L.J. Writes

Coincidentally I think of you and your post about physical books when I read Mansfield Park, because my copy is a physical book that means a great deal to me. Also I brought up the Tao Te Ching in another comment but the theme of MP is very close to Lao Tzu's wuwei, principled inaction. Fanny is often pilloried for being an inactive protagonist who does nothing, and I'm like... well, why is that a bad thing? Isn't it better to do nothing than to do wrong, which just about every other character in the novel does? (She also does a great deal of emotional control and emotional labor for those around her, but that's a subject of another rant.)