jane austen, lotr, etc

I love all things LOTR and Jane Austen // Older than Colonel Brandon // Background photo by Nicolas Lysandrou on Unsplash

[taciturn-nerd]

Welcome to my mostly Jane Austen blog!

I usually post about Jane Austen and Lord of the Rings and classic literature.

Current/recent reads:

The Lord Peter Wimsey series by Dorothy Sayers

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

Anne of Green Gables (and some of the sequels)

Mansfield Park

Sense and Sensibility

I made all the major Jane Austen novels into tabloid headlines.

I also compared the Jane Austen heroines’ dowries to modern day egg prices (the math and inflation are inaccurate but I had fun).

In 2023 I followed along with Dracula Daily and the Re: Dracula podcast and posted and reblogged posts that captured my fancy.

Sometimes I'll also post about kdramas or animes I'm watching like When the Phone Rings, Queen of Tears, Extraordinary You, My Happy Marriage, or Bon Appétit, Your Majesty.

Also FYI if you're using the default profile icon and your blog title is "Untitled" you look like a bot. People will block you. Please put something to show you're a real person.

[taciturn-nerd]

"She was probably not the only person in Oxford to find the atmosphere of old leather and central heating favorable to slumber."

[taciturn-nerd]

Harriet was quite thankful to be allowed to discuss murderers.

[taciturn-nerd]

"I'm afraid so. Do you know any man who sincerely admires a woman for her brains?" "Well." said Harriet, "certainly not many."

[taciturn-nerd]

On the fourteenth day, Wimsey, passing early through the churchyard for a morning swim down the village street, noticed that the level of the water had shrunk by an inch, and returned, waving a handful of laurels from somebody's front garden, as the nearest substitute for an olive-branch.

[valtsv]

I love your "they ring the same bells for weddings and funerals" tag bc I work as a bell-ringer at one of the few churches in my city where you still have to ring the bell manually. and we do ring the same bell whether it's a wedding or a funeral! but ☝️ we also ring it if the local sports team wins at sports (the secret third thing that is neither a wedding nor a funeral)

the three universal human experiences: love, death, and sports

[taciturn-nerd]

In The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers they also ring the bells for the new year and for emergencies!

[taciturn-nerd]

...the Rector strenuously resisting the parents' desire to call [their newborn] "Van Leyden Flood."

[taciturn-nerd]

I never knew I needed to see Lord Peter Wimsey in a disaster relief situation

[drizzhled]

me: *a hopeless romantic without a single ounce of romance in her life*

[taciturn-nerd]

Bunter did standup comedy???

Three evenings a week were devoted to concerts and lectures, arranged by Mrs. Venables, Miss Snoot and the combined choirs of St. Stephen and St. Paul, with Miss Hilary Thorpe and Mr. Bunter (comedian) assisting.

[taciturn-nerd]

"Superintendent," he said, "I think I have been the most unmitigated and unconscionable ass that ever brayed in a sleuth-hound's skin. Now, however, I have solved the entire problem, with one trivial exception."

[taciturn-nerd]

French-Bashing in The Nine Tailors

The ink and pen mean little, for I have never yet encountered in any part of France a pen and ink with which any normal person could write comfortably. But the handwriting is suggestive, because, owing to the system of State education in that country, though all the French write vilely, it is rare to find one who writes very much more vilely than the rest.

[taciturn-nerd]

"See here, my lad, if you don't make a noise like a hoop and roll away, I shall have something to say to your editor."

[taciturn-nerd]

One thing to keep in mind when reading The Blue Castle, if you've never experienced emotional/verbal abuse* from a parental figure, is that Valancy has grown up with this her entire life, nearly three decades of it at this point. She's been conditioned to be fearful and to comply no matter how mean or unfair they're being.

(* And I'm very thankful if you haven't)

Plus it's not just one or two parental figures! It's eight(?) separate relatives she sees semi-regularly who constantly criticize her, mock her, lecture her, and oppress her.

"Why doesn't she just leave?" You mean when she was a little kid??? To where? With what money and under what roof?

"Why doesn't she fight back?"

When you grow up in this kind of environment, you learn to pick your battles. Even in first few chapters you see Valancy's suppressed rage and hurt, but you also see her do the math. If she spoke up in any way or contradicted them or did anything but comply, it would just invite more verbal berating, guilt-tripping, and criticism. You learn to pick your battles and realize that often you just have to lose to survive.

Of course, things aren't going to stay this way, or there wouldn't be a story :)

But as you're reading, understand that sometimes it's very, very hard to break free, even mentally, from this kind of upbringing.

[taciturn-nerd]

Wimsey saw that the one way to quiet the Rector was to desert him without compunction.

[taciturn-nerd]

"Once only, my lord, and on that occasion an accident was only narrowly averted. Owing to my unfortunate lack of manual dexterity I was very nearly hanged in the rope, my lord."

[taciturn-nerd]

He was a bonhomous soul, with the insatiable curiosity of a baby elephant, and nothing pleased him better than to be interrupted in his encomiums of Sopo ("makes Monday, Fun-day") or the Whoosh Vacuum-cleaner ("one Whoosh and it's clean"), by a fellow-member of the department, fed-up with advertising and spoiling for a chat.

[taciturn-nerd]

@penig I had no idea! Thanks for letting us know the reference.

I've linked the story below.

The Elephant’s Child

    listen to the tale   IN the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk. He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as bi