Plum from SW Michigan, USA

You're supposed to detest Mr. Collins. That's the whole point! lol
I didn't mean to suggest that "he's there" in crucial scenes, but the facts of his being who he is in whatever relationship he is in with everyone (get that?) either keeps the story line moving or else gives reason to better understand the depth of who the main characters are and the pressures they face.

i.e., at such time that Mr. Bennett dies, Mr. Collins will inherit the estate and Widow Bennett and her unmarried daughters will be left without a home or income. This does much to help us understand Mother Bennett's desperation to see her daughters married, preferably well enough to support her, too.

In supporting Elizabeth's refusal of Mr. Collins, Father Bennett betrays his special affection for Elizabeth and, less directly, his overall attitude of negligence in thinking of the future for his wife and children (also expressed in his negligence of Lydia and Kitty's character education).

Of course, the Collins proposal to Elizabeth and then to Charlotte gives us to understand Elizabeth's nature and the social risk she's taking in being so willful.

It's only when Charlotte becomes Mrs. Collins that Elizabeth travels to where she can meet Mr. Darcy again in the presence of the formidable matriarch and the daughter whom Mr. Darcy is expected to marry. Minus this Collins connection, the story would have dried up after Darcy wisks the Bingleys away from the Bennetts.

And our understanding of how Collins treats Lady Catherine de Bourgh (and how she treats Collins) makes us to understand how she expects to be treated, which makes it so much more shocking when Elizabeth stands up to her.

Just off the top of my head I can think of Mr. Collins affecting our understanding of 8 of the other characters. This is a huge amount of usage from a "minor character." I don't think he can be ignored and I have certainly found that he can be greatly enjoyed (from a literary distance).

Plum, I have been reading your JA blog(?) with interest. I have only ever watched P&P and Sense & Sensibility (the movie with Emma Thompson) and you have piqued my interest. I think I might get the books from the library and start reading. I know it will be too late to join the discussion but as with the previous discussion ( a year or two back) regarding the Cross stitch series by Dianne Garabaldon(?) you never know whats there until you look into it.
Thanks again and I'll keep checking in to see how the JA discussion continues.

Hi Plum and members of the JA group - I have not been ignoring you, I have been suffering from the mother of all head colds and have been feeling too sorry for myself - and you know I'm ill when I neglect this site.
I had been looking forward to the discussion on P&P as it seems the best known - probably thanks to the BBC production of it in the mid 90's with the delectable Colin Firth. I read the book as a teenager after seeing the Laurence Olivier film version on TV. This, I think, was the moment I realised how wonderful reading a book was. How much more it told me about the Bennetts and Mr Darcy than the film had. I do agree with what you said about Mr Collins but that is what is so glorious about a story well-told - the characters are interwoven and all have their own little or large impact on the story. Sorry - I had so much more to say but my brain is fuzzy today.
BTW - you'll never believe what was on TV the other night - 'Persuasion'. I have recorded it.

Hi Plum. Since your message last week I decided to learn a little more about your part of the world, seeing that you were learning something about mine. Your extreme cold was what really struck me. I can't imagine such low temperatures. The lowest we experience is an occasional overnight of -1 or -2 (Celsius) in the winter, whereas in SW Michigan, when I checked a while ago, it was -14 C. Brrrrr!! Needless to say, we don't experience snow. On the very rare occasion when it happens, it melts as soon as it hits the ground, although there are places in Victoria where snow falls and there are ski fields in the Victorian Alps.
Our summers go to the other extreme and right now we're facing a nasty week of temperatures in the high 30's and low 40's. The forecast is for 40 (105F) on Tuesday and 41 on Wednesday and Thursday. I intend to stay home and keep cool as much as possible and spend time watching the world's top tennis players melt in the heat at the Australian Open.
What are summers like for you?

Hi Plum - I know I’m late doing this but just calling in to thank you for the wonderful birthday greetings. I did indeed have a lovely day, made better by being able to spend it with the whole family. I feel happier than I have in years and I thank you and all my other Sudoku friends for your friendship and support. I love this site.
Just also to let you know, I may be vewwy vewwy quiet on Austen Acres this week - I have to admit that I have never read or even seen an adaption of Northanger Abbey -

Okay - Northanger Abbey. JA's humorous novel about Jumping To Conclusions and the messy backpedaling that results when reality is revealed.

JA's novels are famous for their costuming as they occur during that brief period, call it Regency(UK), Empire(FR) or Federalist(US), when high-waisted, slim-skirted fashions rapidly jumped into favor and then out again.

Northanger Abbey makes us to see that JA's works were similarly a literary and intellectual bridge between the neoclassical order of the 18th century and the gothic romanticism of the 19th (think Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights as well as all the poets and the rich prose that was fashionable around the time of the U.S. Civil War).

