In one of my most popular posts, I pointed out that Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë's writing styles don't have a ton in common, despite being constantly recommended to Austen fans looking for further reading.

Anthony Trollope is another name I hear frequently as similar to Austen. And let me say now.

No. Stop it.

I read his most famous and popular novel, Barchester Towers. The whole time I had this vibe, though I couldn't exactly find a quote to support it, that this author did not really respect women. The main hero is explicitly said to treat women like children. A main plot is about a bishop being hen-pecked (controlled by his wife). Another main plot is a woman who is a heartless, magical siren.

Well then the vibe stopped being a vibe (woman is ivy, man is tower):

When the ivy has found its tower, when the delicate creeper has found its strong wall, we know how the parasite plants grow and prosper. They were not created to stretch forth their branches alone, and endure without protection the summer's sun and the winter's storm. Alone they but spread themselves on the ground and cower unseen in the dingy shade. But when they have found their firm supporters, how wonderful is their beauty; how all-pervading and victorious! What is the turret without its ivy, or the high garden wall without the jasmine which gives it its beauty and fragrance? The hedge without the honeysuckle is but a hedge.

Yeah, I want to vomit. Women are a parasitic vine that cannot grow properly without a man? Fuck you, Anthony Trollop.

And why in the world would anyone compare this author to Austen?

Before someone fights me:

Yes, I realize that an author from 1857 might have unfortunate views about women. I'm not an idiot. I choose to read those who don't.

Yes, I know I only read one novel. I'm not going further because that was enough for me. I also wasn't very fond of his writing style besides the misogyny.

The main problem here is the comparison to Jane Austen, not Anthony Trollope himself. I didn't find them comparable at all besides being British and the presence of clergymen. If you love Trollope, this is not an attack on you personally.

sometimes I think about that guy on amazon who reviewed pride and prejudice and did an entire angry, weirdly math focused rant about how awful darcy is and then ends it all with "I could carve a better man out of a banana"

I'm in the Fanny Price Defence Squad but I am also very much in the Mary Crawford Defence Squad. Sorry I'm very powerful.

...Is Persuasion home-front fiction?

Obviously there's not a war happening just then, but you still get a story taking place in a vast world with all sorts of exciting things happening, but we focus on the people living small domestic lives far away from all that.

“What a delightful library you have at Pemberley, Mr Darcy!”

“It ought to be good,” he replied, “it has been the work of many generations.”

“And then you have added so much to it yourself, you are always buying books.”

“I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these.”

This conversation is intriguing because, as is often the case in P&P, there is so little narrative framing or comment that you have to make quite a few assumptions based on how you read the characters. We don’t even hear Elizabeth’s reaction to this interchange and don’t know how she takes it (though when Darcy later tries to talk to her about books, she’s sure that their tastes are so wildly different that they won’t have anything to talk about).

In any case, both fans and critics have come away with a lot of different interpretations of Darcy’s book-buying sprees and, in particular, what he means by “such days as these.”

I just read an article that dismissively characterized it as a stuffy civilization-is-falling-down-around-us-in-these-degenerate-times thing showing the basic conservatism of his mindset, and while that article was particularly hostile, it’s a pretty common reading. And you can read it that way, but frankly, it doesn’t seem the most natural reading in the context of either the scene or his overall characterization.

Darcy is repeatedly associated with books and reading and general intellectualism. The Pemberley library links his family pride and his sense of legacy with his personal inclinations—as an individual, he’s bookish, clever, and fairly cerebral. He reads, he buys new books, he enjoys philosophical debates, his response to Elizabeth’s assertion of their different tastes in books is “cool, then we can argue about them :D”, he encourages his teenage sister’s artistic interests and defends her disciplined approach to them when she’s not even there, he collects fine and apparently borderline-incomprehensible paintings, he’s dismissive about the expected accomplishments of upper-class women in favor of reading (partly bc Elizabeth has been reading, but it’s not surprising that a man responsible from age 23 for the education of a young girl has Thoughts on the ongoing female education debates of the time).

All of this is to say that Darcy is engaged with what was then contemporary culture and discourse. This is especially the case if you go with the time of his creation, 1796, but it doesn’t make a huge difference because these debates were still ongoing in the 1810s, and he rarely refers to specific figures and instead prefers more generally familiar concepts and arguments (or chooses to rely on those in conversation with women), and in any case, the English artistic movements of the 1810s owed a lot to those of the late eighteenth century.

