I love George Eliot and Jane Austen; does that make me an old fogey?

[Jassy Melson]

I can't get enough of Eliot and Austen. I have been reading them for more than forty years. I have read most of their works, and I just can't get enough of them. I am currently reading Austen's Mansfield Park, and I just completed Eliot's The Lifted Veil. Austen's subtle satire and Eliot's keen pschological insight are simple a delight to read. I think any list of the great novelists has to include Eliot and Austen.

[Mr.lucifer]

Nope, love what you love.

[dfloyd]

these two women authors of the eighteenth and nineteenth century are paragons of how novels should be written. The irony of Austen and the panoramic view of society by Eliot, especially in Middlemarch, make for enjoyable reading. There are others to choose from though. Have you read the Bronte sisters or Elizabeth Gaskell?

When I read on this forum that such and such a book written in the last century is boring. I don't even respond any more. I just consider the age of the poster as limiting his/her views and ignore the post.

The 19th century males could write pretty good too. Have you tried Dickens, Hardy, Trollope, and Thackerey? Or the Americans such has Melville, Hawthorne, Irving, and Cooper. There are a plethora of great books that are available to the ardent reader.

[kiki1982]

Haha, that title brought a smile to my face. :lol:

No, you're not an old fogey or otherwise the nursing homes have to get worried because then there are a lot of old fogeys about who are in need of care. :D I like everything that's old, better than new sometimes (a lot of times).

I just find it so striking that humanity has actually stayed the same over centuries. I mean, the London that Moll Flanders walked around in is different, has different rules of society, has different manners, but essentially, the people who walk around in her life are as we could meet them today. The same strikes me with Austen. People are so essentially the same. They talk funny and about other things, have other tastes, but their characters are so remarkably similar. (Eliot I'm not sure about, though). It strikes me again and again.

If those books are boring, then surely life in general and humanity in general must be boring as well?

[Rores28]

Yes. Only someone for whom senility has tightened its death grip would ever read these two authors. Get with the times and pick up some Brown and Meyers.

[JuniperWoolf]

Only insofar as reading Ovid makes me a two thousand year old Roman.

[IceM]

I'd actually consider reading Dean Koontz avidly as a more imminent sign of Alzheimer's than reading anything pre-five minutes ago.

[Jassy Melson]

I've read most of the nineteenth century authors, and I keep coming back to George Eliot and Jane Austen. There is something about their work that is unique and belongs only to them. Their influence on other nineteenth century authors has not really been delved into yet. Eliot definitely influenced Henry James and Thomas Hardy, and I think Austen influenced James too.

[OrphanPip]

I love Austen too, Emma is amongst my favorite novels.

Have you read Frances Burney, she was a big influence on Austen.

[prendrelemick]

Old Fogeys are very underrated.



But our time will come.

[mal4mac]

"A dull old fellow; a person behind the times, over-conservative, or slow;" - en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fogey

"Appreciates Austen and Eliot" would be my definition of "not dull" and "not slow". Date wise, obviously, these authors are behind the times, and you could make good arguments for them being a tad over-conservative, at least by modern standards. So, all in all, you're a bit of an old fogey, the good bit :)

[L.M. The Third]

It means you have exquisite taste in novelists! Quite naturally, since they are among my own favorite novelists. I'm a teen and I've read all of Austen's novels. And I'm currently obsessed with the magnificence that is Middlemarch. (As well as having almost sobbed reading The Mill On the Floss.)

[MaineTim]

Get with the times and pick up some Brown and Meyers.

Is that some kind of high-priced ice cream or something?

To answer the OP:

Yes, yes it does. Embrace it, and try not to break a hip. :yesnod:

[dafydd manton]

Old Fogey-dom is not when you are walking up the stairs and you stop to ask yourself what you were going up for. It is when you stop to ask yourself, then realise that you've forgotten whether you were going up or down. To combat this phenomonen, make sure that you have copies of Austen and Eliot on all floors in the house. Incidentally, weren't Brown and Meyers the first men to fly the Atlantic, in the 1920s, thus making them Old Fogies too?

[simply_chaotic]

If you are then i am too, darling. Considering my limited experiences with newer books, older classics are a thousand times better in my opinion.