In NA, JA pokes pointed fun at popular gothic novels of her day AND the silly geese who read them and allowed them to miscolor their perceptions of the world around themselves. (This point was expressed much more subtly in S&S.) NA is an outright farce on the romantic genre. You can't have the famous scenes of finding papers in a chest in the sudden darkness of a candle snuffed out nor of sneaking into the dead (murdered?) wife's chambers) and keep the story serious. It was meant to mock.

But Jane's knife carves both ways; as is typical with JA plotlines, the stuff and nonsense of Established Social Order is also shamefully exposed.

NA is full of what I would consider to be some of the best "snapshots" of life in JA's time. "You are there" with Catherine in Bath, and learn exactly what made Bath the social mecca of her day. (I believe Bath figures in all her other novels, doesn't it? We'll have to keep our eyes open.) We get to visit the playground that P&P's Lydia and Kitty aspired to, and that S&S's Marianne disdained in her broken hearted condition.

And there's also a glimpse into the "modern remodeling and redecorating" of JA's time that sensibly eliminated drafts and ghosts as it converted an ancient Abbey into snug apartments.

So, NA takes the typical JA occurances:
social posturing and manipulation for financially and socially advantageous marriages, false friendships, moralizing as to what constitues a proper education for a woman (that's present in many JA novels, isn't it?), plus a love story for our heroine --

and adds a frankly uncharacteristic look at JA's independant struggle to be a writer of what she chose to write in the face of changing fashions.

JA comes right out and names her contemporary authoresses and the titles that comprised some of the popular fiction of the day, then questions their social and literary worth! Pretty bold.

I read a review recently that complained that JA novels are so often left out of Brit Lit courses becauses she doesn't fit into the broad strokes of what came before or after her. Yet her work was very well received in her lifetime by a discerning public.

NA is a good read. Check it out for free on the web at

htt

Northanger Abbey free on the web:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/121

Article about authoresses contemporary to JA and some mentioned in NA:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090123.wbkread24/BNStory/globebooks/home ?cid=al_gam_mostemail

Hi Plum! Thanks for your sympathetic message re: our tire accident. I am very sorry for all your troubles, too! Oooh, & I am sure it would be much worse to deal with those in the cold & snowy weather. You must have been so aggravated to miss the meeting you had spent so long preparing for (sorry about the dangling participle). Seems like car repairs must be higher priced in FL? Maybe they just gouge us old retirees down here? My cousin & his wife who used to live & work for GM in Lansing have just retired & moved to FL in Dec. They are loving their new lifestyle & climate! I have not been to your page in awhile & was interested in your Jane Austen YouTube & discussions! I watched the YouTube just now, but will have to come back another day to read up on the book talk. I am so far behind in all of Sudoku happenings & many other things here at home. I think I need to quit traveling so much! Bye for now. Please stay warm & well up there.

Plum - thank you for the link...and your comments on Northanger Abbey. I have loved all the Jane Austen movies, but have never actually read her. Now I'm thoroughly intrigued. I really enjoyed your youtube about her, also. I bookmarked the link you posted and want to read NA.
We had such a great book club meet over The Book Thief and it was great to find your posts this morning. I was enchanted with Death and his/her perceptions through the story. I especially loved when he wrote about how Rudy touched him. Rudy was my favorite, too.
Take good care and if you have a chance, send some of that snow my way please!

Vici - Thanks for visiting. I'm thrilled to think you may actually crack a JA novel. I don't think I read my first one until I was in my 40's.
You're making me laugh to think I talked you into reading NA. Of all the places to start! LOL My advice for first JA novel would be to pick a favorite JA movie and then read the book the movie was based on.
It's funny, but I wouldn't recommend Northanger Abbey as a first JA novel read (though I certainly won't stop you). Why? It's very much a severe "period piece" for me - a humorous and interesting piece, certainly, but the "deep end of the pond" as far as JA novels go. Main objection is that it can be a turn-off (I think) when it comes to the patronizing-to-modern-ears attitude of a man consciously undertaking to form the thoughts and guide the intellectual development of a woman he's interested in marrying. It's "forgivable" once you're used to the time period but it's rather like having a first date with a guy and finding out he's taking you to a family reunion.(?) There's stuff there guaranteed to scare you away until/unless you've already made up your mind to brave the deep water.
As I said in a previous JA post, I think Pride & Prejudice is the perfect "gateway" book. But, you're a big girl and you don't need anyone to hold your hand. I have faith in your literary discernment because of The Book Thief. I'm just hoping you don't pick up NA, throw it down (or at me!) and never pick up another JA book as long as you live.
Comments from others appreciated!

