#the moral of Austen’s books is imo

[fallenangelontheceiling]

I’m breaking my No Tumblr For Lent rule because I really have to share -

I’m 65 pages into Mansfield Park and I can’t stand Edmund. He’s objectively a Good Person (which I can already tell is going to be a rarity in this narrative), but god is he insufferable.

The Crawfords are flakes, but at least they’re entertaining flakes so far.

Austen is always scathingly snarky but this is the first time I think she comes off a bit self-righteous??

[a-rum-of-ones-own]

Hi!!!

I’m currently reading A Cosmology of Blacks, Malfoys, and Assorted Individuals and just wanted to express how much I love this fic!!! Your writing style is so profoundly passionate and evocative. The way you describe the emotions and inner workings of Draco, his observations and interactions with others, and blend sensory details with atmospheric elements is so poetically done—I seriously can’t deal.

What spurred me to write this was the opening of Chapter 19:

“With their ancient, bony hands, they’d passed her golden bowls filled with brew of black cohosh. Narcissa, panting in the heated darkness of the room she was confined in, had gulped them down, red-dark liquid dripping down her chin and staining the near-translucent smocking of her nightgown.

Winds had battered against the curtained windows. The approach of an early summer storm. The air had been sweltering, hot, over-heavy with lightning that had not yet discharged.”

LIKE UGH…MINDBOGGLINGLY BEAUTIFUL. SERIOUSLY. It’s so viscerally described that I feel like I’m transported right into the room.

I’m trying to consciously pace myself through the remaining chapters because I don’t want to catch up ;( but could you recommend some books that inspired you to write this fic, or even books that influenced your writing? I would be eternally grateful (high-key already am just for the existence of this fic).

I am so thankful to have stumbled upon this gem. You are sosososo talented; I am truly in awe and can’t wait to read more of your work! xxx

Heeey! Thank you so, SO much! I had so much fun writing that scene with the midwives - I cannot resist including scary old ladies and weird little arcane rituals of womanhood in everything I write, lol. I'm a total sucker for it. Give me a scary old woman who may or may not be a morally grey agent of The Dark And Mysterious Powers of the Great Beyond, and I'm sold.

YES, I do have book recs! Fic-writing is, for me, an opportunity for total stylistic self-indulgence, and there are absolutely influences! In general, Cosmology takes a LOT of influence from gothic writing. That entire theme of a house/manor/castle as a pseudo-living thing, the curses of our ancestors coming back to haunt us, ghosts of the past (both in literal and non-literal form), that's all just plain gothic, and I LOVE writing and reading that sort of stuff. Jane Austen's first novel, Northanger Abbey, is a fantastic gothic novel and/or gothic parody, and it's a shame it's not read more widely. It's definitely her first - it's not as absolutely refined as the big names like Pride and Prejudice etc - but it's the one I love the most. There's a proper mystery plot, a cursed house, a romance, a haunting - it's just great.

If you're not a Jane Austen girlie, a HUGE influence for me is Donna Tartt, especially The Secret History and The Goldfinch. If you're into that ornate, atmospheric, scene-setting writing, both will be right up your alley - The Secret History has a bit more of it (and is, imo, the better one to start out with), but they're both just amazing. One day, I want to be able to write like Donna Tartt does. She's the OG, she's the GOAT, she's perfect, she's probably my favourite contemporary author.

Also: Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. It's one of my absolute favourite books, but (warning!) it's not literary fiction or romance, it's very much the story of a haunting. If you're absolutely not into horror, stay clear. Similarly, The Perfume by Patrick Süßkind is BEAUTIFUL, but absolutely not a romance. I've only read it in the original and can't vouch for any translations into English, but judging by the reviews, the sheer VibesTM seem to come across even in translation. The original is one of the best books I've ever read, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking for something truly unique. I've also recently read V.C. Andrew's Flowers in the Attic for the first time, and found it really good in that gothic sense, but mind ALL the trigger warnings on that one. I don't deal well with graphic depictions of more realistic violence/abuse, especially if it involves kids (stylised/fantastical and implicit violence is fine, but anything that reads too 'real' and 'logically possible irl' doesn't agree with my stomach), and it's got some of that. I skipped a page or two, but still found it a prime example of Southern Gothic.

Thank you so so much again! I hope to get the next chapter of Cosmology out soon!

