Jane Austen's Book Club

Hello and Happy Birthday!
Not to me... I still have a few more days BEFORE doom. 

Today is Ms Austen's day!

The other day, when we met to celebrate our Austen friendship, one of the girls teased me saying that in 200 years lovely women could be gathering to talk about my books. We all laughed and laughed. And here we are, thousands and thousands around the globe celbrating Darcys, Tilneys, Bennets, Woodwards... Austens.

We're all a bit better because one day, her father allowed her to write and encouraged her to publish. Am I too sentimental? Forgive me, the world is about to crumple around me!

Imagine turning 238 looking this good?

Ms Austen has been enchanting people not only with her own books but the books she inspires all around. I've listed some of my favorite and today's 40th page is one of them.

The Jane Austen Book Club

Chapter two 

in which we read Sense and Sensibility with Allegra

page 40

"... I forced my silver ring onto his finger. It caught at the knuckle, but I pushed it down. 

He said how touched he was. He swore he’d never take it off, and then he tried to take it off and he couldn’t. His finger began to swell and turn odd colours. We went to the restroom of the pub and tried to soap it loose, but it was too late, the finger far too swollen. We asked for butter and got it, but that didn’t work either. His face was now turning an odd colour as well, sort of a fishy white. 

You know how pale the Irish are; they never go outdoors there. We went back to the hostel and I tried to take his mind off it by fucking him, but this was only a temporary diversion. His finger was round as a sausage and he couldn’t bend it anymore. 

So we went looking for a taxi to take us to a hospital. By now it was about three in the morning; the streets were dark, cold, and silent. We walked several blocks, and he was actually starting to whine, 
like a dog. When we did finally find a ride, the driver spoke no English. I made siren sounds and pointed, again and again, to the finger. I pantomimed a stethoscope. 

When you picture this, you have to picture me very drunk. I don’t know what the driver thought initially, but he did get it at last, and then the hospital turned out to be less than a block away. He coasted forward and let us out. He was saying something as he drove off. We couldn’t understand it, but we could guess. 

The hospital was closed, but there was an intercom and we spoke on it to someone else who didn’t speak English. He begged us to be intelligible and then gave up and buzzed us in. All the hallways were dark, and we walked down several until we saw some lights in a waiting room. I used to have dreams like that, dark hallways, echoing footsteps. Labyrinths that twisted and circled, with the directions printed on the walls in some alien alphabet. I mean I had the dreams before this happened, and I still have them sometimes: I’m lost in a foreign city; people talk, but I can’t understand them.

So we followed the light and found a doctor, and he spoke English, which was a bit of luck, really. We explained about the ring and he stared at us. “You’re in internal medicine,” he said. “I’m a heart
surgeon.” I was prepared to go back to the hostel rather than put up with such embarrassment, but then it wasn’t my finger. (Though it was my ring.) But Conor— that was his name—was not leaving. 

“It hurts more than I can say,” he said. Which is sort of a koan, if you think about it..."

---

Shall we take the day off and read?

And then watch the movie ?

Congrats dear Jane!

238 candles can only mean a big big cake!

Disclaimer: 40 pages 40 is my way to come to terms with celebrate my upcoming 40th birthday. By promoting 40 awesome books I like in no way I intend to dupe the original authors. If you, as me, like what you read, buy them!

All 40 books can be found on the right side bar. ►

All images found on Google. Kudos to the original poster.