Our Austen Adorations

This article just went up on BreakPoint yesterday:

Austen's Good Sense: Classic Works Inspiring Modern Sensibility
Forgive me if I evaluate the current dating market, think ho-hum, and put in an Austen movie. Most girls I know would take Darcy any day (of the Firth or MacFayden variety) but probably can’t put into words what Darcy has that they’re missing.

When I started the blog, a friend, John, asked me what motivated the devotion to Austen. He's never understood it. Was it just the fairytale romance, or was there something more redemptive about it? Which got me to thinking, and worked itself out a bit in the BreakPoint piece.

I do think it's significant that while Austen essentially created the chick lit genre, her characters were not the bumbling idiots of today's stories. I mean, I'm a huge Bridget Jones fan, but as a book reviewer, I have to say that I'm sick of chick lit heroines who are completely inept. When you pick up a chick lit book today, you pretty much expect the heroine to be daft, to eat too much, to stick her tongue out at people, to sleep with her boss, to be rewarded in some sense for her failings instead of for recognizing them and being willing to change. It was a fun little formula for a while, but enough already!

I keep hoping to put up more of the Oxford writing and keep holding off on it. I went to Greenberry's again this afternoon and read through it and just think it could be so much better. We'll see... I had hoped to work on it this week, but there have been a series of deadlines, and there was a peeping Tom at my house last week, which has necessitated putting up a fence, which has meant having to deal with the Architectural Committee (argh!), all of which has meant that I haven't had the peaceful week I thought I would to immerse myself in Oxford. Maybe this weekend...