Which Austen heroine are you?

You are Anne Elliot of Persuasion! Let's face it; you're easily persuaded, particularly when friends and relatives try to use "the Elliot way" against you. But this doesn't mean that you don't have conviction. Actually, your sense of duty is overwhelming. And though you won't stick your neck out too often, you have learned to speak up when it counts. To boot, you know how to handle sticky situations. You love deeply and constantly.

You Are...Anne Elliot!

Take the Jane Austen Character Quiz here!

Feel free to post this placard, with a link to the main quiz page, on your webpage or online journal. You may direct link the image for the purposes of the quiz, just don't abuse the privilege, and be aware that the files may move.

Quiz Source - Which Austen heroine are you?

SPIN substitute - Persuasion by Jane Austen

Since I refused to read that horrible book about the Dumb Blonde who does nothing but gossip all day, it occurred to me that perhaps I could read another novel by Jane Austen.

Up until this Spin challenge began, the only Jane Austen Book I was familiar with, was of course Pride and Prejudice.

Now I am familiar with 3 of Jane Austens Books. P&P, Emma and the novel I WAS able to read.

Title - Persuasion
Author - Jane Austen
Published - 1818

THIS Book I fell in love with.

I now claim Persuasion to be MY most favourite Jane Austen Novel!!!

There are several reasons why I LOVED this book.

1 - It only has 24 chapters compared to 55 of the Dumb Blonde Book.

2 - It was set in Somersetshire and I have ancestors from Somersetshire, although they were NOT from Bath.

3 - It started off in Chapter 1 with the Elliot family genealogy and I LOVE genealogy!!

4 - Anne is the middle of three daughters. So am I!!

5 - Anne loves to read. So do I!!

6 - Anne did not get on at with her older sister, but did get on reasonably well with her younger sister. The same for me. My older sister and I never got on at all. My younger sister and I get on very well indeed.

7 - This novel involves Officers from the Royal Navy, and takes place a few years after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. (Persuasion is set in 1814). I have always loved the sea and the many Navies that fought battles upon the waves. I also love reading and learning about the Age of Exploration!!

8 - Like Anne, I too was persuaded to not follow a dream of mine (education rather than marriage). This is a decision I have not been able to rectify and which I still regret.

9 - Anne married late. Well, it was late for the Regency era anyway. She was 27 when she became engaged to Captain Wentworth. I too married late, I was 35 when I met him, and 36 when I got married. 

10 - In this novel Anne gets to travel. While she does not travel to London, she does travel from her home near Crewkerne in Somersetshire to Lyme Regis and to Bath. I don't think anyone from the other novels get to travel much. Certainly not Emma.

Lyme Regis is famous for dinosaur skeletons and Mary Anning who discovered them. Oh, but in 1814, Mary Anning is still just a teenager. If you know the riddle - She sells sea shells on the sea shore - this riddle is believed to refer to Mary Anning.

I have travelled and lived in 3 countries in my lifetime. New Zealand, Solomon Islands and Canada.

Frederick Wentworth has travelled all over the Mediterranean during the course of the Napoleonic wars.



There are of course plenty of differences between myself and Anne as well.

Anne's mother died when she was a child. Both of my parents are still alive - although my mother is currently ill with cancer.

Anne's older sister never married. Both of my sisters married in their twenties. I did not get married until I was 36 years old.

Both of Anne's sisters are still alive in this novel, although the oldest sister does not have a very large part to play. My older sister passed away more than 20 years ago. She left behind 3 young children. Those children are now well adjusted and happy young adults in their 20's. None of them married yet, although one is living with a partner.

   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's enough, lets get on with it... (quote by Rolf Harris)

Eight years before the novel opens, Anne Elliot was persuaded by her godmother to NOT marry a young officer in the Royal Navy because he had no money and no prospects.

Anne deeply regrets making that decision but has not seen the young man since.

