Pride and Sensibility

I’m not usually one of those women who gets all soppy over a Jane Austen adaptation, but I have really enjoyed the recent version of Sense and Sensibility on the BBC. I suspect that it’s mainly because it came at an appropriate time in my life and I seemed to empathise with the plight of the characters - particularly Marianne.

Jane Austen was born 201 years before me, and all sorts of changes have taken place in society, traditions and not least women’s place in the world between then and now. However, the feelings and emotions experienced by her heroines are still able to strike a chord today. Women still fall for the wrong men, give them too much too soon and trust them with their hopes and dreams, only to discover that the men are barely giving them a second thought.

I’ve very recently come across my own Willoughby. Someone who made me feel special, raised my expectations, engaged my trust and inevitably let me down.

Maybe one of the beauties of literature, art and music is that it can show us that we aren’t the first and we won’t be the last to feel this way. We can draw parallels in other people’s experience and delight in their ability to make something beautiful out of something painful. Let’s hope there’s a Colonel Brandon out there for all of us.

Words of wisdom and a plea to all men (and women) from the late, great Kirsty MacColl:

“So you took a little piece of me

Laid me open for the world to see

But if I meant so little to you

Why couldn’t you just leave me be?

It wouldn’t have made so much difference to you

But it meant the whole world to me”

Midnight’s Children

It seems that I chose a strangely apt time to get my teeth stuck into this Booker of Bookers prize winning novel. Today it is 60 years since the partition, when India became independent from the British Empire and was divided into two nations, India and Pakistan.

The children of the title are those born between midnight and 1am on 15th August 1947, and the main character, Saleem Sinai was born on the stroke of midnight. Saleem and the other midnight’s children are born with magical powers of one sort or another, but this is not the main focus of the book. The novel follows and is narrated by Saleem. It begins with the story of his grandfather, tells of Saleem’s unusual birth at midnight and follows him throughout his life, which parallels the growth, development and changing fortunes of his mother country.

At the time of writing, I am two and half chapters from the end. It’s been quite an epic journey so far. There have been sections that I’ve struggled through and other sections compulsive page turners. I really don’t feel that I am in a position to give a proper critical analysis of such a complex book, but one thing is for sure - I’ve enjoyed it. However, I also feel that it has a lot more to give, and that on a first reading I have only really scratched the surface.

Unfortunately it will soon be time for me to put novels aside in favour of all things linguistic as I plunge head first into being a full-time PhD student again, but I’ll be keeping my eyes out for a cheap paperback copy (I’m currently lugging a huge library hardback around with me) to sit on my shelf, waiting for me to give it another going over.