Carolyn, I would be delighted if you would lead. I am still have a good 300 pages to go with David Copperfield. It turns out to be over 1000 pages long. My memories of my previous Dickens reading (in the past few years Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol, and very long ago Oliver Twist and A Tale of Two Cities) are not fresh enough for detailed discussion, though I may call upon remembered bits. I do want to participate, but it will be a few days to a week until I am prepared to join in. Rosefolly

(I had posted this last week, but for some reason, it didn't stay posted, so apologies for that. I really did give you an answer...) :-) June - you asked about when to get started with the reading. We have set this kind of thing up with the starting date of the discussion (mid-June) to allow people who know their own reading styles and speeds to start whenever they want. It's an ongoing discussion so you don't even have to have it read by the mid-June deadline - that means, however, that you run the risk of spoilers coming to the fore since there is a general assumption that most people in the discussion will have read and finished the book. So - I think you can start whenever you choose. I did start my book last week, but then looked at the date and realized that there was v little chance I would recall much of the book since I was starting so early. So - to give you an idea - I will probably start reading mine about the beginning of June... Does that help?

Just finished the book a couple of days ago, and have been letting it "simmer" (as Hazel so accurately describes it). I found it to be a tough story to get into initially, but once I got sucked in, I really enjoyed it. It reminded me in many ways of Hemingway and how he writes for some reason. I agree that Port and Kit were both revolving in their own worlds for their own reasons - it's such a shame that Port missed her change to a woman based on feelings/senses rather than rational thought. I think he would have liked that side of her more than the side she presented up until he died. The descriptions of the desert, the color and vast size of the sky, the peoples who live there - all wonderfully done. I could feel the dust, the dryness, the sandy grains.... You could tell that Bowles had lived there and experienced some of this - they were wonderful descriptions of a hostile place in some ways. Interesting that his wife has been compared to Zelda Fitzgerald, as I also found the book to be similar to "The Great Gatsby" - disaffected aimless rich/well off young adults adrift in a world they know little about and just floating from one place/situation to another without planning anything much. I would not have read this in a million years if we hadn't mentioned it on RP, so thanks for doing it. I enjoyed it, although I am not sure I would read another one of his. Do you think that Kit, in the third part of the book when she changes so much -- is she reveling in the freedom she feels or is she retreating from having lost her bearings/lover etc? I mean, is her changing from being a very rational person to a person who uses her senses a positive change or a negative one? She seems as though she is sleepwalking in some situations - the sexual violence from the camel traders etc...

Yes, I suppose Mary might not have been quite pliable enough for Mr. Collin's purposes. But I mean is that she would have been good as a preachers wife because she WAS moralizing and followed her 'duty'. She would have been a good schoolmarm or missionary. She probably just ended up a spinster though. Do you think she could ever make a living for herself (such as the main character did in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall?). I wonder how many of us would have been considered 'blue-stockings' back then? I do remember, in the last chapter of the book, Austen mentioning the fates of the two unwed sisters. Let me see if I can find it.... It says that "Kitty, to her very material advantage, spent the chief of her time with her two elder sisters. In society so superior to that she had generally known, her improvement was great. She was not of so ungovernable a temper as Lydia; and, removed from the influence of Lydia's example, she became by proper attention and management, less irritable, less ignorant, and less insipid." And it also says this "Mary was the only daughter who remained at home; and she was neccissarilly drawn from the pursuit of accomplishments by Mrs. Bennet's being quite unable to sit alone. Mary was obliged to mix more with the world, but she could still moralise over every morning visit; and as she was no longer mortified by comparisons between her sisters' beauty and her own, it was suspected by her father that she submitted to the change without much reluctance." That would be terrible to be constantly told that you were not pretty in comparison to your sisters and that you were not an interesting person to be around. CMK