Ella Claire Gainsborough {Beauty} (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} bookshelved) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} bellumletale,@ 2010-01-10 13:52:00 |
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| Entry tags: | beast, beauty |
The book is delivered to one L.L. Quinn, in his care for Daniel Brown Webster. Accompanying it is a flash drive (properties tab shows Publishing House information only) with music and the following letter, which is on Publishing House letterhead and is typed in standard computer font. There is no signature at the bottom. The return address on the package, which is wrapped simply in brown paper, is for C. Davis at the Publishing House.
Daniel, It was quite a challenge to find an appropriate book to send you. Should I send something very lengthy, to keep you busy since you've missed your books so long? Should I send something completely non-sentimental, so you don't further your convictions that I'm running a hostel for homeless felines? Should I choose something modern, as you are a modern writer, but everything we've discussed thus far has been 20th century and earlier? You've mentioned Christie and you've read Shakespeare, O'Connor and some Wharton, but this doesn't help me narrow down a preferred genre for you. Hawthorne and Faulkner, which were my original choices, might make it seem I was trying too hard to impress. While Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice might make you not take me seriously. In the end, I did choose an Austen, but one less commonly read (and perhaps less sentimental, depending on how you read it), written closer to the end of her life, one that speaks to the writer in ways that are often overlooked outside academic circles, but which I find poignant. The book is not new, a fact for which I apologize, but I take you to be a connoisseur of the better-loved books, rather than the new. It's my favorite edition, and it is hard to find, which is why I chose this one instead of buying you the Oxford or Wordsworth. The music is included because I find it calming to write to. I hope this small package finds you well and home, and I look forward to your thoughts on my little novel. Claire, who hopes you are being taken care of at home, if you're still unwell. P.S. You now owe me: One poem, slightly used. One paragraph, entirely new. One novel opinion, appropriately contradictory to my own. P.S.S. Do you feel I'm entirely too nosy for the well-being of others? I am conducting a survey. |
Inside the book, the following notes and passages can be found. All notes are written in a tiny and precise print font, which differs from the script she uses in other writings:
Ch 1: Elizabeth had succeeded at sixteen to all that was possible of her mother's rights and consequence; and being very handsome, and very like himself, her influence had always been great, and they had gone on together most happily. His other two children were of very inferior value. Mary had acquired a little artificial importance by becoming Mrs Charles Musgrove; but Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of character, which must have placed her high with any people of real understanding, was nobody with either father or sister; her word had no weight, her convenience was always to give way - she was only Anne. - Is it Austen's age that makes her acquiesce to a heroine who isn't carved from perfection? I love Anne. Ch 4: She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequence of an unnatural beginning. - Does one who loves so easily give up? Ch 20: "A man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman! He ought not; he does not." - Truth? Or Austen's own wishes made words on the page. Frederick loves her, yes, and she deserves his love (because I love Anne), but is writing not about truth? Is this truth or fairy tale? The dreams of all women put to ink Ch 23: "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight and a half years ago. Dare not say that a man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant." - Does a woman love more than a man? Ch 23: "If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was to persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk. When I yielded, I thought it was to duty; but no duty could be called in aid here. In marrying a man indifferent to me, all risk would have been incurred, and all duty violated." - Harris Biggs-Wither? |
On the last, blank page, there is this notation:
Was Anne a fool? Anne is delightful. She is Emma and Fanny and Catherine and Elizabeth, had their youths not turned out as they ought to have. This novel has an underpinning of sadness to it that is unmistakable. Yes, the satire is there, thick as thieves, but there is more than setting and snark happening in this work. It is the novel of a woman who wrote about love and never lived it. It is a cautionary tale, something to learn from. Was Anne a fool? In this day and age, I say Yes! Of course! If you have love within your reach, you grab it with both hands and hold on with all your might. But in her time period? Was Anne a fool? God, but the romantic in me still wants to shout Yes! Yes! from the rooftops. Reality, however, is a different story, at least it was for Anne. She was young, and we make mistakes in our youth. The sadness in this novel comes in that reality tries to crack through the words. It screams Anne wouldn't have gotten him back, and it screams it loudly. I won't listen. |