So no sooner do I declare that I've now seen every extant Doctor Who episode there is to see, but somebody comes along and returns some film canisters to the BBC, one of which contains the missing episode 2 of The Daleks Master Plan. And I thought nobody was reading this thing.



Here's Laura's summary from the classics reading group 10 days ago on Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters:

Despite the cold, we had a pretty normal turnout - 12 people - and Borders thoughtfully invited us to use the cafe for our meeting because it was much warmer than downstairs. Like the air outside, the conversation was brisk, with discussions about the characters the most frequent topic. Most of the people in the group really liked the book (although many didn't quite finish it...but it's a little hard to feel guilty about not quite finishing the book when the author didn't quite finish it either!). A lot of the appeal seemed to come from the more realistic and interesting depiction of the various characters, many of whom we talked at length about. For example, we talked of Molly's growth as she adapted to life with a new stepmother and stepsister, and about how life had actually been harder for Osborne than for Roger because of the high expectations his parents had for him. We made the expected comparisons between Gaskell's style and Jane Austen's. We debated whether some of the actions (or proposed actions) of the characters were realistic for their time - Dr. Gibson giving Molly so little notice before marrying her stepmother, the Squire actually thinking that Osborne's wife might be willing to return to France without her son, etc. Although the conversation was quite lively, it wasn't as long as some others - it kind of wound down naturally before 8:30.

The conversation could have kept going except we had to vote on the next six books. But since hardly anyone, including myself, had finished the thing, there was no problem with stopping a little early. When this happens I'm more inclined to skip the group because I don't want to hear what happens, but I wanted to get in on the voting so I decided to make an exception. As it was I didn't finish the book until today, nearly three weeks after I started. Some thought the book was a little short on action for being so long, but, putting aside it's original publication in serialized form, I thought it moved along pretty well. There isn't the diversity or number of characters that you have in Dickens, but unlike much Victorian-era fiction people actually say what they think, which I thought was rather refreshing.



Roger and I both liked the book for its dissimilarities to Jane Austen, in that stuff does actually happen, and the characters and author both aren't nearly so circumspect at relating what's going on or what they're thinking. The book ends a bit abruptly as Gaskell didn't live to finish it, but it seems like it would've taken several more chapters to wrap things up if she'd continued at the same pace, so maybe it's just as well, or I'd still be reading it for another week. Although much can be read into it about gender and the role of women and so on, I don't think that was the main intent of the story, and I could recommend this to people that don't normally read the classics as just a good tale well told. It was adapted for Masterpiece Theater a couple of years ago, and reads as though it were written expressly for that reason.



I'm skipping next month because it's Alice in Wonderland, which we've read before, and I've got too much other stuff piling up anyway. Some good ones were voted on for the next six though, and none of them as long as Wives and Daughters, so it should be a good run coming up.