[zalrb]

re: austen, my english lit major take is that a lot of people read her books as romances and don't understand that she's working within a specific era and genre of british novel writing where she is both subverting and perfecting certain tropes and forms that were the mainstream at the time. like, i love northanger abbey which most austen fans don't care for, because it does a very good job mocking the novel of manners and the gothic novel, and also mocking the moral panic over gothic novels. austen fans don't like it because the romance is forgettable but the romance is really pretty tangential to everything going on in the work imo, it's a commentary on other literary forms of the era and the discourse around them.

i think that's how we end up with so many mediocre adaptations and 'inspired by's. people want to just take away the romance but in doing so they leave behind most of what makes austen actually important and memorable and you end up with the aesthetics of regency era britain and maybe some vaguely troubling power dynamics and nothing else

(of course none of this means you or anyone else has to like austen, lol, this is just stuff i find interesting! sorry if it comes off soapbox-y)

No, it doesn't come off as soapbox-y, I'm an English lit major too, I just don't care for Austen's writing style and resented having to read her in my classes because of it but I frankly resented having to read a lot of "classic" British lit to get my major and the only reason why I didn't become a specialist is because then I would have to take three full-year (or six half year) Brit Lit courses rather than two (or four). And yeah, that's essentially what I was saying without getting into it :)

[more-than-a-princess]

Bridgerton!

SEND ME A FRANCHISE OR SERIES AND I WILL TALK ABOUT IT - Accepting!

JUNE 13 IS ALMOST HERE! I will not be replying to threads on Thursday. And possibly not Friday as well. Season 3 Part 2 drops and I need Polin like I need oxygen-

With that in mind, hi, I'm the Bridgerton fan, it's me.

I was about halfway through Season 1 when I decided to read all 8 of the original series back-to-back, so while I wasn't a book fan from the start, I've kept them in mind when watching the last half of Season 1 and the subsequent seasons. I like the fact that this series, written and acted, really seems to embrace historical fantasy. It's a romance series and not meant to be historically accurate at all, but I think it gives a fresh take on the Regency period that differentiates between Jane Austen and all of the various offshoots and adaptations. It's also just a visual treat, y'know? Polyester lace and plastic beads and sequins certainly weren't around in the 1810s, and yet it's just plain fun to watch.

When ranking everything, I think Season 2 is my least favorite of the seasons so far, which is apparently a spicy take on the internet. I didn't like how the show handled Edwina in correlation to Kate and Anthony, and I was disappointed to see how Kate and Anthony's engagement scene was cut from the show, or at least was depicted differently than in the book. The book version made me, truly, laugh out loud (just like Eloise facing her brothers in Book 5! I actually repurposed this exact type of scene for a RP thread a little while back because it was just too fitting).

In my other terribly spicy Bridgerton take: I think Penelope's outing of Marina's pregnancy in the show was valid. Pen has done a lot of wrong things, but Colin needed to know the full story about Marina before he agreed to marry her. I know there are lots of fans who see Penelope as the devil for this in Season 1, and while Pen isn't perfect, I think this was the morally right thing to do.

Other things I hope for in the show (as the books are done, there's little reason to speculate about them):

Season 4 is either Benedict's or Eloise's season, depending on how the last four episodes of Season 3 go. Francesca will be in the background to some degree with her husband, though I hope a certain cousin is introduced in this season or next, cough cough.

I hope the show doesn't keep all of the book canon love interests, actually. If only because Benedict's book and LI are some of my least favorites in the entire series, and I think Eloise's book love interest doesn't need the spotlight on this show because, frankly, he kinda sucks. Can you tell I didn't like her book much either, save for when her brothers come to 'rescue' her?

If this show does not include Michael Stirling (or the genderswap version that's a very prevalent rumor right now), I riot. When He Was Wicked is the best of the books, fight me.

If this show does not include Gareth St. Clair, I will riot but riot a little quieter. He is so underrated.

Let. Cressida. Be. Sapphic. The show is hinting at this SO MUCH. Just go through with it, showrunners! Give her a yearning crush on Eloise and actually be clear that she is, indeed, sapphic!

Queen Charlotte is, IMO, becoming a little stale on this show. I would not be upset if she didn't return in Season 4. In reality, Queen Charlotte died in 1818, so even with the show's messy take on the timeline in comparison to the books, it would make sense that she will be passing away in the next few years.

Violet needs her garden watered and Lady Danbury needs to deal with the fact her brother can oblige. She slept with Violet's dad, Violet can sleep with her brother.

Colin and Penelope can likely disappear after Season 3 but I will be sad about it. I love them. LOVE. THEM.

Nicola Coughlan is an actual queen and always fabulous. She's been killing it this press tour in her outfits, support of Palestine, and calling out chauvinistic male reporters by reminding them she has perfect breasts. She is ICONIC. I still need to watch Big Mood but Derry Girls is amazing, watch Derry Girls if you haven't yet.

And with that, I need to run out to the post office! I have yards upon yards of fabric to send to my dressmaker who is making new two new Penelope gowns from Season 3 for Dragon Con this year.

[thebellekeys]

My Hogwarts House book recs

Okay, ever since some of my favorite booktubers made posts like these many a year ago, I always wanted to make a book rec list like this because I still genuinely do like the Hogwarts Houses. Enjoy!

