Anne Bronte deserved better

Books and library musings. Mostly Brontes, Austen, Jasper Fforde, with other stuff as I see fit. Side blog of @pinketts.

[fictionadventurer]

Of course Catherine Morland falls in love with the charming, kind Henry Tilney who's unlike any man she's ever met and who's the kind of person who she didn't think existed outside of books. But the great thing is that Henry's equally enchanted by the completely ordinary Catherine, because she's something that's totally unfamiliar to his world. They're equally mythical to each other, and in finding each other they upend their ideas of what they thought the world was, and they build a new world together, and that is peak romance.

[caecilian-king]

HHDHFJJF NOT LOCKWOOD JUDGING CATHY2 AFTER BEING TOLD AN HOURS-LONG STORY ABOUT EXACTLY ALL THE REASONS SHE’S ACTING SO UPSET……. SIR….

[faintingheroine-deactivated2024]

The sad thing is, it is realistic for him to react this way. Like I can imagine men saying this about a pretty girl even after learning her incredibly traumatic backstory.

[laufire]

[Caption: the original post includes a picture showing a fragment of Wuthering Heights. It says "[...] her first. She hardly raised her eyes to notice me, and continued her employment with the same disregard to common forms of politeness, as before; never returning my bow and good morning by the slightest acknoledgment. 'She does not seem so amiable,' I thought, 'as Mrs Dean would persuadme to believe. She's a beauty, it is true; but not an angel.'"]

[marzipanandminutiae]

for reference to those who haven't read WH, she's literally a kidnap victim and the recent widow of a forced marriage

if ever a girl had reason to be upset...

[universemagicreading]

Someone once said that the titles of jane austen's novels are the name of the problems in the books. For example: in pride and prejudice the biggest problem is the conflict between pride and prejudice. So that makes Emma the biggest problem in Emma and, now that I have started reading the novel, I have never agreed more with something than I agree with this.

[bethanydelleman]

I think this paragraph has a lot to do with why Henry Tilney and Catherine Morland work:

Having heard the day before in Milsom Street that their elder brother, Captain Tilney, was expected almost every hour, she was at no loss for the name of a very fashionable-looking, handsome young man, whom she had never seen before, and who now evidently belonged to their party. She looked at him with great admiration, and even supposed it possible that some people might think him handsomer than his brother, though, in her eyes, his air was more assuming, and his countenance less prepossessing. His taste and manners were beyond a doubt decidedly inferior; for, within her hearing, he not only protested against every thought of dancing himself, but even laughed openly at Henry for finding it possible… Catherine, meanwhile, undisturbed by presentiments of such an evil, or of any evil at all, except that of having but a short set to dance down, enjoyed her usual happiness with Henry Tilney, listening with sparkling eyes to everything he said; and, in finding him irresistible, becoming so herself.

Henry is a second son, and not only that, his brother is HOT. Smoking hot, and from what we hear of him later, pretty charming, though not funny charming. Catherine takes one look at him, is like, “Well, other people might think he’s handsome,” and then focuses on Henry.

How often has this happened in Henry’s life? Is the usual way of things that a girl dances with him, finds out who he is and tries to trade up for his brother, Isabella-esq? I can see that happening to a second son, a mere clergyman A LOT. But the thought doesn’t even enter Catherine’s head, she’s all about Henry. She’s loyal, she’s disinterested, she’s not a mercenary. How gratifying it must be to be her first and only choice!

Is it any wonder that he falls in love with her? I say no.

[sixinchesdeepinmud]

““Well, when I am fifty-three or so I would like to write a novel as good as Persuasion but with a modern setting, of course. For the next thirty years or so I shall be collecting material for it. If anyone asks me what I work at, I shall say, ‘Collecting material’. No one can object to that.””

— ― Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm

[alovelylight]

why romance peaked w henry tilney

he tells catherine that he “considers a country-dance as an emblem of marriage” after asking her to dance with him. real subtle man

he understands muslins and helps his sister shop for her gowns. he is deliberately written to be courteous, kind, and affectionate in contrast to the brooding gothic heroes that stalk catherine’s imagination. she gets to see that the real thing is so much better.

the only austen love interest who knows how to flirt (and means it too): “I danced with a very agreeable young man, introduced by Mr. King; had a great deal of conversation with him—seems a most extraordinary genius—hope I may know more of him. That, madam, is what I wish you to say.”

he readily forgives catherine for missing their walk

the cutest fucking quote: “To be driven by him, next to being dancing with him, was certainly the greatest happiness in the world.” the fact that he cares about catherine’s boundaries and comfort throughout their courtship is so good, especially when compared to john thorpe.

