As a birthday present to me, my friends agreed to read a
book of my choice and hunker down to book club in the foreseeable future.
The book I inevitably chose was Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, mainly because I had
just read it for class and realized how amazing it was and partly because a
sneaky, hidden, side of me wanted to make Austenites out of my friends
too. I figured that using one of
the smallest and more palatable Austen’s would do the trick.
Of course, it was sincerely flattering to see people trying. If I’m honest, after a few weeks went
by, I truly didn’t see anyone reading it or being as excited as I was about it,
so I posed the issue to Judy, who assured me in the simple explanation of “what
do you expect? It’s us.”
I was starting to feel like no one really cared
actually. To help everyone out, I
set the date for December 16th –because nerd that I am, I have
Jane’s birthday marked in my calendar—and no one really wrote to commit to a
date. In a fit of pique, I remember
writing how I lost all hope about this endeavor.
And of course, I wasn’t using a real keyboard but one of
those new fangled touch screens, so my message came out saying I lost all
hipe! Autocorrect fixed this too
to hype, so my message came off as dead publicity rather than the deprivation
of expectation.
Inevitably, I chose to go through the motions of preparing
for the day. I made egg salad, I
set out tea, I reread passages of the book, but I did have a lingering feeling
of doubt if people would’ve read it.
My sisters didn’t read it beforehand actually. Pamela promised me that she could read
things really quick and would get it done in a day, and Samantha already read
it tons of times before so she didn’t want to reread it. Granted, she didn’t technically read it
for this occasion but still.
So day of, everything went well. I could tell people were nervous but willing and wanting to
show that they actually read it. I
tried to ease tension by putting handy questions into a hat, so we could all take
turns to reading one and discussing.
This idea was shot down by nerves and I ended up reading all of them,
even the bum ones I put in there to ease us into it like “describe Catherine’s
character.” That one was meant
with jeers actually.
But my whole idea started to turn against me. I started to really squirm having my
friends look at me and to guide the discussion. I had these ideas of grandeur, sort like us as a literary
salon with in France during the 1920s or something. You know, we’d share ideas and laugh and gasp and I’d have
to call to order to prevent a serious fight from breaking out over whether
Henry was a suitable match for Catherine.
Instead, we were more civilized with our tea tray out. We took turns to reply with thoughtful
responses. It just started to turn
against me because of how self-conscious I started to feel just reading out my
questions, mainly because I didn’t want to.
You know that feeling when you hear your voice on a recorder
and you realize that you sound like that?
Sort of like that, like, I wrote that question? What was I thinking over that wording?
I always hated reading in class. In my eighth grade Georgia History course, during popcorn, I
remembering skipping words I thought unnecessary, like articles and adjectives,
just to get my turn done with that more quickly. It actually made the process a little longer, because my
teacher made me go back whole paragraphs and would read with me a little more
carefully. I’m sure in her head
she felt that she was helping, probably thinking I was illiterate, but she
really just brought attention to it.
I mean, what eighth grader would want to sit through a lecture on
Oglethorpe twice as long?
Needless to say, I was never chosen for popcorn in that
class again. This was a pity
because besides the whole skipping words while reading, I developed a really
great tactic for it. In the middle
of sentences, words, and even after the first word of a paragraph I’d call on a
classmate just to see who was paying attention. Unsurprisingly, this made me unpopular in my eighth grade
American literature class, so I was skipped in popcorn during that class
too. It was just a coping
mechanism to deal with having to read aloud though. I was making reading fun for them!
I guess I felt all of that retribution in what should’ve
been a really fun moment for me then, because as I was asking a question over
the Thorpes, I felt myself start to fade off on the question. I looked up expectantly and everyone
kindly went along with it, but I was that kid who was popcorned without
notice. I was caught.