Hello again, Plum. I don't envy you the summertime humidity. Is it the nearness of the lakes that creates it? We have a few days each year that are pretty humid and on those days our air conditioner - which is evaporative (known colloquially as a "swampy")- is quite useless. The rest of the summer it works very well and is much more economical (and environmentally friendly) than a refrigerated unit.

I was interested in your comments about "The Book Thief". I read it a few months ago and loved it. Now you've made me want to re-visit it, but I've loaned it to my sister so I'll have to wait.
I'm also a fan of Jane Austen and have all of her books at least twice. I think I've read "Pride and Prejudice" 5 or 6 times - one of my favourite books of all times. I've also seen all film versions a few times, as well as "Bride and Prejudice" - the Bollywood version of P and P. Others in my all-time favourites category include "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Cloudstreet" by Australian writer Tim Winton.

Jane Austen links - free pring or audiobooks online.

www.gutenberg.org has all the JA books free online and I noticed all are also availabe as human-read audio texts to download. P&P has 3 entries which makes me wonder if there are 3 different recordings. I would check out all the audios myself, but have had to stop enjoying so many videos and recordings off the internet, as my provider slows us down if we "overuse" our subscription.

For example:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1342
audio index, scroll to Austen, Jane, 1775-1817:
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/categories/1

Plum - thanks for the fore-warning re: NA. That will help me hold it all in perspective, but I find the idea of reading her edgiest book intriguing. And I want to read a story I don't already know. The plot almost sounds a bit like Pygmalion. Will let you know how it goes!

Hi Plum,
I really enjoyed your comment (30th January 2009) on my Page, which continued our exchange about the expression "too funny". You suggested two reasons for my enquiry - (i) that it was to continue the repartee, (ii) that the expression was truly unknown to me. Up to a point both are true. I have heard it before, but it is an American expression, and you have now added to my appreciation by pointing out it is an abbreviation of "too funny for words", which nicely explains its etiology.
I truly enjoyed your closely and clearly written reply. I also (like you) am very pedantic and punish myself into writing exactly what I want to say - sometimes successfully; sometimes not. This bodes well, as we may well experience some choice exchanges in the future - I hope so.
Thanks for you attentive concern about my condition (= health). I daily improve but I still have a long way to go before I change up into overdrive.
I shall be pleased when I can manage without my attached catheter. I can well do without a second bladder dangling from my right leg. Especially at night, I have so many various kinds of taps and valves to turn on and off that it is very easy to make a messy mistake !!!

Thanks for the information, Plum! It's been so long since I've lived in the Midwest I'd forgotten how long winter lasted. I remember one exceptionally cold winter in northern Illinois (I was 14 years old) when the ice skating pond in our town froze over by November 1, and I skated every single night from November 1 through the end of March. The ice never melted the entire winter! Don't think that's ever happened again.

Mansfield Park where "The play's the thing." MP is unusual in JA as in it she explores the lower classes. There are many very well drawn character types all dancing around the same stage, so to speak. It's a very interesting read.
MP is a classic "wait until Daddy gets home" book. It also contains the most scandalous event in all of JA's literature: Outright Premeditated Adultery.
The heroine Fanny reminds me of Jane Eyre. A lot of people think Fanny is a stickler-in-the-mud and fairly well undefined, but I think she is very well defined, morally, and that more than compensates for the lack of money, prestige or physical beauty and strength. When it comes right down to it, she is proven to have more of value than the other characters.

Hi Plum - Helped to awaken my mathematical brain today. It was a little rusty and I freely admit to using a calculator!! Please see today's page 4 if you have no idea what I am talking about!

Re:the websites/ecommerce stores
We have a retail open to the public music store here (actually in the front half of our house.) So one e-store is the music store http://mrbandmanmusic.auctivacommerce.com/ The other is for my "garage sale finds" dishes, knickknacks,toys, collectibles, whatever. http://hazelshodgepodge.auctivacommerce.com/
Fill me in on your interest in webdesign/ecommerce.
My brother learned to speed read. My dad never believed that he actually read things that fast. I read pretty fast but don't think it qualifies as speed reading, especially if I am learning something new.

Re: the monkey and the deciduous trees - the photo was taken in New Delhi, India, where the temps can fall to 4 degrees centigrade. North India has a mix of deciduous trees and tropical ones that stay in leaf.

Thanks for the lovely wishes, Plum! Yes, there are many blessings in my life ... and I appreciate all of them!

Plum, is this a virtual tour or a real one?
Sydney - historical - 'The Rocks' where the First Colonial Settlement was established. Harbour Bridge & Opera House. China Town. Taronga Park Zoo. Sydney is a multicultural city with all the pros & cons that go with that. Blue Mountains, Katoomba close by. Don't forget the rest of NSW, Opal mines, Silver at Broken Hill etc.
Qld. V large & mostly underwater at the moment. More than twice the size of Texas. Australia's playground. Hot, so bring swimsuit! Some of the best beaches! Australia Zoo, Very important as it is near where I live. Outback, Mt Isa mines. Sheep & cattle stations (our equiv. of ranches) the size of some countries.
That should give a starting place to the tour, hope it helps.

