Full Thread: What are you reading?
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Old July 14th, 2017 #868
Alex Linder
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Am reading Emma by Jane Austen and Vol I of Les Miserables by Viktor Hugo. Both excellent. Extremely tiny type in Hugo but quick read because interesting.

I like Jane Austen a lot. Emma I've read about 60%, is a book in which basically nothing happens. It's all about social interaction. It's not as interesting (exciting) as Pride and Prejudice but it's still great stuff. If you want to read about serious white adults interacting unjewed, you pretty much have to go back to this era. All these people did was seek approbation, offer kindnesses, etc. In this book, as in Jane Eyre which I read earlier this year upthread, you get to see white men and women -- often 20-somethings interacting seriously without any kind of sex garbage. They take seriously the ability to read character. Emma tries to set up her friend Harried with a Mr Elton but Knightley correctly points out that he is actually interested in her. She doesn't believe it, but he is proved right. Leading her to reassess herself and the clownishness of matchmaking. She has actually got her friend to turn down a proposal from a good man, as she mistakenly thought Elton was a better one and about to propose. Austen's books prove the superiority of talk to action, as Oscar Wilde would say. Talk is more interesting. You can see white culture of a very different type in Austen's books, you can see where we came from and where we certainly aren't now. We are about 10x fatter and stupider than in the early 1800s when Austen wrote Emma. I spend most of today driving around god's country (missouri) and I seriously believe I can determine IQ within five points by watching someone operate a car. It is good that automated cars will be here soon because shortly at least half the population will too fat/stupid to operate a vehicle.

As for Hugo, I've only read 100+ pages, just introduced Jean Valjean, who steal things, but mainly a priest who actually cares for his office and not money or boy-glutes. I have never seen that musical or read the book so trying to get a little less ignorant.