Work on book tonight

[pegkerr]

Tonight was spent transcribing notes from my various visits to the ice palace site. This is a good way to work on the book without having to actually think about it--but since I've clocked the time, so to speak, I'm guilt-free for today.

The last several nights, the girls and I have been watching Anne of Green Gables. I had tried reading the book to them about a year and a half ago, but they must have been a little too young when we tried it, and they lost interest partway through. But they were very interested in the movie (Megan Follows, Colleen Dewhurst, Richard Farnsworth). We all wept at little at the death of Matthew. Delia particularly was grieved, although she didn't come quite as unstrung as she did at the death of Beth in Little Women.

(I love good death scenes in books. As anyone can tell who has ever read The Wild Swans.)

Am still reading Mansfield Park, although I'm tempted to put it aside. It is my least favorite of Jane's novels, although I still do appreciate it. Maybe I'm just not in the right mood for it. I don't know what I'm in the mood to read. I've had trouble getting into books lately.

Damn it, I still want to go to France. Or Japan.

Comments

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

Argh! I'm reading The Wild Swans right now, in fact. Only about 100 pages in. I'm going to pretend I didn't read this entry.

Re:

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

*whistles innocently* Do please let me know what you think of it, if/when you finish it.

[ionas.livejournal.com]

The Anne tapes have been a favorite around here.

Re Mansfield, I don't know if it will help, but I suspect what Jon Spence has to say about this novel in his Becoming Jane Austen might kindle your interest more, as you have indicated an ability with, as well as an interest in, the subtleties of character:

We think we ought to like Fanny Price more than we do the fine, handsome Bertram girls and the warm, lively Mary Crawford. That it is difficult to do so, in our feelings if not in our reason, is precisely what Austen was determined to show. Our values tell us one thing, our hearts another. MP is Austen's most profound attempt to capture this inevitable confusion of feelings in human life--and her strategy was to make readers themselves confused in their own feelings about the characters in the novel.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I have happy memories of watching that with my mother when it was on TV as a miniseries, when I was about twelve. My mother never watched TV, but we both loved Anne of Green Gables. It's one of the few movies that stands out as utterly emotionally faithful to the book. Beautifully done, and Megan Followes is the perfect Anne.

Oh! I remember the first time I read it. I reached the end on New Year's Eve, when I was being allowed to stay up until midnight. I guess I was probably seven or so. I remember my absolute shock at Matthew's death - it might've been my first encounter with a beloved literary character dying. It's all tied up in my mind with being up way, way past my bedtime - two grownup things at once, I guess.

Peg Kerr wrote..

[an-dreas.livejournal.com]

about going to France. I went to Paris in '01. The best, man. I would have slept in l'Ouvre if the let me. But deoderant there is highly underated.

Re: Peg Kerr wrote..

[skg.livejournal.com]

I went in November. It was cheap, uncrowded, and not hot, so the deodorant thing was a non-issue.

:)

Anne Fans

[molnar-salomone.livejournal.com]

What a wonderful thing to share with your daughters. My mom read all the Anne books to my sister and I when we were small, and I've reread at least one of them every year since. Can I recommend that you not watch the 3rd set of tapes? Though the first 2 sets are as true to the books as could be possible, the third veers off onto a totally different and utterly ridiculous storyline, and I remember being SO MAD at the whole thing.

Ahhh, and Beth in Little Women. Bitter, bitter tears were shed over that one. The Winona Ryder/Susan Sarandon version is wonderful.

But the one that made me weep the most? Johnny Tremain.

[nightfalltwen.livejournal.com]

OMG!

Okay. Anne of Green Gables!! When you get to the part where Anne recites the Highwayman at the White Sands... There is an older woman with white hair wearing a bright yellow dress. She says something about "small towns" or whatever... or maybe it's the lady in the purple dress who speaks... ANYWAY...

The woman in the yellow dress. Her name is Julianna Saxon (look in the credits :D).

At the University of Victoria, BC Canada she was my Theatre 132 professor. ^_^

[/random information about me that no one really cares about but me]

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

When I can't concentrate, and I can't seem to read anything else, I go back to the short stories of Saki - H. H. Munro. There are a LOT more than "The Open Window", which is often found in collections. Because they are all short, I can read one, and then another, but not have the obligation that starting a novel entails.