Here's a very literary post

I don't read Elle in the US, but I've bought two copies of the UK edition this week alone. (I would explain, but such behavior is obviously inexplicable.) Anyway, UK Elle has a page where they ask some famous person about their favorite books. And so here are some words of wisdom from Vivienne Westwood:

The Gods will have Blood - Anatole France
I couldn't put this book about the French Revolution down. It's about a young man who started with good motives, but became corrupted by extremism. I've given this book to people and they tell me they can't get through it. Sometimes books are difficult, but you should carry on because the more you read, the more familiar you become with other ideas. It's about being what I call a 'fit reader' -- you have to push yourself and eventually you'll come to understand it.

Very sensible.

Tray tables up

Hello from London! So far I have been stressing out over the whole "needing a place to live" thing, wandering around Kensington being jealous of millionaires with private gardens, and completely failing at avoiding jet lag. My standard procedure is: (1) sleep at least an hour on the plane; (2) do not fall asleep at all until 8pm on the first day; (3) go to bed at a reasonably normal time on the second day. Basically the point is to follow the local rhythms as soon as you arrive. This time I (1) did not sleep on the plane; (2) fell asleep as soon as I was let into my hotel room at 2pm; (3) stayed up until 4:30am on the second night. So it's been going great.

This all translates into more posts for you, though, because I have been reading a lot in my extreme stressed-out/jet-lag-ness. First up: the magazines.

I have written before about my need for magazines on a flight. This time, I had three, all with a cover price of $4.99 (jeez, magazines have gotten expensive, huh?). Here is the very scientific rundown I composed for you during the flight.

Chicago
Why? My mom got me a subscription for this as part of a Groupon deal. I get the logic: a magazine about Chicago, I then lived in Chicago, it's not rocket science. However this magazine is really not for me. It is for people who care about "movers and shakers" and which obscenely expensive restaurants are most trendy. Anyway, I threw the latest issue into my bag on the way out the door because hey, it's a long flight.
Top cover stories? "494 Top Doctors"; "Gangs and Politicians: Relationships you need to know about"
Best part? I liked the profile of a local auctioneer who claims to be "really into taxidermied animals" right now. Also, the page about non-alcoholic cocktails was kind of interesting.
One-word summary: Blerg.
Can you expand on that? This magazine has no relevance to my "lifestyle", and not just because I don't live in Chicago anymore.

National Geographic Traveler
Why? I'm a traveler! I picked this one out because I hadn't read it before and it sounded like it might give me some inspiration for pleasure traveling. I hoped for some good travel tips and entertaining stories.
Top cover stories? "Return to Venice: Unlocking the mysteries of the world's greatest masquerade"; "Island of Zen: Exploring Japan's Shikoku"
Best part? I liked the little two-page spread about Portugal. And the pictures were predictably pretty.
One word summary: Disappointing.
Can you expand on that? I guess there are travelers and there are travelers. I like to go places and see things; it seems like a totally natural way to spend time and money to me. But I don't consider it a part of my identity, per se; and, it turns out, I don't particularly care to read about other people's vacations. Plus, that Venice article? It was about a middle-aged woman who goes every year to dress up as Charlie Chaplin. Man, talk about things I don't get at all.

Cooking Light
Why? I bought this on my way to Orlando in the fall and ended up keeping it and trying some of the recipes. I just really liked the design, the number of ideas, and the general approach to food.
Top cover stories? "25 Healthy Chicken Dinners"; "Best Light Chocolate Recipe Ever"
Best part? The chicken feature is really good; I've got dog-ears on the Pomegranate Glazed Chicken and a Chicken and Chorizo Stew. Mark Bittman has a recipe for "Farotto" (risotto with farro instead of rice, geddit?) with butternut squash and hazelnuts that sounds great. And of course all the chocolate recipes...
One word summary: Yum!
Can you expand on that? Once again, this title prove itself a winner, and I am resolved to only buy makeup/fashion magazines or food magazines for the plane from now on.

I should have two, possibly even three, books to post about soon, what hey.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that everyone writing about Jane Austen must start out with that phrase.

So here's where I was this week:

I figured out how to do captions!

More on what I was reading by that pool in the next post.

I, like all other 25 year old women, am trying to save money and also lose weight, so I went to the airport thinking in a self-congratulatory way that I was very smart to have eaten a sandwich and packed a library book before I left home. Of course by the time I reached my gate I was carrying a McDonald's value meal and the latest issues of Allure and -- oh, the irony -- Cooking Light.

Best laid plans, etc. If there's a better way to pass a short flight than by reading about makeup and listening to dancey pop I don't know about it. It all turned out for the best, though, since there in the middle of Allure was a fairly long article about Jane Austen. As they say at AustenBlog, she's everywhere!

Get ready for some literature.

To be honest, I do not expect good things from an Austen article that has a big picture of Keira &$*%ing Knightley at its top and appears in a magazine with "Rock & Roll Hair!" as a major headline. The little teaser subheading is also pretty cringey with its "Jane Austen expertly dissected the social networks of her era" and its "she's more relevant than ever". But! Many apologies and kudos to essay author Liesl Schillinger, because this was actually quite good. And, for the record, she does not start out with the "truth universally acknowledged" business but rather like so:

Have you ever asked yourself what Jane Austen might have thought of you if she'd known you? It's tempting to think you would number among her heroes and heroines... But what must it have been like for the English women and men of her era who read her novels and guessed that they were caricatured in her pages--perhaps as a naive country girl (Harriet in Emma), a calculating social climber (Mrs. Clay in Persuasion), or a deceitful frenemy (Isabella in Northanger Abbey)?

Setting aside the use of the word "frenemy", which I do not condone, this is exactly what I like to see. It's all too easy to focus on the love stories, but the real accomplishment in Austen's novels is that she gets all these various characters, good, evil, and silly, just exactly right.

Schillinger says she first read Austen at age nine, and every time she's read (and re-read) the books she's marked the initials of friends and family in the margins next to passages that remind her of them. This isn't something I'd ever think of doing, but it sounds really sweet, particularly when she describes re-reading a book and being reminded of what her life was like the last time she read it.

Of course, we know that Schillinger is Good People when she says that Persuasion is her favorite. Persuasion is my favorite too -- arguably it's the favorite of anyone who's read all six (she says snootily). It's hard to resist the idea that all your wishes will come true in the end, that your regrets can be undone with time. And even though that aspect of the story might seem too "fairy-tale" to be realistic, Persuasion still might be the best example of how "rooted" Austen's romances are. For Austen, people are part of a society; they have real circumstances and connections and limitations. There's no riding off into the sunset, and while love can conquer many things it can't necessarily conquer all. Of course, my own interpretation of Persuasion is that Anne wasn't wrong in refusing Wentworth, and while she regrets it from the heart and with hindsight can see that it would have worked out, rejecting him was, at the time, the only sensible thing to do. But that's me.

Anyway, I will be back on Monday to tell you about my new pal, Anthony Trollope.