Aileen had always wanted an excuse to read Nora Ephron, so she read Heartburn by Nora Ephron. Lauren got her sweet tooth fix with an old copy of Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel.  Alisa read A River Runs Through It by Norman McClain, and Josie dug up her copy of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

---

The following transcript was translated by an AI program so unfortunately, we can’t vouch for its accuracy.

Lauren: [00:00:00] So I have this vague recollection of going to an author thing at the Concord. and one of the efforts was there may have been Nora and I honestly can’t remember which one it was, it was probably either Amy or Nora.

sorry.

My memory is so, so vague, but I, there were, there were several authors there, so it was at least five most I dreamed the whole thing which totally could have done.

Josie: Hello and welcome to fiction between friends, a podcast, dedicated to books and book lovers like us. I’m Josephine, Angelina

Lauren: I’m Lauren Sanchez.

Alisa: I’m Alyssa hill finger,

Aileen: and I may lean Calderon,

Josie: we’re four childhood friends from the suburbs of Massachusetts.

Lauren: I’ve always loved to read almost as much as we love to talk to each other.

Alisa: We started this podcast as a way to celebrate how a really good book can come into your life and change.

Aileen: So if you’re looking for fun and engaging conversations about books, stick around.

Josie: This is fiction between friends. Um, we’re glad you’ve joined us.

Welcome back. This is episode four, season two. I’m Josefina, Angelina, and joining me are my dear friends. [00:01:00] Ayleen Calderon

Aileen: Hello?

Josie: Lauren Sanchez and Alyssa hill finger.

Alisa: Hi.

Josie: How’s everyone doing

Lauren: Pretty good.

Aileen: Good.

Alisa: And did you and I both have a three-day weekend with no school on Friday?

Lauren: Yeah. I had the day off, it was awesome. I still had to go to a staff meeting, but

it was pretty awesome. And I did have to work. I actually, no, that’s not true. I did actually work yesterday, but you know, I don’t remember things day to day.

I forgot about it already.

Aileen: I have a question for all of you and I really want to know the answer. So. About a week ago, we were all texting and I said, Hey, I’m going to start a fun Spotify playlist.

Lauren: Oh yeah.

Aileen: And we can all add songs. So I put together this like good vibes playlist sent it to you.

Crickets. Nobody

Lauren: So I use

Aileen: wait, wait, wait, wait. So this is my question. So then I’ll send a week later. This is like, oh yeah, I don’t have Spotify email. You guys had all responded like, oh yeah. Great idea. Cool. Then a week later Alyssa’s like, I don’t have Spotify. So I want to know, do you guys have Spotify?

Do you know what Spotify is? Do you listen [00:02:00] to cassette still? Like w how do you listen to music?

Lauren: no, I use, um, I subscribe to YouTube, YouTube music,

so I have my whole playlist on there.

Aileen: I didn’t even know. That was a thing

Josie: we’ve got like a ton of different things. We’ve got like apple music. We’ve got Sonos. We got the Sonos bar and we’ve got Pandora. We’ve got like, we have all of these different, I’m sure we have Spotify too. I just, I haven’t had a minute to like listen

to music. I haven’t listened to anything in days.

Alisa: No, we, I, I got a Pandora account when that first came out, my kids have a Spotify account. I don’t, I just don’t listen to a lot of music.

Aileen: What’s what I realized about myself too.

Lauren: be deaf by the time I’m 55. Cause I listened to like so much music and so loud. I love loud music.

Aileen: well, that’s, that’s become my, one of my go-to things throughout all of this. Like I get in my car and drive and play music usually really cheesy, bad eighties music, but it’s like good, happy music and it can completely change your

Lauren: I’m going to change the subject briefly, but not really. The other day I got in my car cause I was going somewhere, but I was also incredibly [00:03:00] stressed out and I just screamed my head off.

Aileen: I did that too. About a week ago. It’s the best.

Lauren: I was just like, but it was just like, I can’t believe it was guttural. It just like, it just, I don’t know where it came from.

