Found this literary game assembled by one astute Cornellian:
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/jad22/
Simple - read the first sentence, identify the work. I feel I did respectably well on the sections I tried, given that I make no apologies for being Dickens (at least the standards)- and Steinbeck-averse.
My perennial favorite, if a bit done: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. "
Listening to an audiobook in the car this afternoon, I was surprised to encounter the third work in a row featuring a character named Harriet. This most recent Harriet was the other woman to the central character in a John Updike story. The previous Harriets were, respectively, a middle-aged cookbook author in Death of a Snob and the lovelorn ghostwriter-turned-bagelmaker protagonist of Isabel's Bed. Come to think of it, infidelity has been just as consistent a theme through these pieces as has Harriet. (Yes, yes, it's Updike. I know.)
I tried to think of other literary Harriets, and came up with a few; Harriet Smith, prime victim of personal interference in Emma; Harriet Vane, romantic foil of Lord Peter Wimsey; Harriet the Spy, though I've never actually read that one. There have been a few Harriets on the other side of the page, too; Harriet Beecher Stowe, of course, Harriet Smart, Harriet Taylor (the eventual wife of John Stuart Mill), and doubtless dozens others, since it's a common enough name.
I don't know whether I've ever met a Harriet personally, but if so, I don't remember her. At some point, there must have been plenty of Harriets in Hollywood, though I can't think of any except for Harriet Nelson. According to U.S. Government web publications, there are no Harriets in the 110th Congress. And, so far as I can discover, there is no Saint Harriet recognized by the Roman Catholic Church.
Five years ago, six months out of college, I moved to my current region of residence to begin my first real job in my chosen profession. It was January, and I was alone, getting settled and finding my way around a new town, with virtually no aquaintenaces and minimal posessions - apartment, yes, and car, computer, wardrobe, and thanks to my mother (a.k.a. Martha Stewart), a fullish kitchen. And books, of course, and a chair or two (but no bed). No television, internet connection, or friends. What does the new girl do in the dead of winter in an empty apartment full of books? Never mind, obvious question.
So, at the end of my first week on the new job, I picked up some celebratory Chinese take-out, came home, and plucked something off the shelf (ok, I didn't have any bookshelves at that point, so I must have picked it up off a stack on the floor or out of a cardboard box). It was Pride and Prejudice.
It's mildly embarrasing that someone as lit-obsessed as I've been since toddlerhood wouldn't have touched Jane Austen until age 22. But there it is. I consumed Pride in a weekend, sprawled on the carpet in various corners of the empty flat. I adored it, naturally, but the important point is that a tradition was created right there, and each year since then, each year I've spent in This Place, the first novel I've started each January has been Austen.
Here's where some would be tempted to say that each year's Austen prefigured the coming months, that Emma foreshadowed real-life lessons in minding my own business, Sense and Sensibility finally convinced me to loosen up and live a little, Northanger Abbey shamed me into getting my head out of dime novels and my feet on the ground. But life isn't formula-fiction, and, besides, for all my faults, I've never been particularly medlesome, uptight, or flighty. What the Annual Austen really offers is the chance to intentionally open each year with a healthy dose of literary euphoria, which is plenty to recommend the ritual, as far as I'm concerned.
This is year six, so I'm at the end of the Austen supply (we're on Mansfield Park). Ironically, though, it seems I'm also coming to the end of my time in This Place - if life happens like it's telling me it's going to, next year this time I'll be elsewhere, moving on to new adventures. I guess I have 11 months to find myself a new author...
