Most people aren’t murderers or capable of murder though. As an English person, reading all the reports of police killing civilians in America, they seem incredibly happy to execute civilians in all kinds of circumstances “just in case”.

How many more pointless gun deaths, America?.......

“I think not only did she improve the Elinor and Edward relationship, but she also bolstered the case for why Colonel Brandon would be an excellent match for Marianne, if you’re not looking at his money.”

I always liked the bit where (to use the parlance of my gymnastics forum) Fanny Dashwood and her mother are throwing shade at Elinor’s screens and Marianne defends her.

Personally I find Sense and Sensibility a bit disturbing. I can see why Marianne and Willoughby don’t work out (it makes perfect sense) but the way she gets “persuaded” to marry Brandon always disturbed me a bit. Plus it’s ten kinds of Freudian since her dad has died and Brandon is twice her age.

Northanger Abbey is possibly the least accessible because it is a pastiche of Ann Radcliffe type writings where everybody has sordid dark secrets and there are lots of dramatic goings on.

Mansfield Park is pretty somber as well but I think the compelling thing about Persuasion is the fact Anne has made a major mistake and is paying for it everyday of her life when the novel begins.

When I read her as a child, what I loved so much was the way the characters have the face they present to the world and then they have their inner lives and they experience a lot of pain when the gap between the two becomes vast.

There’s a line in the introduction I read for uni where it says “it takes a mature reader to see that Mr Bennett is an egregiously poor husband and provider”.

But if Lydia doesn’t marry Wickham her future chances of marriage are ruined because word will get around that she ran off with another man. That’s the whole sad thing about it. She ends up tied to a man who is a moral vacuum because she was 15 and impetuous.

I hate it when people dismiss Austen’s work. I think Mansfield Park is terrific in how it highlights how who a woman at the time married would affect her whole life and her experiences and it also highlights how tenuous “progress” is. Even if your Mum makes a good marriage, if you forget the rules of the society you…

Well I would but I believe my edit window has expired. I needed a comma damnit! ;-)

To be fair I managed to throw off Catholicism relatively early considering but the problem was then it became replaced with the teen magazine doctrine of “if you have sex and he won’t wear protection, you’ll get pregnant and it will ruin your life and you will die alone in your home town claiming benefits and being…

:: Adds reference to CV ::

Hey one bottle would mess you up but it shouldn’t be killing ya ;-)

Our desperation as a species to blame other people for their own misfortune/illness/victimisation at the hands of others is depressing.

I was thinking more of the non-evil amongst us ;-)

People generally aren’t as desperate to minimise the impact of burgularly, assault and murder though. Just sexual violence.

That’s the problem with an insanely polarised politics. People start making the facts fit their opinions rather than accepting “their side” might have some bad people in the mix.

I’ll have to listen to this, I love the show so much.