Gryffindor

Graceling by Kristen Cashore - she walked so these new fantasy girlies could run, fantasy kingdom with assassin main character, the original ya high fantasy killer girlboss imo

A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin - all of the sympathetic leads are classic heroes (dany, jon, arya), adventure and politics and battle and dragons, nuanced outlooks on honor

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah - ww2 novel, deals with the french resistance during the occupation, hit every spot in my cold black heart, emphasis on sisterhood and endurance

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - what is bravery if not a broke woman telling a rich man to get a grip, og strong female lead overcoming many challenges, criticisms of polite society

Hufflepuff

Crave by Tracy Wolff - big on found family, paranormal romance shenanigans in a boarding school, somewhat satire, unserious and just very wholesome, steeped in nostalgia uwu

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir - unapologetically written to heal and explore trauma, cathartic, wholesome and pure relationships, emphasis on self-growth and overcoming abuse and pain

The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali - historical, about the value of relationships in war and hardship, themes of growth and acceptance and promises, beautiful story

The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic - what happens when you let a bunch of mentally ill kids play a made up sport, angsty but feels like a big hug, contemporary fiction, just genius ok

Ravenclaw

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake - very slytherclaw, philosophy and physics as the basis, dark academia urban fantasy, character-driven, multiple POVs, morally grey academics

Babel by RF Kuang - this book has been likened to a history textbook, by a nerd girlie for the nerd girlies, linguistics and languages, super well-researched, condemns colonization

Disorientation by Elain Hsieh Chou - witty and sharp narration and dialogue, set in academia and deals with east asian literature, satire and black comedy, explores racial fetishization

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov - only a ravenclaw could appreciation its complexity, so many literary references, stylistically immaculate, lots of room to debate its message and themes

Slytherin

Vicious by VE Schwab - perfect moral quandaries demonstrated here, everyone is morally dark grey, supervillains, very angsty and also profound at times, dark academia

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - my man makes a deal with the devil for eternal youth and beauty, everyone here is morally dubious, murder and orgies and philosophy

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - exhausted woman does what she needs to do, female rage book, does some interesting things with pov, justified evil, amy dunne is insane and it's great

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao - tired chinese woman does what she needs to do and kills men, very unhinged queen behavior, ambition and god complexes, pacific rim but in china

[eurekavalley]

I'm trying to tease out why I love this little sequence so much, which starts with Anne eavesdropping while Louisa tries to persuade Henrietta to make amends with Henry Hayter. I think it's the stealth protagonist energy that it gives the Musgrove girls while Anne lurks in the bushes. The actress who plays Louisa in particular feels so right - she's fresh-faced and strong-minded (and I keep trying to pick out whether or not it's really her in the Mad Men pilot too? - she has so few credits), but not silly or callous.

I love that the film lets these scenes just kind of roll out of their dynamic. Louisa advocates for Henrietta and her happiness - which no one (Elizabeth...) ever did for Anne - but of course her success means that Wentworth is left for her. The two pairs of sisters in the scene have their own particular dynamics of dependence, dysfunction, control, and care.

I keep reading that Persuasion is impossible to translate to a modern setting because Anne doesn't have agency and seems passive. (Especially sketchy after reading critical interpretations of how Austen purposefully wielded *Wentworth's* inaction and passivity in the Bath chapters!) But imo it's more interesting to think about Anne's agency in relation to how Louisa acts, that they are stretched along an axis of what was possible for youngish women of their station at the time, along with Henrietta, Mary, and even Elizabeth and Sophia, along with all of us. We catch Anne at a particularly low point, but we see how Henrietta is influenced first by Mary, then by Louisa, until it's not certain what she really wants - echoes of Anne's story and how it's not always possible to *know* what the outcome of a choice will be. I think what we (the modern 'we') don't like to engage with, is the idea of Anne's seemingly lost window of opportunity to make her life what she wants, because it still applies more than we like to acknowledge in our era, although it wasn't and isn't absolute.

On top of that, the walk to Winthrop contains a reveal of Anne's agency to Wentworth. Her refusal of a highly respectable match with Charles is a huge strike in favor of herself and her own interests - the core question of the life she wants and the choices she is willing to live with. Anne does not say anything so dramatic here as the speeches Louisa makes to Wentworth, but her choice says, "I'd rather risk living in genteel poverty than commit myself for life to a man I don't love and close off any hopes of my own." (It's the beauty of the storytelling in the novel that we don't know what Wentworth makes of this revelation - whether he takes the Musgrove supposition about Lady Russell to heart or understands that there is more to Anne's choice - until the end of the book, where we learn that he has been living with that very question.

Thank you to Louisa for planting that seed.) So in this, Anne and Louisa are actually more alike than not, like the dark side and the light side of the moon.

I really like the sense of Anne in these scenes as one among many, playing against the ways she stands out to the reader and the moments when Wentworth singles her out with his attention and later with his praise. It brings out the romance in the story - that it's not necessarily virtue or character in the end that is the key to Anne moving on from her situation, she's not being rewarded for anything and there's no moral victory in it, it's just love and communication.