In the meantime, her father, Sir Walter Elliot, a Baron, has been living above his means and is now in debt. He is forced to leave his home and move to a smaller house in Bath and let out the family home of Kellynch Hall.

The new tenants turn out to be Admiral and Mrs Croft. Mrs Croft's brother is the young man whom Anne rejected. Only a very few people are aware that they did have plans to marry. Anne is terrified of meeting him.

Anne's younger sister Mary demands that Anne go and live with her instead of moving to Bath and Anne agrees. Because Mary still lives just three miles away from Kellynch Hall, there was always the chance that she and the now Captain Frederick Wentworth would eventually meet, which they do. By now the Captain has made a lot of money from the wars. It is rumoured that he now has 25,000 pounds, which is QUITE the fortune!!! 

 It is clear that Captain Wentworth has not forgiven Anne for her actions. He flirts with Mary's two young sisters in law - Louisa and Henrietta Musgrove.

Someone suggests a ride to Lyme Regis. so they all bundle up and make the 4 hour trek to Lyme.

Lyme Regis has this huge harbour wall called The Cobb. It is wide enough to easily walk 3 abreast. It has stairs along it every few hundred feet, leading down to the Lower Cobb (or lower wall).

Louisa Musgrove, being the teenager she is, jumps off the steps and into Frederick's arms. She runs back up the stairs to do that again. But Frederick gets distracted and there is noone to catch Louisa when she jumps the second time. She hits the ground and hits her head.

Henrietta and Mary both start screaming in panic thinking Louisa is dead.  Frederick doesn't know what to do either. Anne demands that Frederick's friend Benwick be sent to find a surgeon (doctor),  since he has lived in Lyme and would know where to find one.

Anne and Henrietta return home while Mary and Charles - Louisa's older brother and his wife - remain in Lyme.

Louisa ends up remaining in Lyme for a month during her recovery. Wentworth disappears to Shropshire to visit his brother. Noone notices his friend James Benwick who stays behind and visits Louisa every day.

Anne is eventually persuaded to visit Bath with her godmother Lady Russell. While in Bath, some distant cousins of Mr Elliot, the Dalrymples, who are slightly higher than Mr Elliot on the Nobility rankings, also visit Bath and Mr Elliot schemes to obtain an audience.

Around this time, the news is spread that Louisa has fully recovered and is now engaged to be married to James Benwick, the friend of Frederick Wentworth, Anne is thrilled to hear this news because she had thought that Louisa was rather overly friendly with Frederick in Lyme and that perhaps they would become engaged.

At the same time, another cousin of the Elliots, William Elliot, who is the heir to Mr Elliot, is making a play for Anne, in order to not only obtain the Baronet title, but also what little money there is left.  He starts a rumour that he and Anne are engaged. This has Frederick rushing to Bath to find out for himself. He has never stopped loving Anne. He eventually sends Anne a letter.

Tell me that it is not too late.

Anne runs after Frederick and when he proposes again, she accepts and tells him that this time she will NOT be persuaded to change her mind.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jane Austen died in July 1817. Persuasion was published in December 1817, although the publisher placed the official date of 1818 on the book instead. 

This is another typical love story from Jane Austen. But this time while Anne's sister Mary was the one doing the whining, and everyone did the gossiping, Anne is portrayed the sensible one. Which is why I like her so much. In Lyme, while everyone was panicking over Louisa, Anne knew what to do. This is why Frederick notices her again.

At one point Anne described what she considered to be good company.

My idea of good company, is the company of well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation. 

I whole-heartedly agree. Well, about the well-informed people anyway. I do love a good intelligent conversation. I detest gossip.

Failed my first Spin - Emma by Jane Austen

OK I give up.

I announce it officially.

I cannot stand Emma!!!

I have not been able to get past Chapter 10. There is NO way I will be able to finish this book.

I will NEVER ever touch this book to read again. 

I don't know how ANYONE can read this novel.

Emma does nothing but whine and gossip and stick her nose into other peoples business all day, every day.

