Jamesagogo's Blog

Sense and Sensibility – Part One

jamesagogo — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 07:59:42 +0000

At first I have to admit I didn’t think this book was as good as “Pride and Prejudice.” Maybe that was due to my having had to reread the first couple chapters over (twice) just to figure out who everyone was. I shared this with a regular customer at work and she said she had the same issue (I was happy to feel less dumb). For those of you who haven’t read the book, we are given a crash course on the multiple female Dashwoods and their male counterparts. I’ll give you the Coles notes version; here goes:

Mr Dashwood owned a fancy house in Norland Park. He was old and single and after his roomie / sister dies he invites his nephew (Mr. Henry Dashwood) and family to live with him. His nephew (Mr. Henry Dashwood) has a son (Mr. John Dashwood) from a first wife and three daughters (the three Miss Dashwoods) from his current wife (Mrs. Dashwood). When Mr. Dashwood passes away, he leaves his estate to the son of Mr. John Dashwood and this leaves the three Miss Dashwoods with nothing. Mr. Henry Dashwood passes away a year later but makes his son (Mr. John Dashwood) promise to provide the three Miss Dashwoods with one thousand pounds a piece upon his death, but after Mr Henry Dashwoods death, Mrs. John Dashwood convinces Mr. John Dashwood to give the three Miss Dashwoods nothing but the odd gift every now and then. Did I mention that after the first Mr. Dashwood passes away Mr. Henry Dashwood becomes referred to as Mr. Dashwood which makes it all the more confusing.

As I read on I started to compare “Sense” with “Pride and Prejudice” and was beginning to think of “Pride” as the better story. I loved the “Bennets” right from the start, whereas I didn’t know how I felt about the Dashwoods until I was almost through the first volume of the book. I am happy to say that I am now as hooked as I was before. Marianne’s behavior at being snubbed by Mr. Willoughby makes me chuckle and I love how Austen describes the heights of her raptures and the depths of her melancholy.

I am now about halfway through and I have a dilemma: I cannot decide whether I am an Elinor or a Marianne! I’d like to think I have Elinor’s sense, but in my head I totally relate to Marianne. It’s like when “Sex and the City” fans all want to be “Carries” but they’re “Charlottes” or “Mirandas” instead.

Only two days left before the book needs to be returned and I have lots to read still! Later….

Pride and Prejudice – Part 2

jamesagogo — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 03:44:16 +0000

First things first, I have been up many late nights with this book, so much so, that I have come down with a summer head hold (great). Every time I take a step my head throbs (not fun), but I definitely have no regrets because I absolutely loved reading this book (yeah for love). Whether it was the moment Mr. Darcy surprised Elizabeth with his first confession of his love and her brutal refusal, or when they meet again by chance at Pemberly and she begins to see him in a new way, I was hooked.

For an entire week I have been quoting Mrs.Bennet (Elizabeth’s crazy mother) at work, and I began twittering in “Austen-speak”* much to the confusion of some of my followers. I even renewed my library card (after years of non-use they booted me from the system) when I realized how much buying all the books from the list would cost. I am not sure if I will continue to read from the library though, because a coworker asked me, “do you ever think about the people who pick their noses and read these books?” (thanks Anj).

To which I replied, “I DO NOW!”

She uses plastic gloves to read library books, perhaps i will too.

There were so many moments in this book where my heart skipped a beat, or I bit my bottom lip in anticipation of what would happen next. So many standout characters, so many standout lines, all too many to mention in so small a space. I cannot recommend “Pride and Prejudice” enough to anyone who has not read it yet.

*Austen-speak: pretending to speak as though your a character in a Jane Austen novel

(ie. I inquired as to which coffee was to be his choice, to which he then graciously replied with all the civility of his good breeding that he was and always had been partial to the darker roast of the two.

Pride and Prejudice – part 1

jamesagogo — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 05:07:37 +0000

Music connects us (Hey ho, lets go!), movies connect us (Stella!) and books connect us as well. There a lot of things in this world that connect us all, but I am going to focus on books. When you pick up a book, for example, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” on its release day and read through it as fast as you can, do you think about how millions of others are doing the exact same thing at the same moment? When you read “Romeo and Juliet” for the first time do you ever marvel at the effect it has had on culture since it written all those centuries ago? When I was 22 I had the privilege of seeing “Hamlet” in Stratford and I remember thinking, “that’s why people say there’s something rotten in Denmark!” I heard once that if you read the Bible, even if you’re not a christian, you will see it’s influence all over western culture. I have not read the Bible, but for academic reasons it is on my list.

When I was fourteen years old I can remember a reading list being handed out in my english class at school. It had quite a few books on it, some I can remember (Beowolf, The Odyssey, Lord Of The Flies) and some I cannot (?). I think the teacher said it was required reading for university students or something like that. It was not in me to care about such a list at this point in my life because I was too busy not caring about shit like that. At 14 I read comic books and Dragon Lance novels. So basically, unless a mutant was involved, or a dwarf was forging an axe to defeat the mighty Orc army, i was not interested. About a year later in life I would start smoking pot and “reading books”was to be placed on the back burner for the next 7 years or so (that’s a whole other blog though).

Anyway, I am 28 now, and have always wanted to read the “classics” but have never gotten around to it and while I loved my X-men comics and my elven legends, I feel like missing out on reading classic literature is like missing out on a huge slice of what makes being alive so great. It hit me last night when I started reading “Pride and Prejudice.” I was on the stair master at my gym and right from the beginning I fell in love with the Bennet family. The way Mr. Bennet teases his wife and daughters, pretending to not be concerned with seeing them married, and Mrs. Bennet with her description of Mrs. Long (“she is a hypocritical and selfish woman and I have no opinion of her”) made me snort quite loudly. Now ten chapters into the book I keep thinking which one is Keira Knightley (I know now she is Elizabeth, thank you imdb.com)?

Speaking of Hollywood, I have not seen “Julie and Julia” yet, but I do know the story of the Amy Adams character and her blog about attempting all of Julia Child’s recipes from “The Art Of French Cooking,” and I have to say I think it has inspired me. A friend tagged me in a note on Facebook regarding a list of books the BBC believes that the average person has only read 6 of at most. I had read nine. While I have read a lot more books than just 9 in my life, I haven’t really delved into anything that is older than 70 years. I joked with my friend (Brianna) about screwing Oprah (I love Oprah!) and starting our own book club. So we decided to start at the top of the list. I am so glad we did. I’m not going to read all of these books in a year, but I with help of my blog I hope keep going until I am at last “well-read.”

Not sure what reading all of these is going to get me, but sometimes what I can get is not what’s important, so here goes.

PS. I can’t believe i have academic reasons!