@Moment-in-Time,
Quote: I was perusing it at my desk when one of my professors came in and expressed surprise that I was reading this very thick paperback of "Bleak House." He went on to explain he'd watched "Bleak House" the previous Sunday night on TV.....This professor was in his 50s at the time.
I've used that gambit a few times MiT. It's pretty good. Not in the desk situation though. In the pub. Literature students at colleges and in adult education classes in the evenings when him indoors is minding the fort. Three or four might come in for a drink after class and start some chat about the books they are reading. Same night every week.
I couldn't take Dickens. I read two or three maybe but it was no pleasure. Bleak House? Wuthering Heights. Wuthering is serious. I have been in a few bleak situations but I've escaped being wuthered. So far anyway.
There is a difference.
BTW--It is not Jane's fault that others have given so much emphasis to the first sentence of P and P. A single man of good fortune should not be able to resist an invitation of that class. She must have been a bit of alright because a chap who became Governor General of Ireland was in love with her and was dragged away, kicking and screaming, by his mother, who said Jane was the most brazen gold-digger in the County. But she wasn't. She remained single. She had been in love too. And that is the important thing to remember about that most lovely and interesting of women.
When I read Mansfield Park the next thing I did was read it again.
