Tuesday Open Thread: Ignorance is Bliss Edition
Welcome to another Tuesday Open Thread. We use these posts to introduce links that weren’t quite right for a full blog post but we thought were still of interest to our readers, and also allow our readers to direct the conversation if they like.
Richard Wilson names the Top Ten Books Not to Read Before You Die. Guess what is Number 1. We think he’s just having a larf. Nobody could be that ignorant. Could they? Thanks to Alert Janeite Helen for the link.
Sharon Griffiths wonders why anyone would want to get Lost in Austen anyway, because things kind of sucked in the Good Old Days. (Hmm. They seem to have pulled the article. Huzzah for Google Cache. Read it while you can, for it will not always be there, either.)
Feel free to pimp your own projects and links in comments, or just tell us what’s going on in your patch of Janeiteville.
September 30th, 2008 at 4:31 am
Oh, Lord yes! Now, of course, I love the work of Miss Austen as much as the next person who loiters on AustenBlog, but honestly - I’ll take tampons, penicillin and property rights, thanks so much.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:14 am
Richard Wilson-Hmm, how shall we punish him?
September 30th, 2008 at 9:09 am
The Good Old Days article sounds like it would be interesting to read, but I can’t get to it. Link takes you to current day’s newspaper edition, article was in 9/27 edition. Can someone share a better link? (Or tell me I need better glasses.)
September 30th, 2008 at 9:12 am
I am having the same problem Deb
September 30th, 2008 at 10:03 am
I was able to read it by using Google, typing in the search box:
sharon griffiths back in the good old days
It will be the first result that comes up on the search. Do not hit the title link, or you’ll keep having the same problem. Go to the Cached link at the end of the small summary and access it through there.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Luckily, I have managed to avoid most of the books on that list. Except for A la recherche du temps perdu. And I had to read it en version originale. Ick.
I’m surprised that Metamorphosis isn’t on this list. I had to read that one in German, and it was another excruciating experience.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Sorry about that. They seem to have pulled the article. I found it on Google Cache and linked it in the post–but it will go away in a day or two, I dare say, so make haste.
September 30th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
I’m glad he accepts that;
The best way to fight the massed ranks of recommended books is with an offensively glib and, if possible, ill-informed reason for not bothering with them.
It was funny.
September 30th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Well said,Reeba!
September 30th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Reasons to be happy we do not live in Jane’s time (couldn’t get the article, so I’m making my own list):
Ray Charles
Terry Pratchett
Central heating
Indoor plumbing
Birth control
Way better treatments for diseases that in Jane’s time could kill you in your early 40’s
Anything else?
September 30th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Umm, I hope I am posting this in the right place, but I thought someone might like to know there is going to be a performance of “Jane Austen Unscripted” at Theatre Asylum in Hollywood, CA Oct. 10-12. More information at goldstar.com. I think discount tickets are sold out, but there are probably still some full price ones ($20).
September 30th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Two words–Air Conditioning.
I’ll take my era, thanks.
October 1st, 2008 at 1:33 am
Actually, women’s rights are the biggest reason I am happy I live now and not then. Hygiene is a close second.
October 1st, 2008 at 4:33 am
Isn’t the thing about Lost in Austen though that she’s not going back to Regency England, but going into a novel, a fictional piece of writing? I think there’s a difference: I’d want to visit the world of Northanger Abbbey or Pride and Prejudice as we read it, but I’d be infinitely less keen to go back to Regency England, warts and all. I don’t know and I haven’t seen Lost in Austen so I could be entirely missing the point.
October 1st, 2008 at 7:04 am
Modern dentistry.
October 1st, 2008 at 10:52 am
I’m with S and Maria L., hygiene and modern dentistry are at the top of my list. Also, modern medicine. I have seen in movies where they give you a drink of whisky and pull a tooth or (I will spare the gorry details) do surgery with nothing else. And to brush your teeth with birch twigs and chalk, eewww.
