I'm not sure if I'm a literary snob or the classics equivalent of a Belieber...

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I know that it's not exactly fashionable to admit it anymore, but I have to confess something to you all.

I love Pride & Prejudice.

I know, I know, liking Lizzie Bennet and lusting after Mr Darcy is so 1995, but it's the truth.  I love P&P, always have, always will.

I remember the first time I read it back in high school, before it was synonymous with Colin Firth trudging sexily out of a lake.  I just adored it, and not in that "Ooh, it's Jane Austen, so everything of hers must be amazing" kind of way.  Truth be told, P&P is the only one I've ever been able to stand to read all the way through more than once.  Maybe that makes me a literary Plebeian, but I don't care.

But the point of this little rant to to make a recommendation to you all.  Go and check out the web series below, or mainline the whole thing by watching the playlist here [link].  It's a modern retelling of the story, with Lizzie as a media student who starts a video blog.  It's low budget, done completely in the style of vlogging, and is so clever!

It's actually finished now, and with 100 episodes at between three and four minutes each, that's almost six hours of viewing.  Honestly, if you like Pride and Prejudice even a little bit, you're going to love The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

You're welcome.

A question of censorship...

I was browsing through some second hand books the other day at an op shop when I came across something I just couldn't pass up. Not because I desperately wanted it or it was something I'd been keeping an eye out for, and not because it was valuable. It was just some ratty old paperback with a grotty cover. No, the reason I bought it and took it home was because I just COULDN'T leave it there for someone else to buy.

"Escape from Witchcraft", that was the title. Of course it caught my eye just from that, but once I'd read the blurb I was ... I guess you could say conflicted. Being a witch myself, I was both amused and horrified.

The story was an autobiography, published in the early seventies and detailing a girl's experiences with the occult. Biased of course, as all biographies are, but I admit it riled me up more than most. Here's a bit from the back page.

"Witchcraft is not a thing of the past. Satan is not dead. Young people by the thousands are probing seriously the mysteries of "The Other Side", from seances to satan worship ... most American high schools have their campus "witches and warlocks."  While the drug problem occupies community attention, another epidemic - far more insidious, far more elusive - is spreading among young people ... That is why this book had to be written."

I suppose it's ridiculous to be insulted by a book that was written before I was born, but I acted on instinct.  I didn't want someone else to buy that book. To read it. So I bought it myself to take it out of circulation.

But afterwards when I got it home, I started to feel the twinges of my conscience. Sure I have the right to my beliefs. Sure I have the right to abhor what this stupid little book says. But do I have the right to think I can stop other people from reading it? Isn't that a bit like censorship?

I'd intended to throw the stupid thing away as soon as I got it home, but now it just feels wrong. A bit too much like book burning, if you know what I mean. But it leaves me in a strange situation. What to do with it? I could donate it to a charity, but that doesn't feel right either. Maybe I should just leave it somewhere and let the fates take their course.

I know that in the grand scheme of things my buying it isn't going to make any difference whatsoever, but that's not the point. It's the fact that I THOUGHT it would make a difference. As much as I hate to admit it, it's a difference I don't have any right to make.

Damn, I hate it when I'm being a better person.

Behind the scenes at the library...

A transcript of a genuine conversation between myself and another library employee.  Yep, this is the sort of things we’re talking about when we say we’re going out back to see if we can find your book.  Who says literature can’t be fun!

Me:  Good morrow!  How art thou!

Her:  Really?  Shakespeare?  You’re really going to do this?

Me:  Verily!

Her:  So you’re committed to this?

Me:  Verily much!

Her:  Heh … is it just me, or does that sound like a girl in a boarding school story?  Verily Much and the Fifth Years!

Me:  Verily Much Wins The Trick!

Her:  Verily Much Has a Jolly Gay Time

Me:  Verily Much and the Naught Prefect

Her:  … you know, those sound kind of suggestive.

Me:  Of course they’re suggestive!  Didn’t you ever read those stories when you were a kid?  They’re full of innuendo and substituting food for sex.  Those boarding school story writers were incredibly repressed.

Her:  That explains so much!  Like why they always seemed to have a verbal orgasm over whatever was being served for lunch!

Me:  If you think that’s kinky, just think about how many of the stories had two teachers that were “Close, intimate friends”. 

Her:  … oh wow, I never even noticed, but you’re totally right!

Me:  Like I said, repressed!  Think about it, most of the women who wrote those stories were spinsters.  I’d imagine they knew very little about naughty stuff and rumpty pumpty, so they substituted lashing of tuck and midnight feasts and a seriously disturbing obsesson with hockey and cricket for sex in their stories.

Her:  You seem to know an awful lot about this.

Me:  Are you kidding?  I could write a thesis on it!

Her:  Is it wrong that this has made me want to pull out my old boarding school stories and reread them looking for the naughty bits in disguise?

Me:  I’d be disappointed if you didn’t!

And the moral of this story, children?  Those of us who work in libraries can spin almost anything to make it a bit rude … even classic children’s books.