[avenger-hawk]

Hello hawk. Do you get inspiration for your writing from books (actual "books", not fanfiction lol)? If so, what authors do you like? Hugs~

Hello. Tbh I’m kinda picky with books, not as much as with fanfiction lol but still I can’t enjoy some popular books ppl love. I don’t like long sagas for example, I get bored with fantasy in general and I dislike very wordy books with looong descriptions of the smallest details of the characters’ clothes and food. I couldn’t read the A Song Of Ice And Fire books because of this.

I do like a wordy writer like Charles Dickens though. Not all his books cause some are really too victorian bordering on annoying, but I really liked A Tale of Two Cities and Our Mutual Friend. I read a lot of classics tbh especially as a teenager, as I discovered fandoms and fanfics later. I liked Jane Austen, she has a brilliant style, very ironic and not cheesy despite the sentimental theme. I also liked old gothic novels, they have some dark imagery, like Maturin’s Melmoth The Wanderer, Byron’s Manfred, M.G. Lewis’ The Monk. It was my final essay in school, even. All these novels would be ‘wrong’ by fandom bullshit moralism btw.

But that was my teenage literature phase, I think fondly of those books because of nostalgia, mostly, because I changed my taste for less plot oriented and more philosophical, abstract, surreal books. I also like short stories or short novels more than long stuff. The surreal and the fantastic work better with short stories imo.

A writer I liked as a teenager and like even now though is H. Hesse. He created a beautiful atmosphere in his books, like, you can literally feel the sun and trees and birds chirping, an at the same time they’re angsty. Especially Narcissus and Goldmund; I reread it recently and it’s even better than I remembered, it also had a strong gay vibe which doesn’t hurt lol. Or Demian, male friendship, kinda gay, very philosophical, and The Glass Bead Game and his short stories too. Also he was vegetarian, it’s a plus for me.

My favourite writer is J. L. Borges, I love how he creates fictional reviews of nonexistent books that he mixes with existent philosophers and writers, so when you read his short stories you are juggling between reality and fiction, reading fake academic works or you’re sinking in a story with a thin but amazing plot line where dream and reality are fused together, and reality is completely subjective. His concept of time is not linear, he’s from Argentina and he describes this amazing mix of cultures and influences, everything he writes is a masterpiece that you can feel it, elevates your mind. Genius. Especially The Lottery in Babylon (for me it’s also a metaphor of reincarnation) Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius , The Garden of Forking Paths (amazing, simply amazing) Funes the Memorious (this story and its theme is still haunting me tbh) and The Circular Ruins, I have no words to describe how much I love it.

I also love two Italian writers very much. I. Calvino, surreal, abstract, amazing. I highly recommend him to everyone cause he has been translated a lot in English speaking countries, like Invisible Cities,  The Castle of Crossed Destinies (tarot lovers would like this one),  If on a winter's night a traveler (all book lovers should read it).

D. Buzzati is amazing too, his short stories might be set in urban Italy but also in a nonspecified ancient Central Asia-ish spaces, with its vastity and mysterious (for us) culture, from Samarkand to the steppes. His writing is laconic, essential, but shows you everything you need to see and feel. His novel The Tartar Steppe is poetic and metaphoric, his short stories often deal with the mystery of death, in the same poetic metaphoric way. Unfortunately I didn’t find anything in English online, but I really recommend The Seven Messengers, it was the first story I read from him and still a favourite. 

I also like M. Bulgakov very much, like Master and Margarita is such a cool book and so is Heart of a Dog. So much sarcasm, I love them.

I was too long maybe, recommending books. You asked if these books I love influenced my writing, I wish they did lol. As I write dark themes but I stopped reading that darkish stuff I can’t say they influenced me much. Anyway my writing style is quite essential and to the point, not only because English is not my mothertongue but also because of the writers I like.

I was slightly inspired by Borges’ The Circular Ruins for In Dreams, not directly but for certain themes related to subjective reality, and I quoted The Garden of the Forking Paths for Itachi’s pre-massacre state of mind in Victims of Peace.

I was slightly inspired by Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund for the setting (Northern European late Middle Ages) of a non-Naruto darkfic I wrote.

I think there might be more but I’m probably not aware of it.

[junewongapologia]

I don't actually think that Edmund sucks, I think Austen fandom is way harsher on him than he really deserves. I think mostly bc we don't see him grovel (for want of a better word) like we do the other heroes whose flaws take up a large part of the story. Which, like, fair, honestly, I want him to grovel too, she deserves it, and I've hated characters for not being appropriately sorry before, but I personally find it easier to forgive Edmund because of how thoroughly his own sense of judgement is undermined and shaken by the end of the story.

