What are you reading right now?

[shovetheholly]

Me: some old feminist stuff. Bubeck's 'Care Gender and Justice' Sara Ruddick's 'Maternal Thinking'. I wouldn't necessarily recommend either of them - but Ruddick in particular was important in opening up the idea that women didn't just mother on autopilot, but thought about their practice.

I'm also reading Dickens's Bleak House for the third or fourth time. I am a bit at how vicious and misogynistic his portrait of Mrs Jellyby is - she's the 'telescopic reformer' whose house and family are a mess while she focuses her attention on the fortunes of Africa.

ALass You obviously haven't read Northanger Abbey or Mansfield House by Jane Austen.

Jane Austen is the greatest literary writer this country has ever known. Her wit is unparalleled, her originality of writing via observation is stellar, and she remains the favourite of all those who enjoy writing and reading.

Dickens, by contrast, is a trader of mawkishness, populism and narcissism.

I'm not a fan of Dickens either. I remember trying to read Pickwick Papers, off the back of Little Women referencing how good it was - couldn't do it.
I have managed to read Oliver Twist, and Great Expectations, but it was a struggle. Haven't managed any of the others in full.

You obviously haven't read Northanger Abbey or Mansfield House by Jane Austen

*I have read Northanger Abbey - that's the Austen version of Android Tale of Two Cities in that it's the one which departs from the usual style and the one haters of Austen or Dickens are more likely to like.

Jane Austen is the greatest literary writer this country has ever known. Her wit is unparalleled, her originality of writing via observation is stellar, and she remains the favourite of all those who enjoy writing and reading.

Dickens, by contrast, is a trader of mawkishness, populism and narcissism*

In your opinion.

A Tale of Two Cities obviously.

Pickwick Papers is nonsense.

and she remains the favourite of all those who enjoy writing and reading

Really and truly? Every single one of them?

Yes, every major literary prize winner cites Austen above Dickens as the standard.

Northanger Abbey was Austen's first novel to be published, penned when she was 21. Such was her greatness. It's a skit on the Gothic novels of the time. Ultimately the premise is that a young woman should rely on her own beliefs and not be influenced by others.

This is a feminist book, as are all Austen's books. I can't think of any books of Charles Dickens' that promoted feminism.

Oh and Persuasion. A wonderful late novel, in that Austen dares to write that men should not be persuaded nor influenced by social conditioning.

Austen is our best literary writer of all times.

Yes, every major literary prize winner cites Austen above Dickens as the standard

Oh I see , it's now only writers rather than readers . And every single one. In every interview.

Charlotte Bronte, Mark Twain and Virginia Woolf weren't fans of Austen.

Not true!

Charlotte Bronte admired Austen, Mark Twain said he couldn't possibly compare to her wit (and meant it) and Woolf - have you read A Room of One's Own?

So ALass, could you give me a depiction of women empowerment in Dickens?

Because, I can even do this in Shakespeare's writings.

And I bet you think To My Coy Mistress is a wonderful poem.

I'm reading the last volume of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels. The last and fourth one is called The Story of the Lost Child. A beautiful and subtle account of female friendship and female sensibility. I don't want it to end!

She's been compared to Austen but especially to Flaubert - the novels are essentially a four part Bildungsroman but clever, funny, wise and warm.

One of my favourite novels is 'The Poisonwood Bible' by Barbara Kingsolver.

However, I'm reading 'And Then There Were None' by Agatha Christie atm.

I shall look up 'The Story of the Lost Child' it sounds good.

You might find this site interesting. Some of the writers include Austen, some include Dickens, some have neither and some have both.

John Irving has 2 Dickens and no Austen. Peter Carey , who won the Booker twice, has 2 Dickens and no Austen but maybe he isn't interested in reading and writing.

www.toptenbooks.net/all-author-list

So ALass, could you give me a depiction of women empowerment in Dickens?

Is that the only criteria which makes a book worthwhile?

I don't think you can play Top Trumps with writers.

You either like them or you don't.

Bronte on Austen

"Why do you like Jane Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point. ... I had not seen Pride and Prejudice till I read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book. And what did I find? ...a commonplace face; a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. ... These observations will probably irritate you, but I shall run the risk."

"Now I can understand admiration of George Sand ... she had a grasp of mind which, if I cannot fully comprehend, I can very deeply respect: she is sagacious and profound; Miss Austen is only shrewd and observant."

There is more in that vein.

Mark Twain Mark Twain. “Everytime I read ‘Pride and Prejudice’ I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone,” He also said a good library was one without a single Jane Austen book in it. And, comparing her to Edgar Allen Poe, whom he also disliked, he wrote: “I could read [Poe’s] prose on salary, but not Jane’s. Jane is entirely impossible. It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.”

And Woolf Virginia Woolf “The chief reason why she does not appeal to us as some inferior writers do is that she has too little of the rebel in her composition, too little discontent, and of the vision with is the cause and the reward of discontent. She seems at times to have accepted life too calmly as she found it, and to anyone who reads her biographer or letters it is plain that life showed her a great deal that was smug, commonplace, and, in a bad sense of the word, artificial….

*I don't think you can play Top Trumps with writers.

You either like them or you don't.*

I agree. I don't like Austen. I personally find her narrow domestic sphere uninteresting but I don't think I've attempted to write her off in the way the Dickens detractors have done.

I don't dislike Dickens at all. In fact, I've read four of his novels, and found them to be very Victorian and of its time. Just a portrait of characters, most of them caricatures and not an examination of how the mind works, well except the main character and in the end it was boring; but the examination of the human condition in novel form is the beauty of Austen, because she started this in novel writing. It may well have been genteel, but it inspired many other writers to copy her. She was the first in the genre.

But Bronte and Woolf are accepting of her genius in literary fiction history.

They said she didn't go far enough in the angst. They are right of course, but that wasn't what Austen wanted to achieve. Her greatness is comparable to Shakespeare as Walter Scott acknowledged (and he wrote great novels).

Also George Henry Lewes, husband to George Eliot compared Austen to Shakespeare.

Spectacle of deformity: freak shows and modern British culture. I got interested after a lecture on Sara Baartman, the Hottentot Venus who was exploited and displayed due to her sexual organs.

It's amazingly interesting and shows some interesting perspectives into the lives of performing freaks.

Sacred - That sounds like a fascinating book!

£22.82 for the Kindle edition!

It really is, and not overly verbose. I am really enjoying it.

It was about young people but wasn't YA, I thought. Let me know what you think when you read it

I enjoyed it too, slugs, but IKWIM about it being a bit YA - DD (who's 13) liked it better than me. She's read the sequel already, whereas I read the first chapter & left it in the 'to read later' pile.