Here is some dialogue that you won’t find in Northanger Abbey.
“I’m glad you liked that Candace Bushnell book I bought you. I saw you updated your status on Facebook. What was it you wrote? Reading One Fifth Avenue is better than going to bed with angry thoughts. I can’t stop reading it. Does that make me shallow?”
“Yes. I finished it. You should read it. It’s good.”
“I hope people don’t think you have angry thoughts about me.”
“Why would they think that?”
“I’m really enjoying The Brothers Karamazov. Maybe I should update my Facebook status. Reading The Brothers Karamazov is better than going to bed with horny thoughts. I can’t stop reading it. Does that make me deep?”
“You should stop reading all those old books. Read One Fifth Avenue instead.”
“Is it better than Sex and the City?”
“It’s different. I don’t know if it’s better. It’s contemporary. It’s about old and new money in New York. People with new money are very shallow. They’re looked down on, just like in the old days.”
“What about people with no money, like us?”
“You have to have money in New York.”
“Is it as good as Edith Wharton?”
“No. But it’s a quick, easy read. You should read it. You need to learn about the modern world.”
“I am learning about the modern world. I had coffee with Elisaveta last week don’t forget.”
“Who’s Elisaveta?”
“The Bulgarian diplomat I told you about. She’s very modern. I got an email from her today. She said she really enjoyed our chat but she regrets telling me that thing about about the other girl.”
“Which other girl?”
“You remember. I told you about it.”
“Oh you mean the threesome?”
Elisaveta had told me that she had once made a playful suggestion to her ex-boyfriend that maybe they should spice up their relationship by having a threesome with a nice young woman. It was just hypothetical. She had no particular young woman in mind. But he wouldn’t let the matter drop. He kept asking her, “When are you going to bring this other girl along?” In the end she got fed up with it. He seemed more interested in this non-existent other woman than in her. “What about me?” she asked him. “What about showing me some respect?”
“She said she regretted telling me that story because she thought I didn’t like it.”
“It just shows you that you can never trust what a woman says about sex. Even if she is your wife or girlfriend.”
“Well, that’s true. You mean her ex-boyfriend should have realised that she didn’t really want a threesome.”
“Of course. She was just testing him, to find out how he would react.”
“But I quite enjoyed that story actually. I may have looked like I disapproved because it was noisy in the café and I was concentrating hard to make sure I caught every word. It’s not the kind of thing you want to mis-hear. It could be very embarrassing if I thought she was talking about a threesome and she was talking about something quite innocent. She didn’t actually use the word threesome. She just kept mentioning this other girl, who didn’t actually exist. It was a bit confusing, the way she told it. Maybe I should tell her, I told you all about it and you loved it.”
“Yes! I did!”
“But then again maybe not. I wouldn’t want her to think I tell you all her secrets.”
“But you should definitely read that book.”
“I’ll add it to my TBR pile.”
This was hilarious! Maybe this dialogue wouldn’t be in Northanger Abbey, but I think, if Catherine Moreland and especially Isabella Thorpe were caught up on the conventions of today, they’d have understood the main ideas! ;-D
And I definitely thought of Edith Wharton when the old money/new money divide was raised. Maybe there’s not that much difference between then and now…
Hello Christina, you don’t need to read this, since you are already very modern, I believe. That is, if it’s possible to like Jane Austen without being a stick-in-the-mud. By the way I’ve linked to your blog in my Bloggroll but you may not recognise it — I called it “Christina’s Blog” (see sidebar) because I forgot what it was called and linking outside WordPress is very manual and challenging.
My very modern hi-tech employer won’t allow me to comment on your blog or even read the comments on the literary lab you linked to, which seemed very interesting, so I will have another look later.
I suspect you are very good at guessing who composed a piece of music if you hear an unfamiliar excerpt. Guessing who wrote a certain passage is kind of similar. I used to have to practise this at university and I always enjoyed it even if I got it very wrong. We even had to do an exam on it but it seems more like a parlour game, doesn’t it?