MemeMachineGo!

When it was new, I took The Jane Austen Book Club out of the library. Pocahontas read it, but it came due before I had done so. I returned it unread. Now I’ve bought my own copy, and a Jane Austen omnibus so I can follow along with the characters.

The premise is straightforward — a book club of six people forms to read and discuss the six major novels of Jane Austen.

The very next person she asked was Grigg, whom we none of us knew. Grigg was a neat, dark-haired man in his mid forties. The first thing you noticed about him was his eyelashes, which were very long and thick. We imagined a lifetime of aunts regretting the waste of those lashes in the face of a boy. We’d all known Jocelyn long enough to wonder whom Grigg was intended for. Grigg was too young for some of us, too old for the rest. His inclusion in the club was mystifying.

I’m pretty sure it was Dan who told me of this bit:

“Don’t give anything away,” Grigg said. “I haven’t read it yet.”

Grigg had never read Pride and Prejudice.

Grigg had never read Pride and Prejudice.

Grigg had read The Mysteries of Udolpho and God knows how much science fiction—there were books all over the cottage—but he’d never found the time or the inclination to read Pride and Prejudice. We really didn’t know what to say.

That’s me. Well, I haven’t read The Mysteries of Udolpho, yet, but neither have I read Pride and Prejudice, nor any other Jane Austen. I embark on this project wholly a newcomer to her oeuvre (well, I have seen Sense and Sensibility. And Clueless.)

I’m reading Emma now. I’ll let you know how the Project goes.