October 1st, 2008 at 11:40 am
Let’s not get carried away with the hygiene stuff, guys. They weren’t wallowing in their own filth. And they weren’t chewing on birch twigs to brush their teeth, at least not in the gentry. Don’t believe everything you see in the movies. Though they did not take daily full-immersion baths (except Beau Brummell, who was a clean freak), people did keep themselves clean in those days by washing themselves at a basin daily. The Beau influenced society to be cleaner in their persons. Smelling bad was really not considered a good thing. Read Jane Austen’s letters–she was scornful towards people who were slovenly in their personal habits.
They didn’t have hot running water to make bathing convenient, and weren’t sure of the safety of immersion baths in general (and in those giant houses with no central heating, that’s understandable). They changed the layer of clothing closest to their skin often, even though they laundered their outer clothing only a few times a year; they had lots of “linen” as it was called so they could change for clean stuff often. And they had toothbrushes that looked much like the ones we use today and brushed their teeth with baking soda (which is an ingredient in some modern toothpastes and which many people still use to brush their teeth today–it’s supposed to be good for your gums, I think). I discussed that in the thread for the first episode of Lost in Austen. The birch twigs and chalk thing was a bunch of hooey. Perhaps the lower classes were at such shifts but not the gentry. However, with my luck I’d be in the lower class!
I think that’s the thing I’d like least–the difficulty at lifting yourself out of the social place to which you were born, especially for women. It could be done but was difficult as you had not only your own natural limitations to deal with but even the extraordinary person was limited by class issues.
October 1st, 2008 at 6:17 pm
I wouldn’t mind being born in the Regency Era, but only in the gentry
or even higher.
I would live in the countryside always and keep healthy ( I sound like Jane Eyre LOL!!)
And yes, I should also have enough dowry and the best of Gentlemen to pick a husband from - like Henry, Mr. Knightley, Col Brandon etc
I wouldn’t mind at all.
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:49 am
Say what you will, I would miss my shower.
October 2nd, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Back in the Good old days? That woman would never make it in historical re enactment!But- I’d love to have her dressed in U.S.Civil War Hooped skirt dress then have to go visit the loo! it would be pure torture!!!! Her trying to enter a porta poti would be even more difficult.but if you are close by do not laugh as the angry hoop skirted woman just might take her anger out on who ever laughs.
October 2nd, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Margaret;
We will keep you in either the Middle Class-or-marry you off to a good Baron from Ireland!
October 2nd, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Maybe I’ve been reading classics too long, but… I really don’t understand when people say their main objection to reading Austen is that the language is so complex/obscure/fancy. Um… it really isn’t? I could understand saying that about Joyce or Henry James or possibly even Dickens, but Austen? Pretty clear and straightforward, I think.
October 2nd, 2008 at 12:30 pm
being involved with historical re enactment….I’d take the Regency period or earlier….
And Id stay with my family in Ireland but which of our three branches? Baronette,Baron or Viscount? oh to have a real Irish surname….instead of something that sounds too damn English.
October 3rd, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Sharon Griffiths said that there was no non stick pans? I guess she has never heard of seasoned cast iron cookware? Whats wrong with washing by hand?
Mags why not invite here on this blog?
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:07 pm
baronet!
October 4th, 2008 at 11:48 am
I have re-read Sharon Griffiths article.I find it interesting that her “good old days” is mostly the 1950’s but does extend back to the Regency Period.
O.K. I can see parts of Wales and Ireland getting electricity in the 1950’s- Village of Cong being an example when they were filming “The Quiet Man”.
Griffiths does not seem to see the good side of the 1950’s or the regency period.
In the 1950’s Men worked,women married and stayed home helping raise the children in a family environment.
Neighborhoods were close knit- no way could street gangs intrude!
Heck if Maureen Dowd was 20 in 1952 instead of 1972(?),even she would of found a husband! she may not of been a writer in the NYTimes,however she could of been a novelist.
Divorce was as rare as feminists.