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Posts Tagged ‘jane austen’

Rebecca Wolff

Austen, Marvin, Homeopathy, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E

On my way to work this morn listening to local NPR interviewing the woman who wrote this book called Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict (and maybe now its sequel). She was rattling on in a very professional way and then she described a doctor’s approach in her novel as very “homeopathic,” in that he/she wasn’t just totally committed to prescribing meds for everything right away. This reminded me right away of this review of Cate Marvin’s book Fragment of the Head of a Queen that I saw a while ago in the Women’s Review of Books (which, amazingly, doesn’t seem to have a website) that just astonished me. Here’s the passage that astonished me:

Rebecca Wolff

This is about Jane Austen

I thought I’d share some mature thoughts on Lisa Robertson’s magic powers but instead I’m thinking about Jane Austen. She’s really come down in the world. My parents were watching some PBS bodice-ripper a few months ago, and it took me several minutes to discern that it was a hotted-up Pride & Prejudice. Lots of longing and heavy breathing in between those elegant sentences. (I know I sound Puritanical but I’ve recently realized I am a Puritan.)

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