I have hosted Jane Austen a few times. Sometimes it was fun - let her play with my cell phone and taught her to drive stick. But other times it got kind of nervy, like when she got hold of her wikipedia page, and insisted that I take her to a doctor for a diagnosis of her “mystery disease” (I told her my insurance wouldn’t cover her, and anyway she had no ID and a foreign accent).
So I am wondering if anyone else has experience keeping it light when Jane visits? Can you suggest fun things to do? She’s fun to have around and I like it when she talks, but she needs focus in order to be happy. Thanks.
I’m going to assume that Paul is not delusional, and knows that Jane Austen has been dead a long time, and can only be an imaginary friend. I do something similar – imagine what it would like if someone like Shakespeare came back to life, and you had the job of explaining how things work four centuries after he was around.
When Miss Austen visited me, we read The French Lt.'s Woman together because I wondered what she would think of it–the modern novel structure, the sexual mores, the changes to Lyme since her own time.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a long-dead author in possession of the misfortune to be animated, must be in want of braaaiinnsss.”
If she/it’s there for the weekend, I’d have her read Bridget Jone’s Diary and watch the A&E version of P&P.
I’d also take her to a rave. Don’t know about X, but I’d probably explain the scene and let her make the choice.
I – perhaps not often, exactly, but enough to see the pattern – find myself explaining modern music to Mozart. (You have to start by trying to explain amplification and recording technology, you see. Mostly so he’s not looking for the performer inside the stereo when you play examples, but also so he understands the incredible reach and power of individual performers… )
