Glitches and Stitches

Glitches and StitchesUtilizing the G+ hangout for virtual book club discussions has been proving both technically difficult with the glitches and completely wonderful with the laughter causing stitches in my sides. For whatever reason, probably because we are not living in Star Trek, we have moments where it’s like watching a badly dubbed movie, talking into a time distortion, playing freeze discussion, or dropping out randomly. Still, the discussion points are great.

Our second official G+ hangout was to discuss Emma by Jane Austen. I’ll be honest I was the very bad book club member who has not finished reading it. I got a little disappointed with the lack of monsters because we were originally going to read Emma and the Werewolves, but that proved a bad choice. Then I kept getting distracted because as my copy of Emma was not an annotated version I kept stopping to look things up, which led to complete distraction by other things.

However, after our discussion a DJABC member brought up two questions that I must now plow into the remainder of the book to see if I can answer.

1. Do you think Frank Churchill killed his adoptive mother, Mrs. Churchill?

2. Do you think Jane Fairfax was pregnant?

Those two questions are enough to intrigue me and reignite my interest. Proof that I am indeed a dark reader, but even if neither is the case the possibility is interesting enough. As we tend to read many of the darker retellings those two points would be fun to add in. How would they change things? I like to ponder.

Another part of our DJABC hangout discussed a bit of what we are about to begin with Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Did Jane Austen read it? Did it influence her writing? What observations might Jane Austen have made herself that could be seen in Wollstonecraft’s writings?

These are the many questions that have emerged and good examples of the kind we discuss. Anyone can join in. Leave a comment on a post, or join the DJABC here and participate on the activities feed. Follow us on Twitter @DarkJaneAusten or like our Facebook page Dark Jane Austen Book Club. There’s always some way, and the conversations are so much fun. 

What do you think about the questions posed during our hangout? Do you have any thoughts you’d like to share on Emma or A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

*Photo: Coffee Time by andyindesign, obtained through Flickr.

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