Sure she can dance and sing and paint and play the harpschicord, all very prettiily. But in modern vernacular, she is absolutely the epitome of a DUMB BLONDE!!!!

And the fact that the classic actress who plays Emma in the movie of the book, was Gwyneth Paltrow, who is also a blonde, and sometimes acts very dumb, just enforces the Dumb Blonde stereotype. 

And I cannot stand Dumb Blondes. Which is why I hate the movie CLUELESS.I could not watch Emma either.

It eventually occurred to me to read another Jane Austen Novel in place of Emma, so that is what I did.

Why my Dad loves Jane Austen's books

I asked a question in my previous post about why my dad loves Jane Austen's books. So I sent my dad an email and asked him. This is his reply.


Emma is not my top favourite. I find Emma Woodhouse to be such a bossy, opinionated young woman, that she irritates me somewhat.

There are several reasons I like the Austen novels.

1. They are “old friends” – I have been re-reading them since I was introduced to “Persuasion” in English 1 at University. Must have been about 1959. (and yes this was before I was born)

2. I find her characters so vivid and  real. I know one or two “Miss Bates” in real life, who waffle on too much, and are really boring. Austen even manages to make Emma very vivid, so that she is like a real person, even if she is a slow learner.

3. My all-time favourite is “Pride and Prejudice”. It has a good caste of interesting characters. Rev. Collins is one of the most marvellous comic creations in all of English literature. The plot is very carefully mapped out, so that the families of the hero and the heroine, even though from differing social classes, are perfectly symmetrical.

4. The novels collectively are like a window on life in the middle classes in the era 1790 – 1810. The limitations placed on woman are amazing, and clearly delineated. About the only important decision a young woman of that time could make for herself was to accept or decline a marriage proposal. Of course, marriage was the only “career option” for middle class women. They could not take a job, and young women had nothing to spend their time on except in gossip, and approved crafts such as art, sewing etc. The social snobbery that was taken for granted is interesting. Work was somehow demeaning, and “to be in trade” was to mark one’s low level in the pecking order.

You need to remember that this is all very middle class. Most of our ancestors would have been “working class” who only appear fleetingly in Austen’s novels as “Cook” or “Gardener”.

I hope you enjoy “Emma”

Love

Dad

BTW, Pride and Prejudice is the only other decent Austen novel that I have read as well. I really admire Elizabeth Bennet for being as strong willed and as intelligent as she is. She wants to be able to have intelligent discussions with her husband, instead of being a trophy wife. Good for her, I say.!!!


I commented back to Dad about his comments.

I totally agree with your point number 4, about the social snobbery.  It is just disgusting.I wonder of this snobbery influenced those who left England on the Mayflower to find religious freedom?

And he commented back to me.

The social snobbery is just how it was, and continued to a greater or lesser degree until the 1st world war. Everyone, except a few radicals, accepted it as normal. The Mayflower was much earlier than this. By Austen’s time, USA was independent and a serious challenge to England’s domination of the seas. Many of the middle and upper classes owned investments in West Indian sugar plantations, a subject that, together with its darker side – slavery -  pops up in at least one novel, Mansfield Park. Austen is a very accurate social commentator.

And one last comment from me - Mansfield Park is also on my classics club list to read.

Reading the SPIN book - Emma by Jane Austen.

There are 55 chapters in Emma. So if I read 5 chapters per day, I should be able to read the whole book in 11 days. This is good, as the deadline is May 15, and that is 5 weeks from today. Plenty of time to read, write and recover.

I did read the first five chapters of Emma today, and made plenty of notes - mostly noting down all the passages that I thought were demeaning towards women or men!!!

Up until today I have not watched any movie or TV series named Emma. Although I have just discovered that the comedy movie CLUELESS is a modern day version of Emma.

I did not like Clueless at all. These teenagers were ditsy and dumb and all they cared about were clothes, makeup and boys.  They were not all blondes - although the leader named Cher was definitely a dumb blonde.

