Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I Just Finished Reading

Ingrid Fetell Lee’s Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness is actually a reread, as I saw it in the bookstore last week and on impulse bought it. It’s still a delicious pleasure to read (as I said in my previous review, “It’s just so rare to read anything that is such an unabashed celebration of the joyful”), and also so inspiring as I work on the Hummingbird Cottage: a reminder to embrace my love of bright colors and flowers and round things to create a joyful space.

What I’m Reading Now

In Vanity Fair, Becky has achieved her lifelong dream of being presented at Court! As a result, her lover (?) Lord Steyne bullies his female relations into inviting Becky to a dinner party, wherein said female relations cut Becky dead. “Assuredly, the greatest tyrants over women are women,” Thackeray writes, directly after a scene where Lord Steyne tells his sister-in-law, “Gaunt's tired of you, and George's wife is the only person in the family who doesn't wish you were dead.” Yes, being rude to a dinner guest is definitely a greater tyranny than making all one’s female relations daily lives a living hell.

What I Plan to Read Next

The end of Vanity Fair is in sight! (Still a long way off, but in sight.) I believe my next classic will be Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend.

Comments

[troisoiseaux]

I believe my next classic will be Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend.

Yes!!!!!!!

[osprey_archer]

I know I've said I'm going to do Our Mutual Friend before and then got sidetracked by other things (Vanity Fair), but I'm really gonna do it this time!!!

[skygiants]

YESSSSSSS

[asakiyume]

Thackery, probably, in a condescending tone: But women's nastiness is ALWAYS worse than men's because women's behavior is axiomatically worse than men's.

[kore]

Seriously!

Also, the way he talked about Charlotte Bronte, he has NO business criticizing anyone else's treatment of women ever.

[osprey_archer]

Gallant to Bronte's face! A jerk behind her back! I hope he ate crow when she got married.

[asakiyume]

I never knew about Thackery's treatment of Charlotte Bronte. Hisssssssss!

[osprey_archer]

This is like the early 2000s trend of insisting that women's aggression is worse than men's because women spread RUMORS and (a) are rumors that in fact worse than, you know, violent crime, and (b) men DON'T spread rumors? Telling other men that Tommy is gay and Mary-Anne's a slut and you can have her behind the bike shed ISN'T rumors?

[asakiyume]

(b) Right?! Like, it's still gossiping when men do it, everybody!