Alisa: but that’s the what’s happening now, right? The moms scream fast and the library’s doing one. Did you already do that?

Lauren: no, it’s um, Thursday, February 17th at like 7:00 PM and it’s going to be

awesome. Well, I don’t know, actually, when we had a lot of positive response, like a lot, on social media, but it just depends if people actually go, you

know, it’s library, then you just never know.

Aileen: You have to take lots of pictures and video.

Lauren: I hope. Yeah. I’ll be there with my coworker. Um, so it’s the two of us running it.

Alisa: So is it virtual? Are people going to be

Lauren: it’s in person. Yeah.

People are showing up if there’s a big field behind our library and depending on the elements, if it’s icy or whatever, we may just like gather inside, like along the side of the field

and shout out over it, or I don’t know.

We’ll see. It’s kind of like, it’ll be planned as we go.

Alisa: I love this.

Aileen: Alyssa are [00:04:00] you going to go?

Alisa: I will be in the air over Ecuador.

Lauren: Oh my gosh. She asks,

Aileen: Oh, you’re going to the Galapagos

Lauren: do we need to plan around

Josie: Oh, my God. That’s awesome. You better post so many pictures. You better send us pictures. I’m serious

if you

can.

Alisa: do my best connectivity is terrible. So we only get, I’ll only be able to connect when we’re in a hotel with wifi.

Lauren: So you bringing like your microphone and your headset and everything

Alisa: Hey guys, I’m not available on whatever date that is

Aileen: a lame excuse, Alyssa.

Josie: Okay. So Ayleen what, what book did you pick for this?

Aileen: So I all right. So our theme loosely this week was books that have been turned into movies. Um, so I read heartburn by Nora Ephron and I have to confess, I did not watch the movie. really just wanted an excuse to read Nora Ephron. Cause I’ve never read anything by her, another offer author that I’ve always known of and wanted to read.

And haven’t, she’s awesome. She’s just so funny. And like just tells it [00:05:00] like it is heartburn is basically it’s fiction, but it’s based on her marriage to Carl Bernstein of Woodward and Bernstein. I didn’t even know she was married to him. and it’s a story of a woman her, but not really in the book. It’s a woman named Rachel whose husband cheats on her while she is seven months pregnant with their second child.

Um,

Josie: Wow.

Aileen: so it just follows like her finding out that he’s cheating and her reaction to that and how she handles it. It’s her second marriage. They already have two kids. Um, she’s pissed, she’s upset, but she’s also like maybe I make this work because I’m really pregnant right now. And what else am I going to do?

And she’s shuttling between New York city and DC. Cause obviously he’s very involved in DC politics and all of that. and it’s so great. It’s a really Lauren you would like it. It’s a really quick, easy read. Her whole writing style is really just quick and easy and fast.

Josie: She’s pithy. She like,

Aileen: It’s like, it’s like a stream of consciousness.[00:06:00]

Um, I don’t know. I don’t know if you, in literature, if you call it breaking the fourth wall, but she addresses the reader a lot. So as she’s telling her story, she’ll say reader. You’re probably wondering what happens next. Well, let me tell you

Josie: It’s a very classic way of novel format actually. Um, Jane Eyre, does it, Charlotte Bronte does it? It’s like, it has the roots of the novel. They all it often starts with. And dear reader, may I tell you it

happens all the time. Yeah. Like that’s the way novels used to be written and then they got more truthy or they in the moment, like

you are the main character.

Yeah,

Aileen: Yeah,

because are her style? I mean, cause she started out as an essay to like she was writing a lot for different publications. She’s written, she hasn’t written that many books. She’s written a ton. She wrote a ton of movies though. She wrote sleepless in Seattle, Julie and Julia. Um, you’ve got mail when Harry met Sally.

I mean, she’s I’m looking at her movie. The, which mixed nuts. Michael Silkwood, I think was her first

Josie: wow.

Aileen: hanging up. Yeah, this is my life. My blue heaven.

Alisa: I [00:07:00] only ever had heard of her as a playwright, like in the context of movies, I had no idea that she wrote.

