Wow. The Jane Austen book club meeting that I wrote about earlier finally arrived. I didn't know what to expect but I was a little nervous.What a pleasant experience, however! My sister-in-law and I went together and we walked into the sitting room at this huge hundred-year-old house to find a group of women of all ages. We weren't the youngest and we weren't the oldest. Everyone there absolutely loved Jane Austen and given the fitting setting, we dove right in to introductions combined with a discussion of our favorite scenes from the novel and our favorite characters. We even talked about the plot. We also spent a lot of time discussing what we knew of Jane Austen's life and how that related to the writing.
Very cool. It was really nice to get out of the house and think about something other than my job (which has sucked today). We met some interesting people (many of whom had moved to town recently) and tried to stage a coup to get the next meeting moved up. Unlike grad school where everyone who says something is just trying to sound smarter than the person who made the last comment, I completely enjoyed the discussion, hardly said a thing, and kept my ears open. There's a lot to be learned. A lot.
