Strange Connections

A short recap of my feelings towards three female writers of the 1800s.

• Elizabeth Gaskell is my favourite.

• I love Charlotte Bronte.

• I am barely getting along with Jane Austen.

Do you know who else loved Charlotte Bronte? ELIZABETH GASKELL.

Do you know who else was barely getting along with Jane Austen? CHARLOTTE BRONTE.

Everything makes sense! While Gaskell admired Bronte and was inspired by her (indeed there are many resemblances between Jane Eyre and Margaret Hale), Bronte was criticising Austen and was trying to write something different. Also, Gaskell and Bronte were Victorian authors and Austen was a Romantic.

But Mary Shelley was also Romantic and I adore her. WRONG. She was writing in the time of Romanticism and was influenced by other Romantic authors (including her husband), but she was not actually interested in that time’s aesthetic.

I am always amazed about things connecting like this. My favourite musicians connect to each other, my favourite (or least-liked) authors connect. Isn’t it strange?

Do you know what else is strange? Jeanine’s muddy shoes. Not her shoes, but the unidentified thing she is standing in front of. I thought it was a hedgehog, but then she tells me that it is a face… That’s why I am a literature person and she is a visual arts person. Literature makes sense to me, visual arts do not.