Classics Considered

We made it!  If you know me from past years, you know I'm terrible at sticking to read-alongs and challenges.  So I have to pat myself on the back for finishing this one.  :) Overall?  I give the Read-Along 5 stars - the pacing and discussion questions have been excellent.  The book itself, I give a solid 3 stars.  Wollstonecraft packed a lot of thoughts into the book, and I agreed with her on many points.  At the same time, there was a lot of needless repetition, which, if I hadn't been on a schedule, might have bogged me down completely.  On to the discussion questions: Do you agree or disagree with Wollstonecraft's arguments about "stupid" romance novels, in which an author presents perfect images of men and women in love and marriage. (We could even apply this to romantic films.) I couldn't tell exactly what kind of novels she dislikes, though it seems to be all of them?? Anyways, I would agree that romantic novels/films can b...

Week 3 of the Readalong covers chapters 6–11 which deal with early childhood, concepts of modesty vs humility, a woman's reputation, class differences, and parent-child relationships.  Whew!  In all seriousness, though, while I personally would have chosen a narrower scope for such a book, I admire Mary's willingness to take on a broad range of subjects and deal with each one in some detail. I think my biggest takeaway from the book thus far is how much it puts into context Jane Austen's work (and, no doubt, her contemporaries').  After an Austen phase in my tweens, I later became disenchanted with her stories, finding (frankly) not much in them which seemed relevant to my life.  However, if I had any doubt before what "sensibility" means or whether Anne Elliot's odious relatives were true to life, those doubts have been dispelled by reading Vindication . In fact, for the first time, I earnestly want to re-read Jane Austen, because everything makes se...

Week 2 of the Readalong spans chapters 4 & 5 on the topics "the state of degredation to which woman is reduced" and "writers who have rendered women objects of pity, bordering on contempt." It looks like I highlighted more quotes in these chapters than in all of the first part. I was especially impressed by chapter 5, where Wollstonecraft responds to opposing views, including those of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  Boy, she cuts him down to size (and reading what he wrote, I don't blame her).  I'm not sure I can put together a coherent summary of this section, so instead I'll go straight to Ruth's discussion questions (warning, LENGTHY post ahead!!):

Finally reading this classic that's been on my list so long! Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) My Gutenberg edition began with a brief biography of the author.  She had an interesting but tragic life: Apparently her father was very overbearing ("a despot," according to the biography) and unkind to her mother. Mary didn't receive anything in the way of higher education, but a good friend of hers, Frances Blood, appears to have helped her along in her early adult life.  They set up a school together where Mary worked as a teacher. Her first writing success appears to have been a response to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France .  Burke wrote against the French Revolution; Mary's publication, A Vindication of the Rights of Men , was pro-republican.   It seems like her success with this piece was what gave her the impetus to take on none other than Jean-Jacques Rousseau (or "J. J. Rousseau" as she calls him... I got a kick out...