he shares catherine’s love of gothic literature and sincerely admires and respects her for her kind of intellect, hormonal mess that she is: “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” yes, he teases her, but it is established that this is how he shows his fondness.

he describes the ideal sister-in-law (from eleanor’s pov) as “Open, candid, artless, guileless, with affections strong but simple, forming no pretensions, and knowing no disguise.” “Such a sister-in-law, Henry, I should delight in,” said Eleanor with a smile. i love that the text implies that he’s definitely rambled on and on about catherine to his sister.

after finding out that his crush thought his father has murdered his mother, he does not rebuke her at all. instead, he gently prods her to use common sense so she wouldn’t feel scared to be in his house, and then asks, “Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?” DEAREST is a fond address. the more catherine unwittingly reveals herself to him, the more smitten he is. 

he tries to comfort catherine after she discovers that isabella broke off her engagement with james by saying that “to have so kind-hearted, so affectionate a sister must be a comfort to him under any distress.” what the fuck

he is willing to get disowned so he could marry her

[besotted-with-austen]

Edmund Bertram: *destroyed* Fanny, after everything that you heard you must be heartbroken-

Fanny Price: I, really did not-

Edmund Bertram: *shaking his head* I see you even lost weight, poor thing!

Fanny Price: *to herself* it's barely been a few days-believe me, I would not starve because of 'love pains'!

Fanny Price: I-

Edmund Bertram: but even then, your attachment was not as strong as mine! If you might be suffering, think what I am going through!

Fanny Price:

[hamletthedane]

I [34 M] am somebody who inherited a lot of wealth from my parents, which allows me to support my ex’s daughter [10 F, from France and not my daughter]. To deal with the challenges of remote learning, I hired a tutor [19 F] to live in our home and teach her while I’m traveling for work. The tutor seemed a bit boring at first, but the more I got to know her, the more I liked her. We eventually really hit it off and got together after I broke up with my ex - now we’re engaged.

There’s just one problem: we were about to be married when my ex-wife’s brother [38 M] showed up and revealed that I’ve kept my bipolar and/or depressed wife [37 F] locked in a small padded room in my attic for the past 15 years. (Inlaws know all your skeletons. Ugh.) He then called me a bigamist in front of my girlfriend, embarrassing me and her!

Now my gf wants to break off our engagement...all because of a little spousal attic confinement! I tried to compromise - I even said that marriage wasn’t a huge deal and she could still be my mistress, but she won’t hear me out. We’re so in love, I don’t see what the big deal is...AITA here???

Tl;dr: AITA for trying to convince my 16yr younger fiancée to become my mistress after she discovered I kept my depressed wife trapped in a padded attic room for 15 years?

[bookmania]

“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.”

—

Mortimer J. Adler

[elite4steffi]

Gonna be more like Sir Percy Blakeney by going to a party but napping through the whole thing in order to protect my secret identity

[quotespile]

“At the same time, it seemed certain to me that someday I would really want to hear his voice and wouldn’t be able to, and I would think back to the time that he had invited me to call him, and it would seem as incomprehensible as an invitation to speak to the dead.”

— Elif Batuman, The Idiot

[quotespile]

“It’s so rare in the world to meet somebody you connect to. Most people are so awful. In the big picture, bad breath just seems relatively manageable.”

— Elif Batuman, The Idiot

[quasi-normalcy]

At least nothing that you can write will ever be as embarrassing as the smutty Hillary Clinton AU fanfic that Curtis Sittenfeld somehow got published.

[thegofc]

It was terrible to think that he was in this city, possibly very nearby, but I couldn’t see him or talk to him because he didn’t love me. I couldn’t be with him for one minute, not even for the weird leftover hours that nobody else wanted, like from one to three a.m. on a Wednesday.

Elif Batuman (The Idiot)

[quotespile]

I wanted to know how it was going to turn out, like flipping ahead in a book. I didn’t even know what kind of story it was, or what kind of role I was supposed to be playing. Which of us was taking it more seriously? Didn’t that have to be me, because I was younger, and also because I was the girl? One the other hand, I thought that there was a way in which I was lighter than he was – that there was a serious heaviness about him that was foreign to me, and that I rejected.

Elif Batuman, The Idiot (via quotespile)

[quotespile]

Even though I had a deep conviction that I was good at writing, and that in some way I already was a writer, this conviction was completely independent of my having ever written anything, or being able to imagine ever writing anything, that I thought anyone would like to read.

Elif Batuman, The Idiot (via quotespile)

[quotespile]

Why was ‘plain’ a euphemism for 'ugly,’ when the very hallmark of human beauty was its plainness, the symmetry and simplicity that always seemed so young and so innocent. It was impossible not to think that here beauty was one of the most important things about her – something having to do with who she really was.

Elif Batuman, The Idiot (via quotespile)