Two by Jane Austen, or, The End of the A's

Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen, Originally published in 1811; this edition gave no publication date, Nelson Doubleday. Genre: Fiction. 276 pages. Finished 8/8/13.

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, Originally published in 1813; this edition published in 1991, Everyman's Library/Knopf. Genre: Fiction. 368 pages. Finished 8/20/13.

LesOpinion: Remember how I made it through to a Bachelor's degree in English literature from a pretty good university without having ever read Moby Dick? It is now time to confess that I also made it through without having ever read either of these two seminal Austens (I get dispensation for having read--and hated--Northanger Abbey).

In an uncharacteristic bout of cockeyed optimism, I believed at the outset of the Library Quest that I'd spend my days reading foundation works like these--sharpening my brain, filling the gaps in my reading repertoire and generally getting more literate as time went by. Of course, I was wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. Instead of great works by great authors, I've been hammered with pablum, puke, and pandering. These Austens are the first classic literature I've come across in nearly 100 books (these are numbers 98 and 99, respectively). I may as well stop reading and start keeping up with the Kardashians for all the good this Quest is doing my brain.

Do yourself a favor, Gentle Reader, and go re-visit your Austens. Never read them and don't want to read both? Read Pride and Prejudice. Its humor is more developed and its social critique more scathing. The Kardashians have nothing on these 19th-century social climbing, materialistic manipulators.