Lauren: I think her sisters also Amy and Delia.

Aileen: Delia. Yeah. She, she and Delia rode a few movies together actually. Um, but she’s great. And her style of writing, I love it because again, it’s, I like reading things quickly, so it’s

very easy to do but yeah, but her, so the book reads like your friend is telling you the story of her shitty marriage, that’s you?

Cause you feel like she’s having this conver one-sided conversation with you and just kind of telling you everything that’s happened, how she’s feeling about it. Like kind of with this bird’s eye view of her own

Lauren: she’s confiding in. You.

Aileen: Yeah. But she’s super funny. Um, I highlighted a ton of stuff in this book because there were passages that just kept

jumping out at me. Okay. So I’m going to wait, wait, let me go back.

okay. So this is from the beginning of the book, not the very beginning, but the first few pages. I had gotten on the shuttle to New York, a few hours after discovering the [00:08:00] affair, which I learned about from a really disgusting inscription to my husband and a book of children’s songs she had given him children’s songs.

Now you can sing these songs to Sam was part of the disgusting inscription. And I can’t begin to tell you how it sent me up the wall, the idea of my two year old child, my baby involved in some dopey and scripted way. And this affair between my husband, a fairly short person and Thelma rice, a fairly tall person with a neck, as long as an arm and a nose, as long as the thumb.

And you should see her legs nevermind her feet, which are sort of splayed. My father’s apartment was empty. My father hadn’t been carted off to the loony bin only days before by my sister, Eleanor, who is known as the good daughter in order to differentiate her from me. My father leaves a complicated psychological life along with his third wife who incidentally happens to be my former best friend.

Brenda’s. My father, his third wife had been wandering up third avenue on a taboo the week before, when she was spotted by Renee Fleischer who went to high school with Brenda and me. So her life is just

[00:09:00] Like every step of the way, there’s just like, everything’s kind of a mess.

And when you read it and realize like, you know, some things have been embellished and aren’t totally true, but so much of it is based on her life.

Josie: But isn’t that sort of true once you’ve been married to someone for awhile, there’s so many layers to how you’re connected to that person. It’s like, you almost can’t see your way out of it. And my sister is also friends with his brothers, cousins. I don’t know. It’s like this weird web that happens.

Aileen: yes. Hang on. Um, there was another section.

Um, so she also talks about marriage in a kind of funny way. And her books read, like she’s an essayist, you know, it is like, she’s just a lot of observations on life.

Josie: Does she digress a lot.

Aileen: she does, it’s very, it’s very rambling. So it’s her telling the story, but then she’ll go off on a tangent. I mean, I love it. There are lots of tangents.

She goes off and talks about other

things, you know,

Alisa: a woman I can relate to.

Aileen: yes. I was like, if I was ever a writer, I’d want to be like Nora Ephron. okay. So [00:10:00] one thing I have never understood is how to work it so that when you’re married, things keep happening to you. I just love that statement. There’s so much to do that.

Things happen to you when you’re single, you meet new men, you travel alone, you learn new tricks. You read Trollope, you try sushi, you buy nightgowns. Then you get married and the hair grows in. I love the everyday-ness of marriage. I love figuring out what’s for dinner and where to hang the pictures and do we owe the Richardsons but life does tend to slow to a crawl.

The whole summer mark was secretly seeing Thelma rice while pretending to be at the dentist. I was cooking. That’s what I do for a living. I write cookbooks and well, I did discover a fairly revolutionary and absolutely foolproof way to make a four minute egg and had gotten to the point where I simply could not make a bad vinegarette.

This was not exactly the stuff drama. Even now. I cannot believe mark would want to risk losing that vinegarette. You just don’t bump into vinaigrettes that, that good. Before that there had been a lot of time spent on swatches and couches and four floor [00:11:00] plans. It was almost a mark had a career as a columnist. And I had a career as a food person and our marriage had a career as a fighter with contractors. it’s, it’s, it’s a great book. It’s not super, it’s not super deep. There’s not a lot of like literary meaning in it. Um, the other thing that jumped out at me is how dated it is.

