It is a truth universally acknowledged

I have a confession to make. Up until about a week ago, I never liked Jane Austen.

The gasps of horror are echoing in my ears. I know! And it's not like I didn't try. I read Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility (twice), Pride and Prejudice. They just left me cold, you know? Northanger Abbey was clever and all, and I identified a bit with Eleanor in S&S, but I just couldn't really understand what all the fuss was about. I mean, people worship this woman! There's a whole Austen culture! It is a truth universally acknowledge that her books are pure undiluted awesomesauce and anyone who disagrees is a godless heathen!

Somehow I trundled along for years, bereft of the understanding of the Austen, a little puzzled, but complacent.

And then I happened to stumble across a link to Jane Austen's letters. I'm terminally nosy - not so much with people alive right now, but absolutely with people long since dead - so I thought, well, what the heck? Might as well check them out.

It took me about five minutes to read, "I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal," and I was lost.

Something just clicked in my head, and I just got it. This woman was hilarious and sassy and smart and I wanted to have her over for tea to cackle about Mr. Next Door's antics. She had things to say, dammit, and now I wanted to hear all of them.

It was away to Gutenberg, and I plowed through all those novels I'd neglected. And this time I got it - Jane Austen's novels are so timeless not because they necessarily draw staggering conclusions or even are fantastic romances, but because of their unerringly poignant observations on human nature. All these people in her novels are people we know, doing things that we've seen. She takes a scene, dials it up to 11, and then draws arrows pointing to everyone's inconsistencies.

“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.”

Well said, Ms. Austen. I'm glad that I'm finally able to appreciate you as you deserve at last.

What about you guys? Have you ever grown into a book?

Choose To Be Better

When I was very, very young, my father handed me a copy of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit. I looked at the relatively thick book in my hands, and then back at him.

"You cut up the cover," I said in mild horror. (It would take me until college to become halfways comfortable with marking my books.)

He nodded. "I want you to imagine the characters on your own. I don't want you to just look at the picture, I want you to do the work," he said, and left me to my reading. 

I shrugged it off and carried on as kids do, but in a lot of ways that set the tone for my future as a reader. 

From that time forward, my dad would give me books and expect me to discuss my thoughts with him. He gave me classics - Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Thoreau - but also more recent books from the likes of Heinlein, Orson Scott Card, and Madeleine L'Engle, just to name a few. After the first book, he never cut the cover out again. He set a high standard and expected me to reach it. So I did. 

Because of the breadth of material I was exposed to, I developed a passion for material I most likely never would have picked up on my own. My opinions didn't always align with my dad's (I ate up Heinlein, Card, and Twain, but couldn't stand Dickens, Thoreau, or L'Engle). When I was a teenager he grumbled that the only real fantasy was Tolkien and everything else was just derivative as he got out his wallet to pay for my copies of Marion Zimmer Bradley and Anne Rice.  We occasionally found common ground over books like Black Hawk Down and The Iliad.

So when I see a desperate attempt to keep scifi/fantasy as an old boys' club, I know the truth about what literary discourse can be. There's simply no reason that men can't choose to be considerate and welcoming of female science fiction fans. A Y chromosome doesn't imbue you with the analysis gene, and it's not a get out of jail free card. The men that endlessly defend their own sexism could choose not to defend it. They could choose to focus on women's opinions, rather than their appearances.

Choose to be better, SFWA.

Quiet Moment by Quiet Moment

This weekend I've been on a mini-vacation. Fun location, lots of adrenaline, and the wifi is only available at night. I've even left my phone behind during the day.

I absolutely love the internet. I love that I can talk to my friends all over the world. I love that I can look up information in a matter of seconds. I love that it's literally impossible to get bored.

But I'm not going to lie... Being without it was freeing. I got halfway through a book that I've been meaning to read for a long time, and loved it.

Definitely have to recommend Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.