Yup. I'm bawling my eyes out here, man. 😭

Didn't say anybody did.

I was. 🥱

No, thank you.

Whatever Charlotte did, Anne did way better. Her writing is solid, her philosophy unimpeachable, and most importantly, she displays none of the girlish daddy-love-me fantasies that her elder sister was so deplorably afflicted with.

Emily, on the other hand, was in a league of her own.

Bajirao Mastani

I cycle through every position known to man.

Rushdie, mostly.

An actual literary genius.

Yup.

"Literary genius"?

Ok.

Another author I just can't stand.

Classic novels are always worth a read, if only so you can form your own opinion on them

The novel is unfinished, though. I read the Wordsworth Classics edition of it, and it had an ending compiled posthumously from Gaskell's notes by her editor, I think.

It serves, but you know - it's not Gaskell. Her genius is in her narration.

To wit, you should also read Gaskell's biography of the Bronte sisters.

She's my Victorian comfort read. Cranford is a delight, as are her shorter fiction.

Her novels have been hit or miss, with North & South and Mary Barton in the hits category, and Wives & Daughters and Sylvia's Lovers in the miss.

Unlike Charlotte Bronte, though, who had a tendency to shoot above her intelectual weight, and Dickens, to a large extent, who got mired in the melodrama of his stories, I found Gaskell to be a very grounded writer, a rarity among the Victorians.

I would burn the Bible. Happily.

Every religious text ever written would be also be gladly sacrificed.

Fuck this infantile morality of 'burning books is kinda wrong'.

The right to let your nephew tear it to pieces.

High/Dark Fantasy + zero romance = Giving it a shot.

It was written by a teen.

Immensely.

She bowin'

She bowin'

An' she out