Jane Austen mania

Here's the link for the NPR show on Austen that I participated in this morning.

I must say that was very enjoyable, I like being on the radio! It is deeply in human nature to enjoy having people ask your opinion about things and listen to the answer--I always think it is slightly morally low in me to enjoy it so much, really the best pleasure in life is a really productive writing day and no amount of glory or attention really quite feels as good as that (and I also believe in my heart of hearts that the work should be its own satisfaction--you know, full many a flower is born to blush unseen and all that)--in fact I saw some story recently about Charles Simic that opened with something along the lines of "Charles Simic must be having a really great day today" (having just won these two big awards) and yet my own experience of life is that mood responds much more to a good writing day than to external validation, so that actually if you get a prestigious award but work and/or life are not going well you are likely to feel more rather than less wretched!

Nonetheless it really was very enjoyable...