And a big eighteenth-century debate was about the merits of modern art, especially literature, compared to ancient art. Historically, there was a lot of deference in English literature to ancient models and dictates, and controversy over newer forms like the novel (in English) but also in poetry and drama and essays. To some people, it seemed like art was going horribly astray by diverging from the ancients (despite the continuing strong influence of Classicism). Others thought the artistic movements of the time were fucking awesome valuable and important, which is generally Austen’s position (most famously in the defense of the novel in NA).

So when Darcy speaks of “such days as these,” I don’t think this is coming from snooty disengagement from the current literary zeitgeist, but rather, the reverse. He’s seeing all these ideas being hotly debated in various essays and treatises, and the English novel taking modern form, and poetry undergoing changes that will only become more drastic, etc etc, and thinks—this is important. Anybody with a family library should be adding the literature that’s coming out at this time.

TL;DR I think Darcy has an affinity for modern art/literature/culture in any case, but also, is so convinced of the importance of the literary “moment” he’s living in that he thinks he’d basically be shaming his ancestors if he didn’t include it in the collection that he’ll pass down to the next generation as it was passed to him.

I’ve always been kind of iffy on Jane Austen, but I just finished Northanger Abbey, and I positively ADORED it. I could not put it down. It was smart, funny, and I love both Catherine and Henry. So I decided that I’m going to commence a read of Austen and give her another chance, partly because I’ve always really wanted to love her and partly because it’s springtime, which seems like the perfect time to read Austen. So onto Pride and Prejudice (which I have read before, but it was a long time ago) we go 💕

I think I understand all of this... EXCEPT ‘Tender Is The Grave’. ?? what does that meeean? I’ve just read the wikipedia synopsis for Tender Is The Flesh, and uhhhh I don’t think we’re going there! (unless that’s why there are no bunnies in S2??)

I don’t really get why ruby is being compared to clara basically the only thing they have in common is their big beautiful eyes. like it’s so obvious to me that she’s a rose parallel it couldn’t be more obvious tbh. Blonde hair dark eyebrows working class mom lover with a tardis key and a sonic upgraded cellphone and a selfless and heroic streak that borders on straight up self endangerment.

"My brother had no regard for her; his pleasures were not what they ought to have been, and from the first he treated her unkindly. The consequence of this, upon a mind so young, so lively, so inexperienced as Mrs. Brandon’s, was but too natural. She resigned herself at first to all the misery of her situation; and happy had it been if she had not lived to overcome those regrets which the remembrance of me occasioned. But can we wonder that, with such a husband to provoke inconstancy, and without a friend to advise or restrain her[...] she should fall?" - Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

having watched the first season of Bridgerton I now understand why Jane Austen fanfic is the way that it is

I think the reason I'm bringing The Tempest and Wuthering Heights together in my mind is not only the parallels between characters but the isolation of the scene and the almost absolute control that one character seems to have over that setting.

Both Heathcliff (by the time Hindley dies) and Prospero have an unnatural control of their surroundings and the people that happen to be within, though obviously Prospero is more overt and magical. The other characters are unable to stand against the machinations of the puppet master: Hindley cannot kill Heathcliff just as Caliban cannot kill Prospero. Heathcliff and Prospero's triumphs beginning with a ferocious storm that they either command or defy.

The setting of Wuthering Heights feels like an island even though it isn't. Outsiders are few, but also seem unable to survive. Hindley's wife sickens further and dies; Lockwood is struck by severe illness on his second day. Nelly talks about the native inhabitants having an inborn strength. The inability of the parish to keep a curate and therefore it's moral isolation.

The way it feels like only two families exist, the Lintons and the Earnshaws and there are multiple intermarriages between them. Yet the two houses are even isolated from each other, a treacherous road between them, unable to see one house from the other, and a massive divide in manners and customs.

The way that once Isabella runs off, Heathcliff does not pursue her. Perhaps because he doesn't care to, but conversely because his power is drawn from the very land he has adopted as his own...

My Favorite Austen Girlies

Fanny Price

Catherine Moreland

Marianne Dashwood

Emma Woodhouse

Lizzie Bennet

I would not be able to take any villains seriously in bnha HAVE ANY OF THEM EVEN SMOKED WEED

i wish persuasion was a little longer. it's only been like. eight hours of listening. and it's over. and i miss it.. 100 more pages of daily occurrences at uppercroft anne agonising over wentworth STAT.

sorry i’m still not over it lmao like the fact that henry golding would have been a perfect wentworth!!! how do u fuck up ur understanding of ur own adaptation this badly

jane austen was literally a comedian like some of her characters are sooo funny