection, and I'm just totally unhinged. Maybe.

Moving swiftly on, and finally, I want to talk about my favourite part of this section, which is the conversation between Mr and Mrs John Dashwood. Because they're terrible, but it's all so cutting and brilliant that I'm like 'Dammit Jane, you've done it again!' We're clearly not meant to like or respect these people because, as we know "Mrs John Dashwood was a strong caricature of [her husband];- more narrow-minded and selfish." Ouch. So, because Elinor and Marianne's father has died, and they are girls, and the guy who left his estate to their dad tied it all up so only boys can inherit it, (which, excuse me, but uck, but also I think this happened a lot, and possibly also happened to Jane herself. I think. I'll research on Wikipedia and get back to you.) enter John Dashwood, half-brother, and all round douche. I feel like, if he hadn't married such a dick the girls would have been ok, but because Fanny (that's her name, and do you think I can actually cope with it? Of course not. Also, I've already called her a dick, oh the hilarity!) But anyway, the whole thing where John's like 'oh, I can afford to give them money and I did promise my father I'd look after them', and then Fanny's like 'hmm, yes, but they can do with way less money, and by the way they're only your half siblings, and by the way more have you even thought about your son?!' and then completely manipulates him into doing what she wants. To which I say 1) You go girl!, but then also, 2) You're such a bitch!

So, basically, Sense and Sensibility is great so far. More hilarity and excellence to come next week, I'm sure!