There are 2 movies based on the book called Emma by Jane Austen. Both movies were made in 1996. One was released on TV and other was released in the movie theatres.

The TV movie starred Kate Beckingsale and was filmed in very low lighting. I could not even watch it on Youtube, because it was just so dark!!

The mainstream theatre movie starred Gwyneth Paltrow. This movie was made several years before her Oscar win for Shakespeare in Love.

The Paltrow movie was much nicer in cinematography. Very light both indoors and outdoors.That is all I can say that was good about it. I am only referring to clips seen on Youtube.

But again, I refuse to watch ditsy girls talk of nothing about men and boys and gossiping about their prospects.

All these 18th century girls ever think of, is men and money. They do not wish to marry poor men. They are determined to marry only rich men or men who will inherit money or land.

There is nothing mentioned of feelings or of love.

I have also discovered a recent Mini-Series called Emma made in 2009. This one starred Jonny Lee Miller (from the 1995 movie Hackers) and Romola Garai (whom I have never heard of). I don't plan to be watching this either.


If I were born in 1764 instead of 1964, I guess I would have been considered an old maid by the time I was 25. I actually did not get married until I was 36 years old!!  In the late 1700's that is practically old age, Indeed, some women at age 36, could easily be grandmothers by that age!!!

My father adores Jane Austen's books. I need to ask him why he likes them. And which is his favourite.

Spin Book - Emma by Jane Austen

I now have 5 weeks to read EMMA by Jane Austen. (Number 2 on my Spin List)

I will be reading the Project Gutenberg version.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/158/158-h/158-h.htm

And I think I will also read Final Diagnosis by Arthur Hailey as well. (Number 8 on my spin list)

I am behind on my book reading for this challenge and I do need to read 2 books per month so this will help.

Lucky SPIN Number

We promised you a spin number this morning, and here it is! Your Spin Number is -

2!!!

If you joined the game last week, find number 8 on your Spin List! That's the title you are challenged to read by May 15, 2015. We'll toss a post up on May 15 to see who completed the game.

As always, the prize is the reading experience. In case anyone asks -- it would be awesome if everyone posted about their Spin book on May 15. But that's not mandatory or anything. If you want to, though, have at it! :)

Check in below if you played. What's your #2 title? Are you glad, hesitant, excited about your title? Do tell!

So am I challenged to read number 2 or number 8?? 

Number 2 is one of those books I really dont want to read. 

Number 8 is one that I DO want to read. 

Number 2 on my list is Emma by Jane Austen

Number 8 on my list is Final Diagnosis by Arthur Hailey

Number 8 was chosen for the last spin. 

So these moderators really need to be more careful when CUTTING and PASTING their old posts.

Spin Number 9

Classics Spin Number 9

Source - Classic Spin #9

Choose 20 books from your list that you have NOT yet read
The selection can be -
- five books you are dreading/hesitant to read,
- five books you can’t WAIT to read,
- five books you are neutral about,
- and five free choices - these can be favorite authors, rereads, ancients, whatever you choose.

You have to post your list numbered from 1 to 20. The Spin club managers will choose a number from 1 to 20 and you MUST read the book next to that number before May 15, 2015.


Below is MY SPIN LIST .

1 Richard Adams - Watership Down

2 Jane Austen - EMMA PERSUASION

3 Rachel Carson - Silent Spring

4 Geoffrey Chaucer - Canterbury Tales

5 Agatha Christie - Murder on the Orient Express

6 Umberto Eco - The Name of the Rose

7 F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby

8 Arthur Hailey - Final Diagnosis

9 Helene Hanff - 84 Charing Cross Road

10 Kathryn Kurtz - Dernyi Rising

11 Louis L'amour - Sacketts Land

12 Doris Lessing - The Golden Notebook

13 C S Lewis - The Magicians Nephew

14 James Michener - Tales of the South Pacific

15 Orhan Pamuk - My Name is Red

16 Gene Stratton Porter - Moths of the Limberlost

17 Arthur Ransome - Secret Water

18 Amy Tan - The Joy Luck Club

19 H G Wells -  The Island of Dr. Moreau

20 Laura Ingalls Wilder - Little House on the Prairie

Back to the Classics Challenge

Just found another new challenge. This is called The Back to the Classics Challenge.