It’s from, it was one of our first books from the early eighties. So I don’t know when you read books set in a certain period, you know, when people were writing like horse and buggies, you just accept it and you go along with it, but you read this book and there’s so many themes that you can relate to.

But then all of a sudden she’s going upstairs to write and she puts the paper in her typewriter and you’re like, whoa, that’s right. It wasn’t that long ago that you would write things or, you know, everybody has landlines or people were like, you know, listening to music on cassette tapes or whatever it

Josie: Where people had dial up and it was like, we are.

Aileen: It wasn’t even internet in this.

Lauren: um, it’s Nora Ephron. Has she passed away?

Aileen: Yeah. She died in 2012.

Lauren: Hmm.

Aileen: Uh, and actually I [00:12:00] liked this book so much and I finished it so quickly that I then went and read. I feel bad about my neck, which is a book she wrote later in life. Um, she was in her sixties and it’s just a series of essays about being a woman and getting older and all the things that go along with it.

And I highly recommend that one too. It’s great. It’s not fiction, but it’s just great observations on being an older woman.

Alisa: Elaine, in this book. Did she talk about the recipe for that? No-fail vinegarette.

Aileen: So throughout the book she has recipes. Yes. So, and some of them, some of them feel kind of like old there’s one for like a pair and being Cal casserole. Like some of them are kind of weird and feel, they also feel dated in a

Lauren: beans always feel a little dated to me

Alisa: right,

Josie: it’s

true

Lauren: like being salads and.

Josie: and macaroni and cheese and.

being there all dated.

Alisa: Right.

Aileen: she actually, when she, when I was reading, I feel bad about my neck. She talks about how in this book, she included recipes and they weren’t her original recipes. She had gotten them [00:13:00] from other people, but one of the recipes she included, she forgot an ingredient.

And she said the book came out. And so many people were commenting about how crappy that one recipe was.

And then later on, she realized she’d forgotten a

crucial ingredient.

Alisa: Oh no.

Aileen: is just, what does it just one, one sentence, another line, just the sentence. Show me a woman who cries when the trees lose their leaves in autumn. And I’ll show you a real asshole. She’s just so opinionated and great. I love her.

Lauren: it.

Alisa: that that’s a not sentimental person.

Aileen: No,

no, not at all.

Josie: also feels like she feels like the voice in your head, you know? And she’s not trying to dress it up. She’s not trying to blow you away. She’s not looking for a fancier adjective or some great life lesson in it. She’s just saying, this is, this is where I’m at and this is what my life looks like.

And she just

puts it out there unapologetically.

And there’s

something really great about that.

Lauren: it’s like, she just says it without, um, dressing it up, like you [00:14:00] said, but like does not making it flowery. I mean, it’s, she’s saying what you’re thinking.

Josie: Yeah.

Aileen: She’s just, she’s so relatable even all these years later. I mean, she also, she lived in the app Thorpe, um, on the upper west side of Manhattan, which is just a few blocks from where I lived. So like in, I feel bad about my next, she talks about living, like basically in my old neighborhood, which

Josie: She is so relatable even still, I think.

Aileen: Yeah, she is. I mean, she’s kind of, she’s timeless in a way, you know, because it’s just these things, I think it’s, you know, it’s about being a woman and being in relationships and she has a strong feminist perspective. Although again, some of it’s a little dated when you read it, but everything she talks about, you can, you can kind of relate to him, be like, yeah, yeah, I get that.

I felt

like that it’s funny. She there’s, there is a certain feeling of privilege. Like she, she was rich, she was a rich white woman and you definitely get that. And there’s, there’s some terminology in it, um, that you wouldn’t use these days. And there’s. A lack of awareness of her privilege, I guess, because I think now [00:15:00] when, if you’re a wealthy white woman and you’re writing essays and stuff, you almost have to acknowledge that, that it’s from your perspective.

