As I continue to study for my comps, I get to read all kind of randomness published in the back of Norton Critical Editions. After readingthe Norton Importance of Being Earnest cover to cover, I am now reading through the Pride and Prejudice. Let me tell you, there is a wealth wonderful oddities and fun in there.
Here are two of the pleasures that I read.
The first is from some early Austen writing, called Love and Friendship. It is a dialogue about someone knocking on a door.
"My father started--"What noise is that," (said he.) "It sounds like a loud rapping at the Door"--(replied Mother.) "it does indeed." (cried I.) "I am of your opinion; (said my father) it certainly does appear to proceed from some uncommon violence exerted against our unoffending door." "Yes (exclaimed I) I cannot help thinking it must be somebody who knocks for admittance."
Seriously. This continues for about a page or so. Dizzyingly circular discussion about how they all agree someone is knocking on the door, and that whoever it is wants to come in. It's wonderous how it goes on and on.
The other fun thing has less to do with Austen. It comes from a critic named Richard Whately, who wrote an essay called "Modern Novels," published in Qarterly Review 24, in 1821. He's talking about how well Austen handles her Christianity by just not talking about it. I must say I was a tad surprised and comforted to read his great reasoning.
"For when the purpose of inculcating a religious principle is made too palpably prominent, many readers, if they do not throw aside the book with disgust, are apt to fortify themselves with that respectful kind of apathy with which they undergo a regular sermon, and prepare themselves as they do to swallow down a dose of medicine, endeavouring to get it down in large gulps, without tasting it more than is necessary."
Isn't that lovely. I think so. For kicks, Whately ends his essay with, "We know not whether Austen ever had access to the precepts of Aristotle; but there are few, if any, writers of fiction who have illustrated them more successfully." I couldn't agree more. There are few, if any, novels I know of that are more perfectly crafted and and exectued as Pride and Prejudice. I love it.
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5 comments:
p.s.
how fucking hot is rufus in that picture?
Pardon me for missing something, but why exactly do we get a picture of Rufus when we click on the Importance of Being Earnest link?
(and, of course he's hot--he's always hot)
czf, i think you are broaching the subject of wilde's homosexuality in a pervasive manner. by insinuating that rufus is a referent to wilde or the dualism we see in the algy/jack relationship i think you are being obstinately imprudent. you should leave those things to people who haven't been to university
p.s. he is hot, so hot...
i just wanted to include a picture of rufus on our blog. and the mixed-signals that are sent from the mixed signs of wilde/wainwright struck me as the perfect way.
chris & amber,
if i may, let me go off-topic for a moment. amber stated last night that harold bloom was a "practicing mormon"--a claim as hard for me to believe had she said he worshipped j.k. rowling.
i've done a little research this fair morn, and what i've found has only confirmed what i already knew: he's a jewish gnostic. Do i know what that is? not really, but it doesn't seem to share much in common with mormonism. i could be wrong, but if i am, i'd need to see it coming out of the old curmudgeon's mouth himself. not mr. krakauer.
as lavar burton used to say in Reading Rainbow many years ago, you don't have to take my word for it:
http://bostonreview.net/BR11.1/bloom.html
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