Austen, Jane. Emma (1816). New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004.

I began with Austen, and now I've read her again. Let me declare with perhaps too much naive hope that, in the parlance of her characters, "I have done with Austen."

It's not that there are no joys in reading Austen, it's just that the joys are so rare and when they come are so helplessly buried amid such rubbish of unecessary propietary dialogue and meandering discursive sections of deep thought and rumination. See? See what she's done to my style?

The joys of Austen are these:

• moderate turns of plot, crafted pretty effectively, if not that efficiently;
• silly, old, angry, codgery fathers, always there to disagree with the general scheme of things regarding society,
• the use of health as a plot device; always there's a sickly person "off stage" demanding something or other from the characters.

There's a paper to be written on Austen and medicine, if one doesn't already exist.

Upon my word, I sha'n't be the one to write such a paper.