The Problem Of Saturdays

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Okay, the fanfic is on hiatus for a while, mostly because I realized the version I have is not the public one at Austen, and I need to read that one, to figure out how to continue without bogging down in contradictions.

OTOH Saturdays are a problem.  They pretty much just are.  I’m going to declare Saturday not exactly a day of rest but a day of fun of fluffy stuff at ATH, so that I can … well, do the other stuff that’s not writing.  Like proofing and putting stories up.  Or ironing (on the slate for today) or art.

So, today the inanity is Which Jane Austen Character Are You?

Apparently I’m Lizzy.  I know you’re shocked, right?  So, who are you?  (And I was in fear I’d be Mr Darcy, btw…)

22 thoughts on “The Problem Of Saturdays”

  1. Every one of those quizzes I’ve taken has told me I’m either Anne Elliot or Lizzy Bennett, depending on the quiz :)

    Like

  10. Thank you, it was a pleasant diversion.. Another Lizzie. (#2, at a distance was Bingley/Jane?)

    Don’t quiet understand why anyone would be entirely bothered by being Darcy. He may be reserved, but he is man of principle and is willing to adjust his behavior when confronted by his short-comings. This is a valuable, although not all that common, characteristic.

    Some of the characters I am not very familiar with, as I am rationing the Austen books. Made the mistake of reading all the Lord Peter Wimsey in very short order — and then they were no more.

    Like

  11. I have no idea who any of these people are but:
    Anne Elliot from _Persuasion_

    Eliza Bennet from _Pride & Prejudice_

    Elinor Dashwood from _Sense & Sensibility_

    Jane Fairfax from _Emma_

    Lucy Steele from _Sense & Sensibility_

    Mr. Darcy from _Pride & Prejudice_

    Like

  12. Not really the sort of thing I spend my webtime doing — I am overly inclined to analyse the questions, trying to determine which answer will make me Luke and which Han. (And really, when taking the Which Supervillain Are You quiz, who wouldn’t rather be Dr Doom than Mole Man?) But there are things here to ponder.

    For example, it occurs to me that it would be … interesting … to see how various politicians would score on this test. It seems likely that, in the eyes of Democrats the Republicans typically offer up one Mr. Collins after another, while Republicans probably look at Democratic candidates as so many Wickhams. The non-partisan public, OTOH, likely sees both parties offering an endless supply of Lady Catherines.

    Like

      1. Eh – three characters from the one Austen book I’ve read hardly constitutes “command”. I intend to read the others but I’ve this appalling backlog of SF/F drechlichkeit blocking the path …

        Y’know, I’ve only read that one, and that primarily because Nero Wolfe recommended it. We’ve done about half of S&S as an in car read aloud before misplacing the book (it is somewhere in one of the various boxes carted in post-trip) and I enjoyed Emma Thompson’s adaptation … ah well, so many books (and short stories, and weblogs and …) so little time.

        N.B. – Beloved Spouse insists Wolfe’s recommendation was of Emma, but I remember otherwise and I do have the better memory, IIRC.

        PS – yes, investigation proves my superior powers of recollection:

        Jane Austen, Emma. John Kavanagh tracked down a wonderful quotation about Stout’s view of Austen, and transcribed it from the intro by McAleer to Death Times Three. (John McAleer wrote the official biography of Stout, which is very good reading once you get past 100 years of ancestors to Rex Stout’s life!) Here’s the excerpt:

        During the last years of Rex Stout’s life, as his authorized biographer, I received numerous letters from well-wishers and, on occasion, not-such-well-wishers, offering me advice. “Is it true,” one of the latter asked, “that Stout has a secretary who writes all his stuff for him?” I showed the letter to Rex, then in his eighty-ninth year. He scanned it and said, “Tell him the name is Jane Austen, but I haven’t the address.” … Not long before that he had told me, ” I used to think that men did everything better than women, but that was before I read Jane Austen. I don’t think any man ever wrote better than Jane Austen.” It was no coincidence that, when I asked after Wolfe a few days before Rex died, Rex confided, “he’s rereading *Emma*.” Rex ranked *Emma* as Jane Austen”s masterpiece. In the last weeks of his life he also reread it. That a book could be reread was to him solid proof of its worth. Thus it pleased him when P.G. Wodehouse, whom Rex admired, declared, at ninety-four, in a letter that he wrote to me, ” he [Stout] passes the supreme test of being rereadable. I don’t know how many times I have reread the Wolfe stories, but plenty. I know exactly what is coming and how it is all going to end, but it doesn’t matter. That’s *writing*.” As John K. commented, it’s nice to see one’s favourite authors getting alone so well! But Wolfe’s views were more ambivalent, as Paige E. pointed out to me: in The Mother Hunt, in chapter 12, Archie says, “Dol and Sally had been responsible, six years back, for my revision of my basic attitude toward female ops, and I held it against them, just as Wolfe held it against Jane Austen for forcing him to concede that a woman could write a good novel.”
        [ http://www.nerowolfe.org/htm/corpus/CorpusReadingList.htm ]

        Like

        1. I’m tepid on Emma. Mansfield Park is as alien as some Chinese masterpieces. Sense and Sensibility is decent and Persuasion is good. Pride and Prejudice remains her masterpiece, though.

          Like

          1. I would have to call Mansfield Park strange, certainly, especially to modern sensibilities, but “alien”?

            OTOH maybe I’m the alien. It would certainly explain a number of puzzling things.

            Regards,
            Ric

            Like

Comments are closed.