Current reading
Jul. 28th, 2019 06:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoeI'm taking a bit of a break from the Victorians at the moment and going back to the early nineteenth century. I recently finished Our Village by Mary Russell Mitford (1820s-30s), a series of short writings on contemporary English country life. I had high hopes for a book that mentions and praises both Gilbert White and Jane Austen in its first few pages, and it did not disappoint. The sketches range between nature writing, random pieces of reminiscence, descriptions of the characters and social features of village life (there's a very memorable one about cricket) and more or less plotless short stories, many featuring courtships and romances. Mitford has a great eye for detail, and the book was a fascinating window into her world.
Then I started a collection of John Clare's poetry. I don't usually read much poetry, but I was intrigued by what I'd heard about Clare and wanted to check out his writing, and so far it is indeed very good. Again, a really great eye for detail, and the poems are full of well-chosen bits of imagery and beautifully true descriptions of the natural world. And the political themes, of course, are both historically interesting and sadly relevant.
And now I'm reading the biography Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley (2017). Lots of interesting and sometimes surprising information about both Austen's life in particular and how she was placed in the wider social and historical context. The writing style is easy and engaging, and I'm enjoying it a lot. Worsley is definitely very much reading her own interpretation into the historical sources and drawing the picture she wants to, but some amount of that is probably inevitable with a figure as significant as Jane Austen, and she is honest about what she's doing.
Then I started a collection of John Clare's poetry. I don't usually read much poetry, but I was intrigued by what I'd heard about Clare and wanted to check out his writing, and so far it is indeed very good. Again, a really great eye for detail, and the poems are full of well-chosen bits of imagery and beautifully true descriptions of the natural world. And the political themes, of course, are both historically interesting and sadly relevant.
And now I'm reading the biography Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley (2017). Lots of interesting and sometimes surprising information about both Austen's life in particular and how she was placed in the wider social and historical context. The writing style is easy and engaging, and I'm enjoying it a lot. Worsley is definitely very much reading her own interpretation into the historical sources and drawing the picture she wants to, but some amount of that is probably inevitable with a figure as significant as Jane Austen, and she is honest about what she's doing.