And I know not everybody feels like this, but, but it’s kind of freeing a nice that she just tells her life story from her own perspective. And isn’t, it doesn’t have to be that self-conscious and doesn’t have to censor herself, which I think people have to do more now. Um, so I’ll read one other passage.

she’s talking about friends of theirs, Arthur and Julie and mark and Rachel she’s Rachel, the seagulls and the filaments. It’s not just that we were best friends. We dated each other. We went steady. That’s one of the things that happens when you become a couple, you date other couples. We saw each other every Saturday night and every Sunday night.

And we had a standing engagement for new year’s Eve. Our marriages were tied together. We went to Italy, we went to Ireland, we went to Williamsburg. We went to Montreal. We went to St. Martin and mark drove and I navigated and Julie suggested wrong turns. And Arthur. Then we got to wherever we were going, mark wanted to eat.

And then I wanted to see the market and Julie wanted to go to the museum and Arthur watch take a crap. We had[00:16:00]

Lauren: It sounds like me. Um, Alyssa Tiffin. Hi, may, as we were driving down to your wedding, Elaine.

Alisa: Yeah.

Aileen: so relatable.

Alisa: Yup.

Negotiating.

Aileen: experience

Alisa: Right. And like sharing a hotel room and negotiating. Okay. Who’s going to use the bathroom now and who’s going to get ready and.

Aileen: We had flat tires together and we ran out of gas together in some fundamental sense. We were always on the road. again, you can relate to like, it’s so hard to find another couple to be friends with when you’re married and when you do, you just start doing as much together as you possibly can and you become this.

If you’re lucky you become this foursome.

Lauren: Yeah.

Aileen: Um, yeah, so that was my bucket. It was great. I loved it. I love Nora Ephron. Um, I’ve heard the movie isn’t of course isn’t as good as the book. It does seem like a book that would be tough to translate into a movie because I think in some ways it’s nice because everything’s so loosely described.

There are probably a lot of creative liberties you can take when you turn it into a movie, but also there isn’t a ton of structure and how to [00:17:00] do the storytelling. Um, Meryl Streep is in the movie. She’s always great, but I

don’t. Yeah. And I, I don’t think it got amazing reviews. She definitely did better than movies as a playwright.

Um, but I am going to watch it cause I’m curious to see how they take this

Lauren: Hey guys, quick question. Can you hear anything else besides me right now? Cause Amy, I can hear her music and stuff.

Aileen: no, no,

no. Oh, but Lauren actually, um, as long as you’re speaking, why don’t you tell us about your book?

Lauren: Yeah. So actually I was really thrilled to hear that your book Ilene had recipes. Cause because mine does too.

And mine also really is a,

it’s like water for chocolate by loudoh or Laura SkyBell,

Josie: Yeah.

Lauren: it’s a novel in monthly installments with recipes, romances and home remedies.

And this was her first novel. She was also a playwright or a screenwriter. Um,

Josie: And it’s been the movie like

Lauren: yes. So what I need, what I need to preface this book and I, before I talk about [00:18:00] it, I heard about this, but can I, I don’t remember if I read it in high school. Um, but Mrs. Beck.

Alisa: our poetry

Lauren: Who is one of our English high school, English teachers.

And I hope she’ll listen to this. Um, I took her world literature class and that really gave me the push that I, I wanted to study English and possibly study English and literature in college. I don’t remember reading the book with her, but I’d may have, but I, I did go, I read the book. I went to see the film, at the west Newton cinema.

Do you guys remember that?

They did A lot? They, I think they’re still there and, uh,

yeah,

a lot, a lot of foreign films. They’re kind of like

just that old kind of theater.

Alisa: I think we should give a shout out to Mrs. Bell. She was awesome.

Aileen: Oh my God. She was. the best.

Lauren: I

remember one of her first classes. She says, I talk in like a circular way. Like I start here and I go all the way. It takes me a while and I’m thinking, wow, I am the same person. Cause [00:19:00] I that’s how I am too.

Aileen: Her classes were always really fun. And I remember she had our entire English class over to her house one Saturday morning to watch animal house. And I don’t remember how she tied it back to literature and whatever we were studying,

but it was great because who does that?

