Austen Update

I'm not making much headway in Pride and Prejudice. I'm not in the flow of Austen's style yet, and David Sedaris keeps distracting me with his delightful essays.

To give you a better idea of what Ms. Austen is up against, I'll treat you to a characteristically witty and poignant sample of Mr. Sedaris' writing, from his book Me Talk Pretty One Day :

A week after putting her to sleep, I received Neil's ashes in a forest green can. She'd never expressed any great interest in the outdoors, so I scattered her remains on the carpet and then vacuumed her back up. The cat's death struck me as the end of an era. It was, of course, the end of her era, but with the death of a pet there's always that urge to string black crepe over an entire ten- or twenty-year period. The end of my safe college life, the last of my thirty-inch waist, my faltering relationship with my first real boyfriend: I cried for it all and wondered why so few songs were written about cats.

(Sedaris has a shiny new book out, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, but there are about 10 gazillion holds at the library, and we can't afford hardcover right now.)