Austenmania and critical snobbery

The Pride of Austen Critics: a Prejudice?

Deborah Kaplan muses upon the immense growth of popularity of Jane Austen's fiction, and the effect that all the recent adaptations of her work has had upon the assumption that her work is truly only accessible and enjoyed by those fortunate few with elevated taste:

"...while many of us were trying, whether we were aware of it or not, to rescue Austen from her popularity, other critics were beginning to view the representations and activities that constitute Austenmania with more appreciation and, in the process, to probe our discipline's investment in hierarchies of literary value, readings, and readers. For the study of Austenmania prompts questions about what cultural works we value, why and how we value them, and who "we" are.

Read the whole essay here.

All my work comes to nothing

I am irate. Apparently, the mice in my basement have decided that the seed flats I'm starting down there are their own personal salad bar.

I came home to find that every single one of my broccoli plants had been eaten. And half the geraniums.

Now what???

Glare Report: 3/15/05: Lake Nokomis scene continued

Words: 217
Total: 13102
Stopping because: tired, very depressed, and short on sleep. I know a little bit more what I want to do to continue the scene, but I've just run out of steam to continue any further tonight.

I had a long entry I was going to write on the fish and yoga, but I'm really too tired to do it tonight.

I found in a gift shop this weekend a little clear glass fish that fits in the palm of my hand. I bought it--it was only a dollar--and have it in front of me as I write. It makes me think of the fish trapped in the ice block in the cornerstone of the ice palace.

It is about as communicative as all the fish in the book. *Grump*