"Bernice Bobs Her Hair," by F. Scott Fitzgerald

In which a Jazz Age wallflower from Eau Claire gets some good advice from her cousin, who gets upset when it works a little too well, and revenge is had via haircut; and in which you should be thankful that our narrator decided against attempting a Wisconsin accent.



So, as mentioned in the recording, this installment is largely in honor of my AP English teacher, Mr. Denis Linehan, who would put his hand to his heart when he spoke fondly of "Bernice." Yes, he was on a first-name basis with the story. So, Mr. Linehan, wherever you are now (probably at the track), this one's for you.

"Bernice Bobs Her Hair" was one of F. Scott Fitzgerald's first big stories, published in the May 1, 1920 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, making this the most modern work we've featured so far (and, barring any permissions I get from authors, one of the most modern we're likely to feature.) Fitzgerald had published in the Post before, but this marked the first time he got his name on the cover. The cover painting itself has nothing to do with the story, though; it's titled "Ouija," and is by the legendary Norman Rockwell.

More covers and notes after the jump!

Sense and Sensibility, Volume the Third, Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen

In which Elinor and Edward are happy, the conduct of Lucy and Robert is explained, the Ferrars are all reconciled, Marianne gives in to the inevitable and falls for Colonel Brandon, and all live happily ever after.



Sorry this is going up a day late! I had the recording ready to go yesterday and the post half-finished, but then I decided to go out to the movies all day with my wife, and I stand by that decision.

And, at last, we find our two heroines settled and happy, with Edward honorably released from his engagement to Lucy, and Marianne getting everyone to shut up about Colonel Brandon but just marrying him already (although, all right, they gave it a couple of years for her to actually fall for him.)

Two quick notes in this last installment, both while talking about Elinor and Edward's new house in Delaford: at 26:50, while talking about improvements they will be making, we hear that they plan on "invent[ing] a sweep," where a "sweep" is a long, winding driveway. Then, John Dashwood talks about how fine the timber is in Delaford Hanger (presumably with dollar signs -- pound signs? -- in his eyes.) A "hanger" here is a wooded area growing on the side of a steep hill or embankment (hanging on the side of it, you see.)

27:45 - "Everything in such respectable condition."

And, with a note about the extraordinariness of two sisters living so closely by without fighting or setting their husbands against one another, we conclude Sense and Sensibility. Thank you for listening, and stay tuned for the next short story interlude!


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg, and high-res copies of the Thompson illustrations can be found in the British Library's Flickr stream. No reading ahead, though!

Sense and Sensibility, Volume the Second, Chapter Nine

In which much is revealed by Colonel Eeyore, chiefly pertaining to his personal history, and we discover the enormity of Willoughby's perfidy; and in which the narrator insists that yes, he's using those words correctly.



Wow, well THAT was a shocker of a chapter, wasn't it? With the forced marriages, the infidelity, the multiple illegitimate children, the wasting death, etcetera? Dang, no wonder Colonel Brandon's so Droopy-Dog all the time.

Some short notes: at 13:43, Colonel Brandon says that he randomly found his lost love in a "spunging house," spelled more modernly as "sponging house." It wasn't exactly debtor's prison, but it wasn't exactly not debtor's prison either. Basically, it was a debtor's last chance to pay up -- squeezed out like a sponge, get it? -- while being confined to the house of, usually, so government official who took a cut. A charming place, by the sound of it.

Next, at 21:51, the good Colonel states that, after finding out what had occurred between him and Brandon's ward, he met Willoughby by appointment. As might be inferred from the text, he means that they met for a duel, at which they are both apparently terrible as no one is even wounded. BORING.

Sadly, no illustrations for this turning-point chapter, of the spunging house or otherwise, so here's another fun cover. For... certain values of "fun."

I mean, my but this is a cheerless cover. It's from a 2001 edition published by Broadview Press, an independent academic publisher, that actually sounds kinda cool and included some neat-sounding stuff in this edition (well, neat-sounding to people like me, I guess.) It's just... I mean, kudos for standing out from the seething crowd of other covers featuring two young women in pretty, vaguely-Regency-era-if-you-don't-know-much-about-fashion-history-which-I-don't-so-maybe-it-is-actually-accurate dresses, but it sure makes this book look somber. Jane Austen does tackle some heavy themes, and does some incredibly trenchant social satire, but her books are really anything but dour, especially this one. I guess maybe they don't want anything intended for an academic setting to look too... well, fun.

Aesthetics aside, I wonder about the image's source. It's not listed on the website that I saw, but it certainly appears to be a vintage 1800s photograph of some kind. Now, it obviously can't be from the time Austen was writing as that predated photography, but it's always possible they were in period costume (you know, 1870's ladies dressed in 1811's clothes, or something.) Maybe someone who actually knows something about fashion history can enlighten me: is this even remotely the right time period for the story?

These are the sorts of things that intrigue and bother me.


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg, and high-res copies of the Thompson illustrations can be found in the British Library's Flickr stream. No reading ahead, though!

Sense and Sensibility, Volume the Second, Chapters Seven and Eight

In which a scum-filled letter is received from Willoughby, Marianne reveals that she was maybe not quite as engaged as all that, Mrs. Jennings is well-intentioned, and pretty much everyone is sad.



Another short entry, with but one illustration and a couple of quick notes: at 28:33, when Mrs. Jennings is tactfully going on about how wonderful Colonel Brandon's property is and how happy Marianne will be there when she of course marries him now that she's no longer tangled up with Willoughby, she mentions its dovecote (a shelter for doves) and stewponds (fish ponds, hilariously).

30:12 - "How fond he was of it!"

I love how they worked in an illustration that's basically a flashback to how Mrs. Jennings's late husband used to like to get drunk, using his gout as an excuse. Cheers!