Conversely, people are way easier on Crawford, who is actually a worse person, and who Fanny wouldn't be happy with - she says she would be miserable with him and I have no reason not to believe her.

I have a lot of sympathy for Edmund in that I feel like he's kind of desperately trying to be good and dutiful, but hes young and daft and blinkered by his family, his upbringing and his situation. Like, he's brought home immediately after uni to run his dad's estate. I couldn't have done that at 21, and I think it makes sense that he's not good at it. I like his character as someone with a fundamental moral centre who nonetheless struggles to properly apply it.

Do I want him to be better? Yes! Of course, he should've been better for Fanny, he should've tried harder, he should've taken better care of her. But ultimately, in MP we see Edmund at his absolute nadir, and he comes out of the other end having made the right choice. We see Henry Crawford at his absolute best, and he doesn't.

As for the ending, I feel like there are no good answers because of the way it's set up. I say as someone who learned to love the ending of MP I still don't like or buy the transformation of the house or Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram from a realist's perspective.

It's this place that looks nice but it's rotten to its core, built on suffering and exploitation, and the places Fanny is confined to - like her freezing little attic - or the places she tries to make her own, like the East Room, are cold. I don't buy that it can transform.

But equally, the way that Fanny's story is set up doesn't allow for an ending where she leaves to be satisfactory. A key theme of MP is Fanny's displacement when she's ten, and we see it permeate through the story with the one that threatens her at 15 and later with her Uncle sending her to Portsmouth. The whole story emphasises that these displacements are traumatic and always at the behest of other people. Her deciding to refuse Henry's proposal and wish to stay is so intentionally opposite that.

There is no thematically satisfying ending where Fanny decides to marry Crawford against her better judgement and only when she's been disappointed in love again and it's actually great imo. I think it would undercut a major thematic aspect to the story. It's a Cinderella without a Prince Charming, with a sort of Burkean philosophy - that change must be brought by reform, and there's no way to escape the world you live in. Fanny can't escape Mansfield Park, partially because it's literally in her.

(I am also not satisfied with the idea that the place is magically reformed, bc the love of her Aunt and Uncle has always been half-hearted, conditional and selfish, but if I had to choose, I'd keep the ending where she stays bc I think it's important to the story's themes)

But Fanny brings good to Mansfield Park - and when she brings her sister back its sort of exemplifying the fact that she has a say in the makeup of the place now.

I think it's definitely the most Of It's Time of Austen's book. The politics of it are very Early 19th Century Whig imo (plugging my pervious post lol).

But my favourite thing about it has always been the fact that Fanny Is Right - not about everything, but her moral centre is the best out of the whole cast of characters (and she's a better judge of character than all of Austen's other heroines). My dislike of the Fanny/Henry pairing and liking Fanny/Edmund attend from that.

She's like Mr Knightley, if he was poor and a teenage girl people listened to him even less and moved him around like a chess piece.

(I am so sorry that this went on so long, and I don't want to come across as argumentative I promise)

It is no secret that I hate the Fanny/Henry pairing, bc like...

How can you read that book, and how Henry acts, and the distress it causes Fanny while we're in her head the whole way through...

And want her to be wrong? And want her to be the one to have to admit she was wrong?

No! Terrible, awful ending. Henry Crawford is not a good person. He's not, like, evil. But he's selfish and self-centred and thinks he deserves Fanny because he's rich and charming and made the bare minimum effort to seem like a better person. I fully buy into the idea that he likes her because he likes a challenge, and that if finally faced with what she like every day (shy and retiring and quiet and uncomfortable around loads of ppl) he'd start to resent her sharpish.

This is a book about selfishness and selfish people, and even in this cast, he's near the top of the most selfish, the most careless with the feelings of others. At the centre is Fanny, who is maligned and mistreated, but despite all is selfless and good, though she struggles with jealousy and negative thoughts and feelings.

It's a book about how she - poor and dependent and not especially well educated or taken care of by her relatives - knows her own mind and deserves to be treated as a rational, intelligent person.

It is literally crucial to her arc and the arc of the story that she's right about Crawford!

[mermaidsirennikita]

as someone who *loves* austen, I genuinely don't understand the puritanical reaction to bridgerton. period works can be varied, they don't all have to be made by austen standards. 8do what if it's a horny romcom set in the regency period? let us see people get it on while playing dress up, we don't need bonnets for that

Right?  I love Austen too!  I think we just understand that Austen is not the only valid Regency playground, and that something like Bridgerton (or any Regency romance novel) is really an orange to Austen’s apple.  A lot of this can only be learned, imo, by reading BOTH options.  I would challenge anyone who loves Austen and looks down on Regency romances to read a Regency romance; and vice versa.  Austen informs Regency romances so much, and many people are turned on to Austen by reading historical romances written today.  The thing they both have in common is that the ultimate goal at the end of the day is a happy love story, a good couple.

(I’m taking this opportunity to soapbox.)