I ended it immediately, allowing discussion to dwindle into
private conversations, and when I they tried to bring it back, I scrunched my
face up and assured everyone that it was fine, I was done. What? Yes, of course I’m done. Let’s eat chocolates and
gossip. And there was a hardly
hidden exhale as we all poured more tea and started to really relax. It was more after that.
It wasn’t the end of it though. Judy actually couldn’t make it that day, so she promised to
meet me later on when we were both free to do book club then. By this Judy also meant when she
started school again, she’ll be able to check out the book and read it in
time. She did. She checked it out, but it was only
when I asked her how she was going through it and if she liked the part where
Helen saved that raccoon that I knew.
“Aha!” I said triumphantly, cackling and pointing with a
blatantly rude finger. “There is
no Helen! Or raccoons!”
“Yeah, I knew that, of course,” she played off. “Her name’s something really plain
though right? Morrison? Moore?”
“Moreland?”
“I was just testing you,” she said quickly, before she told
me she had a week with the book, so she’d have time to read it then.
Of course, when I called a week later to ask how she liked
it, she panicked, cursed, then tried to retract it and said she would get right
on it. We made plans to meet for
dinner later on to talk it over.
I didn’t think too much of it because Judy’s pretty
brilliant. Boys, proper etiquette
aside, she’s a regular Sheldon Cooper.
She’s pragmatic to the point of annoying but she’s well read, boasting
of the Russians being her favorite writers, and having once wanting to be an
epidemiologist. So I figured it
would be a pretty good discussion, one where I wouldn’t feel self-conscious
either.
Only, once Judy sat down in front of me, I hardly had time
to bring my soup to my lips when she demanded that I quiz her. Was that necessary?
Yes. She read
the book in four hours, so she wanted to assure me that she had read it before
she forgot it all. Judy has
terrible memory, but I chock this up to her general manic mindset.
So I did some small questions. Who did she end up with at the end?
Her eyes widened with panic as she thought. “That guy with the brown hair!” she
said suddenly.
My lips twisted with skepticism. “I don’t think it says that he has brown hair.”
She sagged.
“Really? I must’ve just
thought it. Well, give me
another.”
I proceeded to ask others.
“Where did they meet?”
“In a hallway!”
At my face. “At a ball after
she met Isabella.” At my
laughter. “Or maybe it was
before?”
Here's a variation on their meeting as done by J.J. Feild
“What word did Henry quiz Catherine on for using too much?”
Twisting her mouth in thought. “I’m sensing an a-word. Amethyst?
Absinthe? I’m going to go
with Absinthe.”
“It was nice.”
“What?”
“The word. It
was nice.”
She tiled her head in confusion. “Are you sure?
Did we read the same book?”
I found the passage in mine to show her and she nodded. “I may or may not have skipped that in
my hurry to finish reading.”
I had to laugh at that, and Judy explained how in her hurry
to read, she started to skim and skip some passages, explaining her failure at
the quiz she implemented. I had to
explain how book club’s don’t usually quiz someone on whether they read it or
not, to which she seemed extremely surprised.
“Yeah, really,” I replied. “It’s usually, did you like it? So did you?”
That might have been unfair actually, because as much as I
talk about Jane Austen to Judy, I forget that she actually hates her. She really does. She thinks of Jane as a lovey-dovey
romantic really.
It’s just weird because I take it so personally when I hear
it.
And it was just sad, because I never really said anything to
stand up Jane as Judy snuck in these comments. I just went along with Judy’s tirade on how the women in
these novels are silly and naïve, which isn’t true at all as far as Austen’s
characters go. I laughed and said
nothing when Judy talked about how Jane Austen was a hipster in making these
points about her society—by all of this I think Judy meant Jane’s satire.
“Just a hipster!” Judy proclaimed to the restaurant.
And I sat there being mute, not saying a word. I mean, I tried. Every once and while I would try to
interject, but say something like Mr. Darcy and Judy will scoff.
So I ended the book club quickly, dissolving into eating and
gossip. Isn’t that just always the
way?