2008 book 17

I know, I know--you're all wondering if I really haven't read a book all week. Well it's true, I haven't! The reason is twofold--first, I didn't have anything particularly compelling from the library (which has been rectified), and second, I have been watching Oz on DVD. Multiple episodes every night! At least, until Netflix decided my addiction to this ultra-violent soap opera needed to be treated, and started sending me random selections from way down my queue, EVEN THOUGH all nine remaining discs of Oz are available. Damn you, Netflix!!

Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey
As several of you know, I never really got into Jane Austen (though I did read and enjoy Sense and Sensibility a year or so ago), but I've been watching the Sunday night Jane Austen movies on PBS for lack of anything better to do. I caught the last ten or so minutes of Northanger Abbey and was intrigued--a girl is unceremoniously kicked out of her friend's house in the middle of the night, some other girl is totally seduced by a dude who is clearly a cad, the first girl is visited by her man who seems to imply that she thinks his dad is a vampire and then he proposes, and a voiceover announces that the two got married as did some other couple, the end. Well, of course after all that I had to read the book! It started off strong, with Austen's very tongue-in-cheek descriptions of the heroine in contrast to more romantic heroines of the time (a friend and Austen fan assures me that this novel is a parody of gothic novels). But then it really got kind of annoying, with those jackasses the Thorpes (what would jackasses have been called in Austen's time, I wonder) and endless descriptions of the Abbey. Whatever. There weren't even any vampires so it was pretty much a letdown. No, just kidding, it's a classic etc. But I am way ready to read something more modern.