When I first read Jane Austen in high school, I was totally nonplussed. I didn’t care about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy at all. The whole Pride and Prejudice thing was a total yawn; especially when compared to all the other really exciting things we were reading, like King Lear and, oh I don’t know, I guess Paradise Lost.

But then in college, it turned out I started to love Jane Austen, especially Emma, and it’s in that spirit, and in the spirit of being completely desperate what with the writers’ strike persisting so annoyingly, that I’ve Tivoed Masterpiece Theater’s The Complete Jane Austen with gusto.

Dan is less than thrilled with this development. Once, in 1999 when we were dating and he still cared about impressing me and attending to my whims, he did come with me to see Mansfield Park at the Uptown Theater. Apparently, this was an unremarkable experience, as he had forgotten entirely the premise, plot, and outcome of the story; and even seeing the new version on PBS, complete with heaving bosoms and covert passions, did nothing to jog his memory.

“I simply cannot believe I’d ever fritter away the entirety of a perfectly decent evening watching such nonsense,” he announced, nose in the air. “Pish tosh, what silliness.”