this utterly charming soapbox prospect reminds me of lyme.

that author to whom you are referring? the one that you say you love so much or quote on your facebook profile? the one to whom you devote seeming profusions of delight?

her name is jane AUSTEN.

with an E.

(austin is a city in texas.)

if you keep spelling it wrong, two things are going to happen.

a) i will quite possibly burst a blood vessel in my brain and die from consternation, something that my dear miss austen would find ridiculously amusing.

and

b) i will continue to think that if you can’t spell her name right, you don’t really love her. in fact, i will think a series of things in succession:

• you’re really just putting that there to try to sound smart. it really doesn’t work.

• it doesn’t count if you only like pride and prejudice and have never read persuasion.*

• it for DARN sure doesn’t count if the only reason that you like jane austen is because you saw the keira knightley version of pride and prejudice and swooned.**

• it doesn’t count if you’ve seen you’ve got mail and got it in your head that everyone should read p&p once a year just because meg ryan did it and got tom hanks in the end. tempting, but no.

• having two x chromosomes doesn’t automatically make you need to adopt jane austen as the goddess of your idolatry. having an x and a y doesn’t mean that you are exempt from respecting her either, but that’s beside the point.***

• if you don’t understand the complexity of her portrayal of women and respect her even though you read mansfield park and wanted to punch fanny price in the face, you don’t really love jane austen.

i will think all of this and i will mock you in my mind. i will feel superior. really, really superior.

and i’ll be right and you’ll be wrong.

–

*she wrote more than one novel. she, in fact, wrote six of the best novels in the english language. until you’ve read more than one, you can’t really say that you truly love her…just like you really can’t love someone you’ve known for two hours. it’s the same thing. and shut up. i’m a book nerd. i have opinions.

**this movie is so ridiculously NOT Romantic that it boggles the mind. it’s a fine film, but nothing remotely close to the world that austen created.

***IT’S NOT JUST CHICK LIT. goodness.