Lauren: She was a great English teacher and it really inspiring to me. Um, so maybe she’ll listen to this. Maybe we need to send it. I have a, I have a contact who may be able to send the podcast to her.

So,

Aileen: All right. We’ll get it to her.

Lauren: so I actually listened to this and I listened to it on the speed. I put it on, it was like one and a half, three quarters.

That’s what I do with all my, um,

graduate classes, the lectures, I make them faster because I don’t have 30 minutes. Wasn’t too. That was so, um, it’s it’s it really is about motherhood, sisterhood, womanhood. Um,

Aileen: what’s the base. If you were going to kind of summarize it, what’s exciting. I’ve heard of it, but I

Alisa: I know I’ve never read it and it has chocolate in the title [00:20:00] and

Lauren: And sex the sex in this book. I’m going to, I’m just saying,

so I’ll

get to that.

Aileen: in his

Lauren: to read a little bit of a passage.

I feel comfortable saying the words aloud in this

Aileen: Wait for first, first, give us a

quick synopsis and

then read it.

Lauren: so, so, um, before I do that, I just wanted to bring up a literary element called magical realism. So I don’t know if you know what that is. I can’t describe it either, but Google, it, it is.

so it’s like Gabriel Garcia, Marquez, magical realism.

It’s sort of like this it’s magical, but it’s

Josie: It’s in your everyday life. It’s like magic is just the way the world has always been. And, then like somebody sleeps for a hundred years and that’s totally normal.

It’s not, It’s like, it’s not comic booky at all. It’s

almost as if myth And,

lore are a part of our everyday lives and they’ve been a part of our families and our culture forever.

Lauren: Okay, so thank you for summing that up. Cause I couldn’t have done that. When I lived in south America, I lived in Columbia and while I was there, I read one [00:21:00] of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez novels. And I will say

this culture is magical realism.

Like it is captured. It very much captures the Hispanic,

let, let the Latin culture

of south America, central America. Um, this book takes place in Mexico and it’s about the main character is named Tita Dela Garsa. she is the third daughter in a family. The father dies soon after she’s born or like, very, very soon she doesn’t know her.

And she has her mother mama, Elena, who is basically a tyrant. She’s a, she’s a Royal bitch. Okay. and her sisters rose, Outre Rosato and gratuitous. So there’s this family tradition in her family that the youngest daughter is not allowed to marry that she will have to take care of her mother. now Tita, Tita finds a lot of problems with this because she’s like, well, what if there is no daughter?

like, how does

this work? How does this? And, [00:22:00] um, but she really is a suppressed young woman because she’s not allowed to find love or freedom in her life. she’s a very passionate girl. She is, her mother is so horrible to her that she basically. Being raised by the kit that the chef and she learns how to cook.

And when the chef does die, she becomes the household cook. And her, this is where the magical realism comes in. She was born, like she was crying in the womb with the smell of onions. And then I can relate because one time in somewhere in north of Poughkeepsie, New York, I think near Woodstock. In fact, I was walking down the street and somebody in this little Mexican restaurant was chopping onions.

And I was like, why are my eyes watering? And I was like, and I’m walking by this restaurant. The windows are open and they’re cooking onions, chopping onions. And I am crying. So I understand where Tita, what she’s talking about here. but the recipes that she learns to cook evoke her emotions, like any emotions [00:23:00] she’s feeling it is, it is being, it is part of her, the outcome of her cooking.

Josie: And it’s also very environmental. Like if she cries there’s the day leash,

Lauren: Right. It’s and it’s like, you’re expected to believe it. Like, if you’re w where did all this water come? Oh, it’s from her tears. And then they sweep up the salt and they have tons of salt for years to use in their cooking. You know?

Um, one, one example of this was she was proposed to, by a boy named or young man named Pedro.

And of course she couldn’t marry Pedro because her mom’s bitch and not only is she a bitch when she’s alive, like she literally comes back and Hans her when she’s dead. So, um, Pedro and her dad, like Pedro is like, well, I’ll marry the oldest sister then. So then I can still be near Tita. Um, which obviously causes a lot of problems in

their household.

so one time Pedro brings her pink flat pink roses. And I can’t recall. I can’t tell you why. I don’t remember.

