I had these plus DEATH OF A SALESMAN, the most boring shite ever. Willy Loman ect. I liked Macbeth though....
being from the same country the syllabus doesn't really vary much.
Wouldn't say any of it influenced my reading chpices either later in life.

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Thanks kr for the subscription! Much love..

pablita, that is like the best cirriculum I've ever seen. If I had the chance to study Dostoyevsky at age 14 I don't think I'd ever want to leave school.

It's shit enough, isn't it? When did you do your leaving cert?

oh i loved the scarlet letter! i read it when i was 16 or 17 i think, in the winter, infront of the fire, and i was really engrossed. i think i liked it cause he has a very straightforward writing style & is very precise about his symbolism? i liked dimmesdale alot- he just screamed poe to me, who i was also really into at the time.

i tried to watch emma the other day cause it was on (the one with kate bekinsale), but i just really couldnt. there's something about that parlour room kind of universe that i really cant take, and it seems to be just the english brand of it that i dont like? i can read edith wharton til the cows come home, but austen? i just can't! what is about her you like so much? it's a combination of her style, and how small her books are that i cant be doing with. i mean i get that they're meant to be a microcosm of society, but i find them very claustrophobic. i mean you could just give me a list of the character names and i could prob tell you what happens just from that?!

It's been so long since I last read Pride and Prejudice. I think I was very compelled by the predicament of the four sisters. They had to get married, obviously, but they were poor and chances of marrying became slimmer and slimmer the older they got. It made me think a lot about how women view marriage, even a time when as 'feminists' we think we know what we want. I especially loved whenever Elizabeth and Jane would talk about marriage. Their desire to fall in love, though always knowing they had a responsibility to stop being a burden on their parents.

I found Elizabeth's independence a breath of fresh air. She would not marry out of convenience--whether because a cousin asked her to marry him, expecting her to say yes because she seemingly had no other choices or a rich man who said he loved her but didn't fully respect her.

Besides Elizabeth, her friend Charlotte was also intriguing. She explained to Elizabeth why she chose her cousin to marry. He offered her the comforts of a home, independence from her parents, and a life with a man who was not very intrusive. That and the fact that she was getting older so the prospect of finding another suitable offer were slim.

I've always loved Elizabeth Bennet. The tempered way she looked at things. The strong stances against her mother. All of this I found admirable, even if her goals or aspirations were just a peaceful, respectful marriage or no marriage at all. This is why when the Pride & Prejudice movie came out, I was so offended by Knightley's portrayal of Elizabeth as a disdainful brat. She was never that.

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The fresh heartbreak was, in a sense, like being in a foreign country; everything seemed alien, brilliant and glinting. It was as if I’d been flayed, so that even the air hurt. When you’re that unhappy, any glimmer of beauty or consolation feels like running into an old friend abroad, or seeing mountaintops through smog. Maybe we mistakenly think we want “happiness,” which we tend to picture in very vague, soft-focus terms, when what we really crave is the harder-edged intensity of experience.

there was a show on recently called lost in austen that i caught a bit of, it was quite cute and has an actress i really like it in (jemina rooper). it was very fluffy but actually quite clever and funny & i think you might like it

BBC - The Culture Show - Blog - Lost in Austen

i dnt know if you use torrents but you can d/l it here:

µTorrent - The Lightweight and Efficient BitTorrent Client