Update: Read a book by Jane Austen

A few posts ago, I wrote about reading a Jane Austin book for the first time.  I enjoyed it and want to read another.  One of my oldest and dearest friends, Emily, (old meaning we've known eachother a long time, not that she's old...she's actually six months younger than I am) told me that she's reading Persuasion, Jane Austen's last book and that I should read it with her. Emily is one of the friends I took speed reading with in high school.   She was one of my book swapping buddies.  She also happens to live in ALASKA (heavy, dramatic sigh).  I mapquested it, and she is approximately 3,078 miles away from me (this is if I drove, which would take about 58 hours).  Even though she lives this far away, I still think about her every day, and thought it would be nice if we were reading the same book at the same time. 

So, I looked at my local library, and they didn't have Persuasion, which, in retrospect, is actually a good thing because if this Jane Austen book goes as slowly as the last (and I have a sneaking suspicion it's going to take even longer), I would have had to renew it about 12 times.  So, I went to a used book store, but they can't keep them in stock because of all the AP class-taking high schoolers who are reading Jane Austen (the shopowner said kids choose her because all of her books have had movies made of them and they like to watch the movies instead of reading the books. Cheaters.).  My next stop was Barnes and Noble.  What I found there would, I believe, revolutionize my Jane Austen experience. 

The Annotated Persuasion by Jane Austen.

  

What this means is that every other page of the book has notes on it.  Notes explaining colloquiolisms from Regency England, showing diagrams, descriptions, maps, and pictures of things described in the text, and even insights into the actions and dialogue of the characters.  For example, did you know that having "the gapes" is a fit of yawning?  Or that doorbells were a recent phenomenon during Jane's time?  Or that pattens were metal and wood contraptions that went over one's shoes, elevating them off the ground to keep their feed dry during the winter?  I'd like to get myself a pair of pattens. 

Reading the annotated version of a novel is like having a Lit professor sitting on the couch on one side of you, and a History professor on the other side! (I actually read in bed, but I thought that might make for a creepy analogy).   Although the annotated version of Persuasion is going to make reading it more interesting and more informative, it's probably going make it take twice as long as it normally would.  So, Em, you might finish Persuasion before me.  Although, you do have three kids...