Sophie Gee

But for you, as you've gone very deeply into the Austen canon, is that something that novels...

perhaps even uniquely do, this holding of many positions and therefore holding of many people.

I think that's really spot on.

That's brilliant.

They make everyone sick and wicked by being too didactic.

That's so good.

So give us some examples from the novels where we see that showing up, her stepping away from didacticism.

She's definitely being slippery and funny.

She's also sort of saying any conclusion where you end up choosing between binaries is kind of a false conclusion.

Yes.

I mean, if that's not a moral for our times, I don't know what is.

I like your going to the endings and it makes me think about the beginnings.

Yeah.

How does she manage strong position-holding or didacticism, do you think, in the openings of the novels?

Because in some ways they gesture toward it, but they're always pulling back.

Oh, that's beautiful.

I haven't really thought about that.

My response is a very readerly response, which is in rereading the books this year, it might be Sense and Sensibility that I've most loved.

I think it's probably because it's the one that I least loved before.

But so subversive, isn't it?