I just realized something this morning, which I thought might be a good subject for a little quiz, which is:
Which 2 out of the 6 Austen novels have the greatest frequency of the word "real" (or a variant of the word such as, e.g., "really")?
Hint--the 2 novels with the greatest frequency consist of one of the three shorter novels (NA, P&P, and Persuasion), and one of the three longer novels (S&S, MP, and Emma).
Hint #2: The difference in frequency is very dramatic between these 2 novels and the other 4, i.e., pretty much twice as frequently.
Any guesses? If you do guess, it would also be fun if you speculate as to WHY those 2 novels would have double the frequency of that word as the other 4.
I will give the answer tomorrow morning EST, unless someone guesses both correct answers sooner, and I will also give my own speculation as to why those 2 novels were given this special treatment by JA.
Cheers, ARNIE
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Thanks! -- Arnie Perlstein, Portland, OR
A lovely bit of praise from my youngest (at heart) supporter in Seattle:
[The 80-ish Mary Watson of the Puget Sound chapter commenting on the 2010 JASNA AGM]
"...2 sessions were outstanding: Juliet McMasters on the more subtle, deeper meanings of "Northanger Abbey" and a Darcy-like young lawyer, Arnie Perlstein, who revealed his very plausible theory that the "shadow story" behind much of Austen's work is the horror of multiple childbirth and women's deaths. I am a Jane-Austen-as-feminist person and this really resonated with me!"
"...2 sessions were outstanding: Juliet McMasters on the more subtle, deeper meanings of "Northanger Abbey" and a Darcy-like young lawyer, Arnie Perlstein, who revealed his very plausible theory that the "shadow story" behind much of Austen's work is the horror of multiple childbirth and women's deaths. I am a Jane-Austen-as-feminist person and this really resonated with me!"
"Arnie's theories [about Austen and Shakespeare] may strain credulity, but so much the greater his triumph if they turn out to have persuasive force after they are properly presented and maturely considered."
"We all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing."
“There are a few Typical errors–& a ‘said he’ or a ‘said she’ would sometimes make the Dialogue more immediately clear–but ‘I do not write for such dull Elves As have not a great deal of Ingenuity themselves.'”
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About Me
- Arnie Perlstein
- Portland, Oregon, United States
- I'm a 72 year old independent scholar (still) working on a book project about the SHADOW STORIES of Jane Austen's novels (and Shakespeare's plays). I first read Austen in 1995, an American male real estate lawyer, i.e., a Janeite outsider. I therefore never "learned" that there was no secret subtext in her novels. All I did was to closely read and reread her novels, while participating in stimulating online group readings. Then, in 2002, I whimsically wondered whether Willoughby stalked Marianne Dashwood and staged their “accidental” meeting. I retraced his steps, followed the textual “bread crumbs”, and verified my hunch. I've since made numerous similar discoveries about offstage scheming by various characters. In hindsight, it was my luck not only to be a lawyer, but also a lifelong solver of NY Times and other difficult American crossword puzzles. These both trained me to spot complex patterns based on fragmentary data, to interpret cryptic clues of all kinds, and, above all, not to give up until I’ve completed the puzzle--and literary sleuthing Jane Austen's novels (and Shakespeare's plays) is, bar none, the best puzzle solving in the world!
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