Pride and Prejudice 1
I thought it might be interesting to take a fresh look at some of the many ways to take notes in Tinderbox. I spent a couple of days with Pride and Prejudice, keeping track of all the characters — there are at least 46 — and how Austen introduces them.
One point I want to make at the outset: simply deciding to take notes can help you read with focus and attention.
Here, solid links connect characters who are introduced in direct dialogue, and dotted lines connect characters mentioned by other characters or (rarely) by the narrator. It’s striking, for instance, how useful the silly Mrs. Bennet is to the novelist: she talks about everyone, all the time. Though this is (I think) my fourth reading of the novel, I had never noticed how strategic that is.