In which Jane Austen outdoes Betty Friedan, plus makes a joke at her own scribbler expense, thus combining feminist outrage with comic self-deprecation plus critical acumen plus character development plus plot action insofar as Anne's erstwhile lover Captain Wentworth overhears this conversation and decides that Anne might still love him and that maybe he should ask her to marry him again:

[Captain Harville:] "I could bring you fifty quotations in a moment on my side of the argument, and I do not think I opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of women's fickleness. But, perhaps, you will say, these were all written by men."

[Anne Elliot:] "Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything."

[from Persuasion (written in 1815-16, published posthumously in 1818)]

In which Vladimir Nabokov misses the point entirely, which is very cheering for those of us who are illogically opinionated about, say, the unpleasant experience of reading Dostoevsky or cooking pork liver.

We had to find an approach to Jane Austen. . . . I think we did find it and did have some degree of fun with her delicate patterns, with her collection of eggshells in cotton wool. But the fun was forced. We had to slip into a certain mood; we had to focus our eyes in a certain way. Personally I dislike porcelain and the minor arts.

[from Lectures on Literature (collected from VN's classroom lecture notes and published posthumously in 1980).]

Dinner tonight: leftovers, thank God.