But because romance novels are written today, it stands to reason that they aren’t going to be written with the same morals (and.... many of the morals in Austen novels are outdated and SHOULDN’T be seen as gold standards for healthy relationships) and yes, sex on the page is quite common (though not guaranteed; there are romance novels written today that “shut the door” to the bedroom).  That’s because romance novels are great ways for women especially, but also men and NB people to explore their sexuality and desire.  And furthermore, in romance novels sex has really progressed to become a way for women to express themselves and harness their agency.  Although many (again, not all) historical romances value plot over historical accuracy, as they should because they are works of fiction, the women remain at a disadvantage in terms of their gender and the rights corresponding to that gender.  Therefore, sexual expression and in some cases the sexual power they hold over their love interests is a way for them to find equal footing on SOME level.

And also, for some people?  It’s just fun to read about sex.  I love to read about sex.  I love to write about sex.  I love to watch sex scenes on TV.  Sex is really fun.  There is nothing wrong with that.  Sometimes, you enjoy sexual content in the stories you read or watch because you’re aroused; sometimes, you enjoy it because it’s an integral part of the story you’re watching, the development of the characters.  People often do bond emotionally through sex.  A great example of this is the sex scenes in The Viscount Who Loved Me (the best Bridgerton book I’ve read thus far for sure). Anthony and Kate are able to let their mutual guards down and become more vulnerable with each other after they begin having sex.  

Sometimes, you enjoy consuming romances with sexual content because you both find it arousing and emotionally fulfilling at the same time, and that’s okay.  You can also just watch it to have a good time. 

Bridgerton is allowed to have lots of sexual content and it is allowed to be silly and fun and not super accurate and be a good.... romance.  And I don’t know if it will be!  I have issues with Quinn’s work; it’s definitely outdated compared to some more recently published romance novels I’ve read, and The Duke and I, for all that I do find parts of it super fun and silly and hilarious, has real issues regarding informed consent and consent in general, which were not dealt with well in the book at all.  But there are other love stories I really enjoy in that series, and I’d love to see them adapted well.  We shall see what happens.

But the puritanical takes are really off-putting and suggest a judgment that comes from ignorance.

[strangeandforlornbooks]

Book Recs: Favorite Books of 2020

these are books I read in 2020, not books published in 2020! I loved each and every one of them and I hope u will too <3 organized by genre

Drama

Hamlet by William Shakespeare: goes without saying. ‘tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart.

Angels in America by Tony Kushner: a man dying of aids is chosen as a prophet and receives visions of angels. very funny and very heartbreaking with tremendous compassion for every character.

Agamemnon by Aeschylus: king agamemnon returns from the trojan war only to be murdered by his wife clytemnestra in revenge for the sacrifice of their daughter iphigenia. the other plays in the oresteia are terrible imo but this one slaps. 2400 years old but the moral ambiguity, the pain, and the horror all are very present.

The Second Shepherd’s Play by the Wakefield Master: read this for my survey of theater class. it was part of a pageant cycle of plays, of the sort that was popular in the middle ages and inspired renaissance masters like shakespeare. about the shepherds at the nativity, but the shepherds are distinctly from 14th c northern england. a wonderful call for common people to experience the divine.

Contemporary

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt: a young man grows up with a strong connection to a masterpiece after a tragic loss. I was reading this on the kindle app in public and I genuinely had to stop because I was starting to cry. difficult to read and slow but very very beautiful prose and characters and the most gorgeous ending I have ever read. compassionate and tragic.

Classics

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: this was the first time I read this. lives up to the hype.

Maurice by E M Forster: a young man discovers his sexuality in edwardian england. written by a gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal in britain and dedicated ‘to a happier year.’ a happy ending specifically because happy endings seemed so impossible for gay men at the time, and a character whose homosexuality causes him to become a better person. perhaps one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. 

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë: a wild and fun time. weird girl rights.

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway: three days in a young man’s life on the front lines of the spanish civil war. I always disliked ernest hemingway’s style until I read this, his masterpiece. here his prose is perfect and painful, and his characterization is brilliant. surprisingly well written female characters. full of compassion; hemingway based the book on his own experiences.

Historical Fiction

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: death narrates the story of a young german girl’s life during the second world war. clever and moving.

Trinity and Redemption by Leon Uris: the tangled history of several irish families from the 1880s through the end of world war one. some of the best battle scenes ive ever read. dysfunctional families, generational trauma, tragedy, and the seeds of hope.

Science Fiction

The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow: the children of world leaders are held hostage by a powerful artificial intelligence in a world at peace. the children must die if war breaks out. difficult choices and the redeeming power of love

Historical Nonfiction

The Liberation Trilogy (An Army at Dawn, Day of Battle, and The Guns at Last Light) by Rick Atkinson: pulitzer prize winning history of american forces in world war two europe and africa 1942-1945. never lets you forget what was at stake and what was lost.

