Emma and writing

I finished The Importance of Being Emma by Juliet Archer and was quite sad to finish it. I loved comparing the characters with the Jane Austen version and seeing how the modern incidents lined up with the original. It can be enjoyed in its own right without having read Emma but there is an added dimension if you have read it. I shall look forward to the next in the series which is based on Persuasion.

I actually wrote the first draft of a short story yesterday - a very rough first draft! That's the first one I've written for at least a year. Maybe I can get back into writing again - I hope so. I'd forgotten how enjoyable it is.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Short stories

I finished an excellent collection of short stories yesterday - The Sixpenny Debt and Other Oxford Stories. As might be deduced from the title the theme linking these otherwise disparate stories is the city of Oxford. There are tortoises running shops in Turl street, Medieval servants at the university, crimes which have already happened and those yet to come as well as people reminiscing about their past indiscretions. All the stories are excellent and enjoyable in their own ways, but my particular favourites are 'I Love You, Mr Chicken' and 'The Tortoises of Turl Street'. The first is about an elderly lady recalling her past and her favourite grocer in the 1950s and the second about the tortoises and how if they quarrel they may end up estranged for years, because everything moves slowly for them.

I've nearly finished reading The Importance of Being Emma by Juliet Archer - the modern day interpretation of Emma. This is an excellent sparkling story. I was put off when I first started because it is narrated alternately by Emma and Mr Knightley - in very short sections some less than a page. I seem to have read a lot of books with multiple narrators recently and my first reaction was oh no not another one, but I got used to it very quickly. It is very true to the spirit of the original showing how universal Jane Austen's characters are.

Quiet day today

Nothing of any importance happened today at work so it was quite peaceful. We're no nearer to solving the computer issue but ultimately that's our manager's problem not ours. So the 3 of us it effects have metaphorically washed our hands of it.

I read some more of The Importance of Being Emma a couple of chapters of Dr Thorne and a similar amount of One Fifth Avenue last night. I do like to have more than one book on the go at the same time. For some people that is the reading form of indigestion but I enjoy it. I'm also steadily working my way through the 4 magazines about writing. I shall be settling down with all three of them shortly, once I've finished this glass of wine.

I'm enjoying The Importance of Being Emma as I did Jane Austen's Emma for A Level English Literature and I find I can still remember all the characters and the gist of the plot. I think it's clever the way the story has been translated into the modern world with Philip Elton something in accountancy rather than a clergyman and Miss Bates a company secretary with an elderly mother to look after. Harriet Smith is a flaky temp and Emma's father is a hypochondriac with access to much more medical knowledge than the prototype. I'm looking forward to the next one in this series which will be based on Jane Austen's Persuasion.