Those matters will take care of themselves; the young people will find a way

I've finished Emma! I can truthfully say I've loved it. It is probably my favourite Jane Austen novel to date (the one I've understood clearest, admittedly). I love Emma, despite her bossiness. "I wonder what will become of her," her friends said, and I'm delighted with the way the book ended. A well deserved 381 page break from The Road! Speaking of The Road, after Emma I'll be swiftly moving on -- or should I say  back -- to Cormac McCarthy again... so I'll be saying farewell to posh England and witty women who through parties all day long and eventually end up married, and a hello to a familiar desolate American and blood and guts.

Better start planning my recovery book after McCarthy -- I wouldn't mind reading another Austen but I think I'll save that for next year... an Austen per year, that sounds about right!



Below are just two lovely quotes I'd read from the remainder for the book, from where I'd last dropped off. Usually there would be more, but I suppose I'd been

It was a clear thing he was less in love than he had been. Absence, with the conviction probably of her indifference, had produced this very natural and very desirable effect.

It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively, without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind;—but when a beginning is made—when the felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt—it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more.

Well, the next book I shall read is entitled All The Pretty Horses and is part of The Border Trilogy, which is nice because I've been intending (rather subconsciously, I discover) to begin reading a trilogy, or a sequence of books, lat least.

Below is another cute Star Wars picture (just for fun):