Aileen: Because he’s not an [00:24:00] original.

Lauren: Yeah. And, um, but mama Elaina was like, you’re, you know, get rid of those flowers. Cause you know, rose hours, you should have brought them for your wife, but teachers like, I can just get rid of those because they’re beautiful. So she decides to cook with the rose pedals and she makes a recipe with the rose pedals. And give me a second while I scroll back here

 the recipe she makes us it’s in the month of March and she makes quail and rose pedal sauce.

Um, and then the ingredients are 12 roses. Preferably read 12 chestnuts, two teaspoons, better two teaspoons corn starch, two drops, a tar roses, whatever that is. Two tablespoons, any anus, right?

Josie: Yeah.

Lauren: You tablespoons honey, two cloves, garlic, six quail

Um, while she’s, while she’s cooking this recipe, um, she’s really feeling this passion for Pedro and

Josie: right? This is

Lauren: coming. Uh, I love the scene in the movie. It’s so fabulous. but she’s really feeling it. She’s cooking it. Pedro exclaims, while he’s [00:25:00] eating it, it is a dish for the gods. Mama Alena knew that the quail was exquisite. Nonetheless Pedro’s remark did not sit well with her. And she replied it’s too salty.

on her. The food seemed to act as an aphrodisiac. She began to feel an intense heat pulsing through her limbs. My kind of an itch in the center of her body kept her from sitting properly in her chair. She began to sweat imagining herself on horseback with her arms clasped around one of poncho Villa’s men.

The one she had seen in the village Plaza the week before smelling a sweat and mud of dawns that brought uncertainty and danger smelling of life and death.

And she basically runs like into this field. And, and somehow this man won is like called to her and he basically grabs her, throws her own horseback and they run away.

Aileen: so Lauren, you’re going to make this recipe right.

Lauren: Yeah. I was thinking maybe I could try it. I’m actually, no, we’re going to give that one to Alyssa. I don’t really have any like person to think [00:26:00] about passionately. You might, you’re going to have to think about your husband and make that recipe and say,

let us

Aileen: Lauren. Lauren. So you also watched the movie, right?

Lauren: I watched the movie many, many years ago

Josie: did you didn’t you listen to this in English?

Lauren: Yes. Yeah.

I would try to read it in Spanish now that I read it in English. Um,

Josie: Was it a hard book to read? Was it, was it very,

sometimes I find when I’m, well, sometimes when I’m reading magical realism,

it starts down the magical path in such a subtle way that you’re like, wait a minute, is this really happening? Or is this a metaphor? And

then you have to like, sort of go along with it and say, well, the metaphor is actually happening,

Lauren: It

was easy to read. It was easy to read when I read it years ago, it was easy to listen to, but I know what you’re saying. Cause when I, I tried reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Spanish and it was absolutely impossible

for me. I gave up after the first page, I was like, Nope, not gonna happen.

Josie: I find him confusing sometimes even in English, I like it. I have

to go back and reread certain parts,

but it’s not like the story just leaps into my head. Cause there are times when, especially with Marquez, like when I’m reading him, I’m like, wait a minute. Is this a fever dream? [00:27:00] Is this person really floating? Like, okay, maybe they are really floating.

Aileen: Alright, Alyssa, does your book have any recipes

in it

Alisa: does not. so. I took a big detour from what I thought I was going to do. And I read a river runs through it by Norman McClean. And this is actually Lauren it’s right up your alley. It’s only a hundred pages. and and, and Lauren, this, I thought about you the whole time I was doing this because I then realized that I have, a book on tape

Lauren: Okay, let me just correct. You it’s. You cannot say book on tape

anymore. It’s an audio book.

Alisa: book. Yes. Thank you.

So I have access to all of these audio books and

Josie: It’s like saying I read it on Abacus. I read it on my

advocate. It was

Aileen: I pulled out my stone tablet

Alisa: Right. Which is pretty accurate for my, you know, technological literacy.

