Michelle > Recent Status Updates

Well, I didn't make my goal of finishing the book before the show premieres. Guess I'll be reading along with the show!

Well...didn't make my goal of getting through the book before the show premieres. I guess I'll be reading along with the show. Loving it either way

Loving how this book jumps back and forth between 1960s Italy and present day Hollywood and incorporates so much humor.

I'll be starting my trip to 1960s Italy today...in case you need to find me.

- Pg 103 On novels, reading, and learning: "Learning to read, means learning to live. Keeping your eyes open when you're looking at a book is just a way of teaching yourself to keep them open all the time". - Pg 106 On learning to love. It doesn't just happen by itself. - "The mere habit of learning to love is the thing". - "I could keep learning to live new things my whole life". Northanger Abbey

- Pg 86 on the potential negative impact of books (media): "the extravagant stories of wicked noblemen and haunted castles that the two girls read together gave the heroine all the wrong ideas about the world". - Pg 98 "It is good to be in touch with your feelings, but it is even better if you also think about them". - feeling ashamed of a friend that is a bad influence, and feeling ashamed to have ever loved her.

- Pg 70 acknowledge your feelings, don't be controlled by them. - pg 72 on self-centeredness. "by testing her impulses against the claims of logic, the heroine of P&P learned the most important lesson of all. She learned that she is not the center of the universe".

Pg 67 - romanticism vs. reason. "Austen viewed romanticism with alarm precisely because of what it said about the proper relationship between feeling and reason." - Modern influence of Romanticism: gave rise to all of the great art of the last 2 centuries. Example of pop music. example of pop psychology "trust your feelings" and "if it feels good, do it".

* Pg 64 - "It takes courage, Austen was telling us, to admit your mistakes, and even more courage to remember them". "For Austen, maturation means refusing to forget".

* Pg 58 - "When maturity came to them, it came through suffering: through loss, through pain, and above all through humiliation". Pg 59 "Till this moment I never knew myself". * Pg 62 - "Shame, humiliation, disgrace: hard feelings to accept if you've been brought up to believe that you should never experience any pain".

"Growing Up" Chapter * Pg 51 - "for her [Austen] growing up has nothing to do with knowledge or skills, because it has everything to do with character and conduct". * Pg 52 - describes people in their 20s then and now as jaded, see all as boring and predictable. Swear will never marry.

In the chapter: "Everyday Matters"- pg 27: "She [Austen] understood that what fills our days should fill our hearts, and what fills our hearts should fill our novels." Pg 33: "Austen taught me a new kind of moral seriousness - taught me what moral seriousness really means. It means taking responsibility for the little world, not the big one. It means taking responsibility for yourself."

Chapter 9 on his first day of work at the cannery reminded me of the The Confederacy of Dunces, one of my fav books of all time. Chapter 10 Antonio admitting to how much racial slurs hurt him, decides to insult a coworker the same way as to show his superiority, and he got enjoyment from it. Commentary that racists are fueled by their own sense of inferiority and fear.

Direct references to Marxism and Historical Criticism on pages 38, 39

Interesting references to Fascism on pages 33-35, during the crab massacre story.