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg, and high-res copies of the Thompson illustrations can be found in the British Library's Flickr stream. No reading ahead, though!

Sense and Sensibility, Volume the First, Chapter Twenty-Two

In which Miss Steele reveals something that explains a great deal about Edward Ferrars's behavior and attitudes, and Elinor is not amused; and in which our narrator did not, in fact, keep it up the rest of last week.



We've got a short installment up tonight, as this brings us to the close of Volume the First. Never fear, though, we'll be starting right in on Volume the Second next time!

Since we've only got one chapter this go around, though, there aren't any notes and is only but one illustration:

4:59 - Amiably bashful.

Thus, I will keep this short and get right on to recording the next installment. See you next time!


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg, and high-res copies of the Thompson illustrations can be found in the British Library's Flickr stream. No reading ahead, though!

Around the World in Eighty Days, Chapters Thirty-One to Thirty-Three

In which the detective, Fix, takes seriously in charge Phileas Fogg's interests; Phileas Fogg engages in a direct struggle with ill luck; Phileas Fogg shows himself equal to circumstances; and in which our narrator cannot for the life of him decide on a regional accent for the sea captain, despite him being found in the narrator's own home state.



Onwards across the frozen prairies! We'll just skate -- ha, skate -- past most of the US in the last few of these eighty days. Almost there!

4:20 - "The travelers took their places and wrapped
themselves closely in their traveling cloaks."

8:28 - "Sometimes, also, prairie wolves... vied with the sledge in swiftness."

The prairie wolves mentioned above are not actually wolves at all, but are in fact coyotes. Oddly, I never really thought about coyotes being pack animals, despite being canids. I always pictured them as being solitary hunters, which I can probably blame entirely on Chuck Jones.*

I do apologize for my little confused interjection around 10:31 upon reading "Chicago, already risen from its ruins," which I originally read as being a really unnecessary slam on Chicago. As I figured out halfway through my own sentence, though, it is of course actually a reference to the Great Chicago Fire of October 1871, the year before the story takes place. This is the fire that has traditionally been blamed on Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern in her barn, though a newspaper reporter admitted that he made the whole story up. The exact cause of the fire remains unknown.

You may have caught at about 17:26 that Phileas Fogg briefly considers taking a balloon across the Atlantic, but immediately dismisses the idea as impracticable. Despite the fact that the hot-air balloon is indelibly associated with this story, featuring prominently in all adaptations and even appearing on book covers (including the one I'm using right now!), this is the only mention of hot-air balloons in the entire book.

27:47 - "'Pirate!' cried Andrew Speedy."

30:28 - "The crew displayed an incredible zeal."

33:12 - "'I arrest you in the name of the Queen!'"

And now, with Phileas Fogg back on English soil with mere hours to spare but taken into custody, we're barreling to our conclusion. Come back next time for the final installment!


If you would like to read along, my translation by Stephen W. White can be found courtesy of Choptank Press on Google Books. If you prefer one of the other options, the George Towle translation can be found at Zvi Har’El’s Jules Verne Collection, which is also where I got the illustrations, or the more accurate but rather fusty Henry Frith translation can be found at Project Gutenberg. No reading ahead, though!


*I find it hilarious that in the "Diet and hunting" section of that coyote Wikipedia article they note that "Though the coyote is the basis for the character of Wile E. Coyote... [in the cartoons] about the Road Runner, coyotes have not been known as yet to successfully attack greater roadrunners for prey." I mean, they've yet to do it successfully in the cartoons, either. [back]

Treasure Island, Chapters Nine to Eleven

In which the Hispaniola sets sail, with the squire and the captain no fans of each other, the captain is uncertain about the voyage, and in which Jim falls asleep in an apple barrel (as you do) and discovers treachery among the crew, and in which our narrator is pretty sure that at one point he slips from "pirate dialect" to "southern belle" for some reason.



Here are the notes again, though I'm not sure why they felt they needed to define "gentlemen of fortune" as their euphemism for pirates when Jim himself does that in the actual text. Many of the notes, naturally, deal with nautical terms, and among those they skipped include "capstanbars," which are the spars on the winch they used to raise and lower the anchor or to set heavy sails. You know, these things. We've also got the boatswain (sounds like "bosun"), who is the sailor in charge of the ship's hull and rigging, and the coxswain ("coxun"), who is in charge of the smaller boat on the ship and its crew. Some of the place names are perhaps more obscure now than they were in 1908, like Goa, a major Portuguese colony in India.

Also, since there's talk of pounds and farthings, here's as good a time as any to talk about British money. Before they decimalised things in 1971, you had four farthings in a penny, twelve pennies in a shilling, twenty shillings in a pound, and twenty-one shillings per guinea. Yes, a guinea and a pound are almost exactly the same but not quite. Then of course there are other coins, like crowns (worth five shillings), sovereigns (officially worth one pound, but made of gold so kinda worth more sometimes?), halfpennies, and oh just look at this. I can't imagine why they would want to change this perfectly comprehensible system to boring "100 pennies per pound."

The illustration this time around is our first glimpse of Long John Silver, entertaining young Jim in the galley with his filthy-mouthed parrot, Cap'n Flint:

13:47 - "To me he was unweariedly kind, and always glad to see me in the galley."

Also, bonus! I forgot to include this illustration last time, despite the fact that it's described in great detail in the text itself. This one is from the original edition of Treasure Island, well before Wyeth took up paintbrush, and is the map of the island itself:

See if you can follow along!

Finally, to Mister Arrow, we hardly knew ye. Seriously, you didn't even have any lines before you, like, drunkenly staggered overboard.


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg. No reading ahead, though!