The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S Wood: pulitzer prize winning social history of american revolution. makes the case that the egalitarian movement was incredibly radical and world changing. absolutely brilliant and inspiring.

A Short History of the Civil War by Fletcher Pratt: genuinely could not put it down. incredibly fast paced and gripping. captures the bizarre energy and horror of the civil war.

This Hallowed Ground by Bruce Catton: the classic account of the civil war. absolutely beautiful writing. genuinely gave me goosebumps five or six times.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand: biography of louis zamperini, an olympic runner who fought in the pacific, spent 47 days lost at sea fighting off sharks, survived japanese pow camps, and became a christian evangelist. absolutely unbelievable and inspiring.

Horror

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty: I genuinely did not find this that scary but some people very much do. what got me was the way doubt and faith were handled. very compassionate and honest depiction of a crisis in faith and why faith is ultimately an act of love, and the triumph of love over evil.

[anghraine]

i just reread pride & prejudice and noticed three separate times elizabeth reflects on "having something yet to wish for" or a situation not living up to her expectations - when lydia leaves for brighton and they have a little peace and quiet but she's still unhappy, when the trip to the lakes is abbreviated, and when she's engaged with her family's consent but her mom is still annoying. is this just a random theme? i don't see how it ties back into the central elizabeth/darcy relationship.

Oh, interesting! I’m not sure I’d say that it’s a random theme, but yes, I do think it flows pretty neatly into the more general theme of P&P. Things are rarely as simple and straightforward as we expect they are/will be. Almost everything has complicating factors that work against their overall thrust. 

I would say that it’s especially present for Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship, because oversimplifying what’s going on around them and then getting confronted by more complex realities is … pretty central to their relationship, and imo to Elizabeth’s character development in particular.

It’s not that she doesn’t continue to form oversimplified expectations, because she totally does (it’s why she misunderstands Darcy right up to the end of the book, I think, not only up to Hunsford). But I feel that the importance of the pattern is perhaps more a matter of how she responds to the more complex realities she continually faces than whether she does. 

That is, for much of the book, she tends to “lalala whatever” or “ALL IS IN RUINS” when things run counter to her expectations. But by the end, she’s grown to … neither laughing off complications nor being devastated by them. It’s more a matter of giving them appropriate perspective—taking them seriously, but proportionately. So we could see it as part of her character arc in particular, and Austen’s moral vision in P&P more generally.

[xserpx]

I left it to last bc I'd heard that it was the worst Austen novel but it turned out to be my favourite, so I recommend giving it a go despite what you've heard. I think the main issues people have are that:

1) It's not really a romance, it's much more of a family drama. Edmund is a milquetoast love interest, so people who go in expecting a Lizzie & Darcy style sweeping love story will probably be disappointed - it's more tempting to ship Fanny with other people, or no one, than it is to be happy with her and Edmund - but IMO it more than makes up for that by having some of the most morally complex characters in Austen. Ultimately I think it's called Mansfield Park for a reason: it's the place Fanny loves most, it's where she feels most at home, and the book is about the family & nature vs nurture.

2) Fanny is incredibly shy & soft, prudish, pious, and occasionally judgemental. She has social anxiety, is much more reactive than proactive, and has normalised a level of abuse against her from her family (MP is often called a Cinderella story). Some people find it quite frustrating how meek she is, but one of the major aspects of Fanny as well is that she has incredibly strong principles & will stand up for herself in her own way when push comes to shove.

3) It's slower, darker, and more morally ambiguous than other Austen novels. It's also possibly the most dated - Fanny & Edmund are first cousins, there's mentions of slavery, putting on a play in the house is considered immoral for various reasons - which puts some people off.

4) There are no (recent) good adaptations. The 2007 movie with Billie Piper & the 1999 movie with Frances O'Connor both butcher Fanny's character by making her too outspoken. I think if people watch these then go into the book, it might surprise them how much quieter Fanny is. The only passable adaptation is the 1983 BBC series.

But I absolutely love Mansfield Park. Fanny is like no other protagonist I've ever read and I wish there were more like her, who are that soft, that shy, but with her adamant backbone that shows up when it really counts. I find her both awkwardly relateable & strangely inspirational, and the book as a whole is so rich & interesting.

Is Mansfield Park worth reading?

