Sense and Sensibility

6 February 2018: Another long day and here I am, still getting some work done past 11:00 p.m. For the past couple of hours, that work has involved finishing up re-reading Sense and Sensibility, the subject of my ENGL 311 class this week. To be honest, tonight's re-reading had been rough going. I am tired, a bit anxious about other work that needs to get done, and (as always these days) dismayed by the news. So it's been hard to put all of my focus on the adventures of Elinor and Marianne, which isn't very fair to Jane Austen.

All in all, I still think this is a kind of dark or at least very cynical novel for Austen, one that we ought to be careful not to over-romanticize. Yet even still, I did find myself charmed by this passage towards the end:

"...for though a very few hours spent in the hard labor of incessant talking will dispatch more subjects than can really be in common between any two rational creatures, yet with lovers it is different. Between them no subject is finished, no communication is even made, till it has been made at least twenty times over."

That the couple who lingers over the same conversation points is Elinor and Edward--who have been examples of sense and reason, not schmoopy (I am too tired to think of a better word) emotions--adds to the sweetness. Even these two nerds (I say with all affection) can get swept up in each other.

That's about the best I can do for something approaching profundity today, but now I can cross "blog" off my to-do list.