'Emma' is my least favorite Jane Austen. Although I have never read it, the films I've seen do not make me want to.
Ultimately, it seems it's a book about life's wasted (or lost forever) time due to stupidity. But then again, 'Persuasion' has an element of lost time in the theme as well and that's my favorite!
The whole story line in 'Emma' seems to bother me too much. The main character so unsymphathic to everyone else's lives. They all seem oblivious to each other's real needs. Other's seem as if they are going through life as sheep. It's just plain luck that life turns out okay in the end (minus the lost time) despite all the manipulations.
Is THAT what you are supposed to learn? Or do I need to actually READ this one????

Hello Plum, I noticed in your post on easy today that you mentioned homeschool. Do you homeschool? I have two grown boys that I homeschooled and am still homeschooling my daughter.

Oh ouch, Plum! You and me! I have a swollen right knee from running during the winter break. It was getting better, then I stupidly upped my exercise and tweaked it again! So I'm hobbling around and the only exercise I'm getting is a half hour on my Nordic trainer every week day and an hour a day on the weekend.

Congratulations to Little Plum. It is good to see that the event recognizes hard work by awarding prizes 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. Competition is good for the soul, hard work deserves to be rewarded.

Plum - when is you daughter's assignment due??

My dear Plum - Thank you for sharing my grief with me. Thank you, also, for the love and prayers. I appreciate them.

Hi Plum:

Thanks for your kind thoughts, I am feeling better and going in the right direction. Go Blue!!

Hello Plum - The last week of April or first part of May sounds great for lunch. I heard a rumor to the effect of 10 inches of snow this week-end. I hope it is just a rumor!

Hello Plum - thank you for your lovely comments about my photos.
I have two piroski recipes but the one I do is a cream cheese pastry with sauteed bacon and onion in them and folded over and brushed with beaten egg then baked in the oven. Delicious!

Plum - I remembered when I first had my page a few people asked me about piroskis and I just checked and sure enough, I had put the recipe on page 2 of my own page.

Thank you for your kind words, Plum. You do my little ego a world of good. Today is another delightful autumn day in Bendigo - definitely the best time of year in my part of the world, although a bit more rain would be good, preferably at night.
I never did get back to you about Jane Austen - sorry about that. have you seen the recent BBC two-part series "Lost in Austen"? It was good fun.

The Chicken with Almond recipe
Ingredients:
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
6 to 8 boneless chicken breast halves, skin removed
1/2 cup dry white wine
Preparation:
Heat butter over medium heat in a large skillet; add almonds. Cook, stirring, until almonds are lightly browned. Remove almonds with a slotted spoon or spatula, reserving butter in skillet. Set almonds aside.
Combine flour, rosemary, salt, and pepper. Dredge chicken in flour mixture. Brown chicken in reserved butter over medium heat for about 5 to 6 minutes on each side. Stir in wine; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes, or until chicken is done.

Remove chicken to a serving platter, reserving juices in skillet. Set chicken aside, and keep warm. Bring juices to a boil; stir in reserved almonds. Spoon almond mixture over chicken. Serve with hot cooked rice, if desired.
Serves 6 to 8.

Feel better soon, Plum! What a crummy thing, and to be hanging on for so long. It ain't fair, I tell you. Sending you a prayer and positive thoughts that by this time tomorrow, you'll be back to your Plumalicious self.

Plum,
Thanks for remembering me and my college tuition woes. Well, we got through the first year almost (official on 5/5 which incidently is also my birthday), we - my daughter Chelsea and I - are so surprised that it went so fast. Preparing to fill out FAFSA forms again to federal loans for next year. Pretty much depleted what we had put aside this year, was expecting it to last a little longer but like everyone else our investments took a big hit. Hoping that between us and Chelsea we can borrow enough money to allow her to continue. Luckily my husband and I both still work. Soon we will begin the college search with our high school junior. UGH! How about you, how are you doing, handling all this?

Aimee :)

Hi Plum,

Thanks for the birthday wishes! It's been a lovely week for me, with out-of-town visitors, two cakes, homemade ice cream, and a party! LOL Now it's time to start walking to the park...

Cheers,
Jenn

back from your crash! Sounded like it would be a fun day!

just hopping in to wish you a very Happy Easter and a season full of joy!

Hi Plum!

Dear Plum.
Many thanks for you remark concerning "Easter",it is just a writting mistake.
I made the correction to my page and let me now wishing you a very Happy Easter.
Thanks.
Wagdy