You're my alternate girlfriend: I love you, and now you cannot pretend

Number one on the agenda is Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. Now, you're probably expecting a rave review. You know how I feel about Jane Austen.
Well, stop now. I did not enjoy this book. I think I was a little biased against it from the start, because Oxford did a crappy job with their special edition Jane Austen collection. First of all, you'd expect it, somewhere, to give a description of the book's plot. Fine. You're saying, "Angela, how 'bout Wikipedia?" I know, I know, fine. Maybe I am making a mountain out of a molehill. But still, it would be nice if research wasn't necessary just to read a book. Second, the guy who edited this book was high. So the whole introduction, instead of giving you an idea of what the book is about, just complains about how the editing for the first edition was really crappy. Fortunately, we get to experience that firsthand, as Oxford appears to have corrected about 2.2% of those errors. And, one more thing, Oxford did a weird editing choice that I can't even... I've never seen anything like it before. At the end of a page, they print the first word of the next page all the way to the right below the last line. Then, on the next page, they repeat the word. For example, pretend that this is the end of my page right here when I press 'enter'
and

and this is the next page. (Isn't that weird?)


Anyway. What the book is about--sort of--Early as a child the main character, Fanny, is adopted and raised with her cousin's family. She falls in love with her cousin Edmund over time, even though it seems like she has too-strong feelings for her actual brother for quite a long time. Then there's a play (which is really minor, actually) then adultery (Edmund's betrothed was involved in a scandal!) and I just wikapedia'd it and apparently Billie Piper played Fanny in a version of it. YES! You know, maybe I'll understand it better if I see it in film form... so I should just go get that riiiiiight now... (Or maybe not. You know I'd spend the whole movie waiting for David Tennant to show up.)

So, I've already complained about the introduction. Honestly, I don't care that the editor did a crappy job. Jane Austen probably didn't care. She was probably too busy basking in the wealth Pride and Prejudice brought her. She could care less what it looked like because she knew that every dumb bolt would pick it up simply because her name was on the cover. Stephen King employs this tactic today. And, let's be honest--if I could employ that tactic, I sure as hell would. Look. I want a yacht.

The book opens with the lines: "About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds..." (3). The rest of it doesn't matter. Only 7,000 pounds?? 'Only' seven thousand pounds two years ago would be $14,000! It's not a huge amount of money, but hell, I could dig it.

"'Sitting and calling to Pug, and trying to keep him from the flower-beds, was almost too much for me'" (74). Women in the Victorian era were lazyyyy. This is kind of like every episode of The Twilight Zone--if there's a woman of (love) interest, and she's set in the current time, she is hardly ever working. She's just rolling around in bed eating chocolates. Whose idea was women's rights. I would love to just roll around in bed and read all day. Though maybe not to the point of being unable where to even call the dog would exhaust me. Ugh. Can you imagine? "Pug! Pu--Oh, dear me. I'm about to faint. All of a sudden all my strength just left me..." Anyway, also on this page is one of the first errors I noticed--the 'e' in headache is omitted. As in, head OCH! Haha, get it, it's like the German word? No?

There's a huge boring bit about plays in the middle. It's boring and appears to just kind of be there. I figured maybe, Edmund and Fanny would play opposite, their passions would deepen, and it would be like that episode of 'As Told By Ginger'. I can't remember if that episode was the one that was the catalyst in Darren and Ginger's dating, but I do remember they had to do a kissing scene that made Ginger get all inflamed with passion and heavily make out with him. Do people even know what I'm talking about? Ginger's eyelashes made me mad. Actually, her whole face. She looked weird.


Oh, so fun fact, on page 288 this lady mentions three girls, two playing piano and one on the harp. Wait, that's not the fun fact part. Due to some accidental research (IE reading Pride and Prejudice fanfiction) I discovered that a girl playing the harp was considered sexy back then. Well, maybe not exactly sexy, but alluring. In a sexy way. Fanny is bothered because of the girls because they're eligible mates for Edmund or something like that, but look at that. I just added depth. Because one of those girls is apparently a sexy Sammy, which explains a little more why Fanny gets agitated. (Rawr, girls on harps. Those Victorian-era gents had some pretty raunchy fetishes.)

"'But I am not fishing; don't compliment me'" (289). As in... fishing for compliments? That was a phrase back then? Or did Jane Austen invent it? Dude, I don't even care. Maybe this book wasn't completely terrible.

Then, chapter XVI ends implying that Fanny and Edmund are friends and only friends, but Fanny's "friendship was all that he had to cling to" (460) implying that maybe they could get to know each other, have some wine, maybe get her a harp and see where things end up... ehm. So, being that that sentence is the last in the chapter, you can guess that the next chapter is going to pick up on what I described. Let me tell you how chapter XVII starts: "Let other pends dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore every body, not greatly in fault themselves, to tolerable comfort and to have done with all the rest" (461). WHAT. THE. EFF. JANE AUSTEN. Jane Austen, you can't do that! You're not Rod Serling; you can't just be like HEY GUESS WHAT I SUDDENLY HAVE PRESENCE HERE ON... THE TWILIGHT ZONE! Also, suddenly everything gets hunky-dory. In other news, f--k this book. It is so bad I need imply saying the f word. I try to keep this PG-13 at least, but this book is pretty goddamn trying.

This book is terrible. It's very clear that Jane Austen spent her money garnered from Pride and Prejudice on opium and wrote the book, or at least the last chapter, while on it. William S Burroughs, 140 some-odd years later, would employ this technique many a times (with various other drugs). If this is the first Jane Austen book Emma read, well, no wonder why she hates Jane Austen. Look. Don't read this book. It's not great. It's not mediocre--well, actually, if the Goosebumps series by RL Stine is 'bad' on the three-tier scale, then yes it is mediocre. If you must see her work, read what people remember her for--Pride and Prejudice. There's a reason why she's remembered for that. (And, actually, people remember Emma. Apparently there's a TV miniseries on PBS or something. I don't know. I saw it in an 'Entertainment Weekly' that's the latest-two months old.)

Number two on the agenda is that awesome Goosebumps blog. Sometimes, the things we remember fondly really aren't that great. Case in point, Voltron.

Number three is, I officially own the entire Twilight Zone series. You know what, maybe it's not fair to harp (hahahaha get it?) on Victorian-era men for finding women playing instruments sexy. I think Rod Serling is pretty sexy. Just saying. Anyway. Twilight Zone is awesome, and if you've never seen it I'm obliged to love you less. Look. It's The Twilight Zone. Twwiiiiliiiiiighhhhht Zooooooonnneeeeeee.

Number four is I'm rereading Dr McNinja and I'm overwhelmed with wishing I was Daniel McNinja. Yes, Dr McNinja's father.