 Hosted by Karen, the main rule is to read 12 books (1 per month) from various different categories, but all of them MUST be classics. The categories are as follows.


1.  A 19th Century Classic -- any book published between 1800 and 1899.

2.  A 20th Century Classic -- any book published between 1900 and 1965.  Just like last year, all books must have been published at least 50 years ago to qualify as a classic.  The only exception is books that were published posthumously but written at least 50 years ago.)

3.  A Classic by a Woman Author.

4.  A Classic in Translation. As in last year's category, this can be any classic book originally written or a published in a language that is not your first language.  Feel free to read it in its original form if you are comfortable reading in another language. 

5.  A Very Long Classic Novel -- a single work of 500 pages or longer, regular-sized print.  This does not include omnibus editions combined into one book, or short story collections.  Updated:  The 500 pages MUST be the actual text of the novel, not including endnotes, appendices, etc.  When in doubt, check more than one edition, and use an average page count.

6.  A Classic Novella -- any work shorter than 250 pages.  For a list of suggestions, check out this list of World's Greatest Novellas from Goodreads.

7.  A Classic with a Person's Name in the Title.  First name, last name, or both, it doesn't matter, but it must have the name of a character.  David Copperfield, The Brothers Karamazov, Don Quixote -- something like that. It's amazing how many books are named after people!

8.  A Humorous or Satirical Classic.  Humor is very subjective, so this one is open to interpretation.  Just tell us in the review why you think it's funny or satirical.   For example, if you think that Crime and Punishment and funny, go ahead and use it, but please justify your choice in your post.

9.  A Forgotten Classic.  This could be a lesser-known work by a famous author, or a classic that nobody reads any more.  If you look on Goodreads, this book will most likely have less than 1000 ratings.  This is your chance to read one of those obscure books from the Modern Library 100 Best Novels or 1001 Books to Read Before You Die.  Books published by Virago Modern Classics, Persephone, and NYRB Classics often fall into this category. 

10.  A Nonfiction Classic.  A memoir, biography, essays, travel, this can be any nonfiction work that's considered a classic, or a nonfiction work by a classic author.  You'd be surprised how many classic authors dabbled in nonfiction writing -- I have nonfiction books by Dickens, Trollope, Twain, and Steinbeck on my shelves.

11.  A Classic Children's Book.  A book for your inner child!  Pick a children's classic that you never got around to reading. 

12.  A Classic Play.  Your choice, any classic play, as long as it was published or performed before 1965.  Plays are only eligible for this specific category.

I will be ignoring the 50 years publishing rule and staying with the 25 years rule. But otherwise I am sure I can find books that fit each of these 12 categories. I will try and finish these categories by the end of 2015, but since I do have 5 years, I am not going to hold myself to the time limit. I just want to be able to read a variety of classic books.

Leader of the Lower School

Leader of the Lower School
By Angela Brazil
Published 1913

Text - Leader of the Lower School - Project Gutenberg



From the early 1900s up until the 1990's, the school system in New Zealand was modelled on the British system whereby the younger children had Primers (and Standards) in primary school and the older ones,  from age 11 onwards, had classes that were called Forms.

So 11 year olds were in form 1, 12 year olds in form 2 and so on up to 16 year olds in form 6. Since I was born and raised in New Zealand,  I myself went through these forms in the late 1970's and early 1980s.

Gipsy Latimer is a 14 year old from the colonies. She has been to 3 schools in the USA, 2 schools in New Zealand (her father is from New Zealand and her mother is American) and 1 school each in Australia and South Africa - before the Apartheid era.

