My junior year was American Lit and British Lit. I can't remember much of what we read for either quite frankly but I know I did a paper on Frankenstein for Brit Lit.

Then my senior year we had a different English class each grading period (this was not your normal high school). So I had Western Lit (where we read Lonesome Dove and that's about it, I remember I read it in about 3 days and fellow students were shocked), we did World Lit (Things Fall Apart and I believe that was when I discovered The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende), then there was Plays -- mostly Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Young Adult Lit. And Senior Thesis. Everyone had to spend a whole grading period writing our Senior Thesis and since we had priveleages at the University Library we were expected to do real research. I wrote a paper on the use of myth in Eudora Welty's The Golden Apples. My teacher was rather hard core and one thing we had to do was make notecards of all our sources we were using. I think there had to be 20 or something.

One girl padded hers with a few French books, and Dr. S threw out all her notecards and made her find all new sources and write new ones because Dr. S knew she couldn't have read the book in French. And we were a small school so it wasn't hard for the teachers to know those kinds of things.

It was actually very useful to do that, I ended up with a B on my paper and consider I put it off until the last minute that was really good. I ended up in an college history class with kids who'd never written a paper with footnotes or citations and had no idea what to do and ended up failing their paper because they couldn't write properly.

What we did our Junior year was pick the courses we wanted to take off a list, I missed getting into Lyrics as Poetry and a few other popular classes.

stands next to JZ in the Austen-loving corner.

...actually, just stands next to JZ in general, and holds up "What She Said" sign.

Austen's pretty much my favourite writer, if I have a favourite writer. Which I don't, actually, because I'm not very hierarchically minded, but she's definitely one of my most beloved ones.

I do remember in my teens that Sense and Sensibility was the one that I would periodically reread, because I couldn't remember what the hell happened, so I guess I can sympathise a little with the 'meh, all the same' mindset. But that was a good while ago.

I think Persuasion is my favourite, with P&P a close second. I love that it's Austen doing Cinderella, and doing it painfully well. I don't love Emma so much, because the heroine makes me cringe a little, but it's a cracking book. I find Mansfield Park a little hardgoing because, sheesh, Fanny Price! But the storytelling is great, and the other characters are great, and it's not that I mind Fanny so much as she doesn't own a piece of my heart. But Northanger Abbey is hilarious as a pisstake of the Twilight- fangirls of the day.

I still haven't read the juvenilia or the unfinished novels, but her letters to Cassandra are pretty fabulous.

I'm thoroughly looking forward to reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Oh, fanfic, how I love thee.

Things Fall Apart and I believe that was when I discovered The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

Beautiful novels! I particularly love Things Fall Apart.

Persuasion seems to be the suggestion for re-discovering Austen. I'll give it a go.

It's basically Cinderella, if she'd made a bad call and been obliged to live with it.

::hugs Persuasion::

So, Seska - belated Welcome Aboard! How did you come to find us, mate?

How did you come to find us, mate?

I told the story on Natter yesterday - it's not interesting though. Used to lurk, didn't for a while, got reminded of this place when I was bemoaning lack of places to 'do' fandom nowadays.

So I should really go post about Dollhouse and do some fandom then...

It's weird about Austen -- I've really enjoyed the movie adaptations that I've seen, but I cannot read the books. The minutiae drove me absolutely batshit in text, but was absorbed nicely into the worlds of the movies.

Henry James made me pull out a read pen and edit out all the repetitive language.

Oh, Henry James. You and Faulkner make my head hurt with the long long long long-ass convoluted sentenced.

The minutiae drove me absolutely batshit in text, but was absorbed nicely into the worlds of the movies.

This, so very much. Sense and Sensibility is one of my favorite movies ever, but I cannot get through the book to save my life.

You and Faulkner make my head hurt with the long long long long-ass convoluted sentenced.

Yes, but Faulkner's three-page sentences are things of beauty and James' are drivel.

I'm another who can't get into Austen. I've tried. I think I've managed to get through 4 chapters of Emma, but that's taken a decade or more.

Now I love George Eliot, I read Silas Marner at some point, maybe for Brit Lit and then one summer I read Middlemarch at the beach. It was a few years ago when I went and stayed at the beach for 3 weeks, I'd go sit outside on the beach and read. My copy of Middlemarch still smells faintly of sunblock. This edition has lots of footnotes and I think without them I wouldn't have been able to enjoy it as much.

Maybe if I had footnotes for Austen I could get a better handle on it.

Get a Norton Critical Edition, askye. You'll have all the footnotes you want and then some.