Jonty Claypole

And I think one of...

The problems with all of the books we've mentioned is they have unusual plotting.

They do slightly strange things.

They still have that 18th century spirit of the picaresque, as it's called, which is a sort of a then and then and then.

The plotting can be a bit awkward.

There can be parts of them which are brilliant and then these kind of weird...

weirdly sort of unsatisfying passages to them.

And I feel that what Jane Austen does is her great innovation is a kind of ascetic one.

She solves the problem of plotting that the English novel has struggled with over its first 80 years, that her novels are as satisfyingly plotted and wrap themselves up in the way that plays do.

And I'm interested if

if that's an observation you would sympathise with or agree with or want to kind of sort of reposition at all?

Yes, let's end by saying happy first quarter millennium, Jane, and here's looking forward to your next quarter millennium.