[lizziebennet]

First of all thank you for your fantastic take on bohemian rhapsody 👌🏻🙏🏻 but what I actually wanted to ask was if you have any feel good book recommendations? I hope you had a great day and have an even better tomorrow!! 😊

first of all LOVING the positive vibe of this message

and yes i do!!!!!!!! lmk if u have anything specific ur looking for but here are a few reads that i have loved recently: 

renegades by marissa meyer – superheroes!!!!, complicated moral questions, excellent diverse characters, and a slow burn romance that i am DYING over

strange the dreamer by lani taylor – the most sumptuous fantasy writing, outstanding worldbuilding, an adorable love story, complex moral questions, unparalleled in ya high fantasy imo

the bear and the nightingale by katherine arden – russian folkore, nature myths, religion vs magic, slow folklore-y style storytelling, lovably spunky main character, winter! 

circe by madeline miller – greek mythology retelling from a goddess’s pov, the most gorgeous writing u can imagine, cottage witch vibes, #fuckthepatricarchy, its madeline miller come on 

the dark days club by alison goodman – jane austen but with a demonhunting twist, regency history, brooding dark male lead with a heart of gold, baddassness, social pressure vs demonhunting, sexual tensionnnnn

illuminae by amie kaufman and jay kristoff – multiformat, SPACE!!!!!, hacking the government, artificial intelligence is scary, a greAT romance, adventure

k there are a few hope they spark ur interest!! 

[urfavmurtad]

So while watching Nouman Ali Khan videos today out of self-loathing I came across this lecture from a Georgetown Islamic Studies professor on slavery in Islam from last year, which apparently briefly made news when it happened but was then forgotten. I recognized the guy’s name from a book of his I read a while ago, and at the time I found him one of the more reasonable Muslim apologists, so I gave it a chance.

The first 30 minutes or so are pretty normal and don’t even relate to Islam that much. Slavery as practiced in America is Very Bad, he begins. Not just in the past, but in the present! Prison labor: Very Bad! The Atlantic slave trade: Very Bad! But what if… some slavery… is Not Bad Actually? In fact, what if slavery isn’t even a real thing? Please allow me to quote him:

Slavery cannot just be treated as a moral evil in and of itself because slavery doesn’t mean anything. The moral evil is extreme forms of deprivation of rights and extreme forms of control and extreme forms of exploitation. I don’t think it’s morally evil to own somebody because we own lots of people all around us and were owned by people and this obsession about thinking of slavery as property.

Don’t think of slaves as property… because capitalism, I think? Though not in a Marxist way, because “I don’t think it’s morally evil to own somebody”. Not-slavery was just a matter of smart economic sense, he says. “Slaves in Islamic civilization were mostly investments,” unlike those other, actual slaves who were used for… work?

The point is, owning someone in and of itself is not an innately terrible moral crime. I mean, that sort of thinking is just unhelpful and shuts down conversations. He continues:

I think that’s actually a really odd and unhelpful way to think about slavery. It kind of gets you locked in this way of thinking that if you talk about ownership and people that you’ve already transgressed some moral boundary that you can’t come back from. I don’t think that’s true at all.

Some poor misguided student asks him if this entire line of thought is perhaps insane, because owning people as property is unquestionably a bad and evil thing, to which he replies that, well, Mohammed owned slaves, so how bad can it be?

Are you more morally mature than the Prophet of God? No, you’re not.

Actual quote! Throwing down the Prophet Card ends that discussion.

The topic then moves to sexual slavery in Islam, in particular. Raping sex slaves seems pretty bad. But no, it too is Not Bad Actually. I mean, aren’t we all sex slaves, in some sense?

For most of human history, human beings have not thought of consent as the essential feature of morally correct sexual activity. And second, we fetishize the idea of autonomy to where we forget, who is really free?

None of us are free. Some of us, for example, have mortgages and children that prevent us from having a midlife crisis.

Are we really autonomous people? I mean what does autonomy mean? Can I just drive—can I be like a cowboy and in a movie or an action TV series where I just get on my motorcycle and just ride to the West? No, I got kids. I have a mortgage.

I can’t be a cowboy, so I am un-free, like a sex slave whose male relatives were murdered prior to her being gifted to their killers and raped on a daily basis.

(Oh, did I mention that, according to him, the thing that prompted this lecture is Daesh taking Yazidi women as sex slaves?)

If that solid argument doesn’t convince you that sexual slavery is Not Bad Actually, consider: sex slaves aren’t really that different from a guy’s wife, anyway.

This is not to demean the status of woman in Islam or Islamic civilization at all, but a concubine’s autonomy was not that different from the autonomy of a wife, because for most of human history and most of Islamic civilization, women got married to the person that their family wanted them to get married to. The idea of being autonomous and saying, “I need to be in love with him. I need to go have this, you know, Jane Austen-like courtship with him.” That was hogwash.

I know what you’re thinking: this guy isn’t actually Muslim but is a sleeper agent from Breitbart or something. Look at him, dude looks like a standard right-winger. But no. He’s a white convert who apparently thought “sex slaves and wives are basically the same thing imo” was an appealing philosophy. Unsurprisingly, his twitter and FB pages are now Tariq Ramadan Unofficial Fan Accounts, where he whines about how a guy accused of assaulting multiple (Muslim!!) women is being treated unfairly, along with the usual self-pity.

Shoutout to the noble house of Al Saud for blessing us with men of such strong moral fiber, as always.