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Today, feeling rather feverish, I spent the best part of the day in bed.
In the intervals when my eyes were open I finished reading Jane Austen’s ‘Sense and Sensibility’. It is more that 50 years since I decided I didn’t like her writing. Maybe, now I’m a little older, I thought I might give her another go.
The novel is beautifully crafted; the prose elegantly fastidious. The writer progressively builds her insightful characters, but I still find I don’t like them much. She was, of course, writing of a certain social class in her own time, but I can’t develop any rapport with people who are concerned only with appearances and presenting what others may wish to hear.
I suppose I have achieved a partial reconciliation with Miss Austen.
My 1949 Avalon Press edition is illustrated by Blair Hughes-Stanton.
The colour plates, one of which adorns the book jacket, are obscured by mist,
and figures in the vignettes appear to represent ghosts or zombies.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s tandoori chicken and boiled rice. She drank Hoegaarden and I drank lime squash.