Now Gipsy is at a boarding school in England, and to her independent mind, this new school is horribly stuffy and pretty much like a prison.

Gipsy loves making fudge, but noone at Briarcroft Hall has ever heard of fudge let alone eaten it. So when she politely asks the headmistress for permission to pop out and purchase a pan and some ingredients, she is most emphatically denied.

Not to worry - Gipsy is pretty independent, and she borrows the pan and some ingredients from the school kitchen and sets about making fudge over an open fire. That turned into a disaster, so no more fudge.


The School is divided into the Lower school and Upper school

 The Upper schools consists of the Lower and Upper 5th forms and the Lower and Upper 6th forms with a total of 22 girls.

The Lower schools had 70 students ranging from ages 11 to 15 and being sorted into forms 1, 2,  lower 3rd, upper 3rd, lower 4th and upper 4th.

Now, not being British born (although I am of british descent), I am not sure how these lower and upper forms work, and I doubt that one would spend the entire year in the same form. We never had these upper and lowers forms in NZ - not that I know of anyway. Everyone just went through form 1, form 2, form 3 etc up until form 6 or form 7. Completion of Form 6 is when the student could legally leave school. Students going into Form 7 were those who planned to attend university.


Anyway getting back to Briarcroft hall, the 5th and 6th form students (the upper school) ran all the offices of the school, including the guilds (or what we would call clubs) and while the seniors allowed the juniors to vote, the juniors never allowed to stand for office or participate in any other way. Every term the students were required to pay a shilling into the guilds as their subscription, but the lower school had no say in how that money was spent.

Gipsy decided that this simply was not fair, and so she organised a boycott. Quite simply, the lower school  stopped paying their  subscriptions to the seniors, and used their subscriptions to start their own clubs - including a lower school newspaper called the Juniors Journal.


When Gipsy had arrived at the school, her father had paid the fees for the first term and promised to make arrangements for payment of fees in a letter. But the promised letter never arrived. By the second term, Gipsy was kept on as a courtesy but missed out on a lot of extras since she had no money.

At the end of the second term, Gipsy spent 3 weeks holidays with the family of her good friend Meg Gordon.

At the start of the third term with still no word from her father, Gipsy was getting quite frantic with there being no word from her father, and the headmistress was becoming extremely hateful towards her. In fact. Gipsy was put to work (to earn her keep) and she was used as a servant to look after the 10 and 11 year olds, and to do anything else the teachers required. She was also still required to keep up with her own studies as well.

Things got so bad for Gipsy that she decided that it would be better if she ran away. So she did. she caught a train to Liverpool and started looking for the Captain Smith who had brought her and her father to England from South Africa in the first place.

While Gipsy was on the run, The summer coats were brought out of storage and a letter was found stuffed into a coat pocket. The letter was addressed to Gipsy Latimer and turned out to be the promised letter from her father stating that all financial needs were to be handled by a specified named bank.

Meg Gordons father called around all the steam ship companies in Liverpool, asking them to detain Gipsy if she ever showed up asking for a job or a ticket to South Africa. It just so happened that he called one particular company just when Gipsy was in the office, so the receptionist had Gipsy sit down and wait. Eventually Mr Gordon arrived at the office to take her back to school.

Once back to school, the missing letter was shown to her, the headmistress contacted the bank and submitted all previous bills and Gipsy finally had some pocket money again. Her work as a servant was immediately cancelled and nothing more was said about that. The principal did not exactly apologise for her poor behaviour, but the girl in whose pocket the letter was found, was raked over the coals for being so forgetful as to pass on a letter that was not hers.

To end the year, the school had a Festival during which the various junior Clubs and Guilds got to show off their activities.


Angela Brazil (not pronounced like the country - instead the emphasis is on the Bra and NOT on the Zil). wrote numerous formulaic girls school stories from the early 1900s up until world war two. Most of these are available on Project Gutenberg.


See Angela Brazil on Wikipedia for a list of Book titles.