Lauren: Oh, cut it out. You’re the one who told us to close the

[00:28:00] tab to get Joseph’s wifi to work

better.

Josie: that

Alisa: I know I’m an

Aileen: or his doom

goddess,

Lauren: go on.

Alisa: Um, so the reason why I picked a river runs through it is because the movie is one of my husband’s favorites and I’ve seen it several times and

Brad Pitt,

and Craig Schiffer. So Craig Schiffer, shush, I think it’s Schiffer.

he

Lauren: who you’re talking

Alisa: he’s

so my type tall, dark

Aileen: than Brad

Alisa: Oh,

no.

Aileen: Oh my

Alisa: cause no, it is it’s, it’s totally peak pit,

but.

Aileen: the movie has to be better than the book, just because of the book does not have Brad Pitt.

Lauren: I still don’t like Brad Pitt.

I don’t think he can act at all. I think he’s just a pretty

Aileen: But he’s so good to look at.

Alisa: Okay. So river runs through, it is about a family who lives in Montana, early 19 hundreds.

So the oldest son norm, and it’s autobiographical. So Norman MacLean in real life, He was an English professor. And then he [00:29:00] started writing in his seventies and he had a collection of short stories, and this is part of it. So the book itself actually is three different short stories I’ll put together, but the movie is just based upon a river, runs through it.

And it’s Norman and his brother Paul and the father and the mother. And it, really just covers the book itself. Just covers a little history of the boys growing up. Their father’s a Presbyterian minister and the line that’s kind of quoted a lot to summarize. The book is

there’s no clear line between religion and fly fishing.

so the boys. You know, Sunday is devoted entirely to religion and w when they aren’t talking religion with their father, their fly fishing with him, but fly fishing very much is in and of itself its own religion. And it talks about the relationships, the complicated relationships between [00:30:00] men, between brothers, between fathers and sons.

and so you lay this foundation of this family. You, you understand that religion is very important. Their relationship to their natural surroundings is very important to them, how they connect with each other is through fly fishing. And then the story itself kind of picks up in the men are in their early thirties and Paul is married. Um, sorry. Paul is not married. He’s the younger brother norm is married and. He comes back to visit and, he and Paul get together and go fishing. And, Norm’s wife has a brother that no one likes and he, the brother is just like a big entitled loser who they, you, you immediately know that nobody’s gonna like him because he shows up with his red coffee can full of worms.

And he’s like, okay, I’m ready to go fishing. And you know, Paul and norm are like, dude, this is not worm fishing. This is flat. They’re like, oh, we can’t even,[00:31:00]

Aileen: There’s a reason why it’s called fly

fishing.

Alisa: And the movie takes some liberties to rearrange some of the events and some of the people based on how the stories written in the book, but the whole, the whole gist of everything plays out the same way with The brother-in-law going fishing with the norm and Paul, but he ends up bringing a prostitute with him and they fall asleep in the sun to get sunburnt. And you know, of course it’s, it’s Norman’s fault that he didn’t take care of his brother-in-law, it’s not his brother-in-law’s fault that he’s giant loser.

and you know how sometimes you just read books and they hit you in a way, because it’s kind of the, the right place at the right time that you read them.

Aileen: Yeah.

Alisa: So I read that, well, I listened to this book. That’s how I ended up getting through it. And

Aileen: Did you listen from the end?

Did you rewind to the

Alisa: know I didn’t

rewind to the end and and part of it is doing an audio is frustrating because I couldn’t, I was like, oh, that’s such a great line, or, oh, [00:32:00] that’s such a great passage, but then I I’m just not adept yet at being able to mark it to then go back to it.

 this book was so comforting to listen to. it was very meditative in a way.

It’s beautifully written and there is so much description of the natural world and the river and the way the river cuts through the rock and what the Montana scenery is like. And then there’s a lot of very technical description of fly fishing, and there’s a big deal made of it.

It’s a four count of something about the arm going back and forth. And, it was very meditative in a way. It’s Beautifully written.

and there is so much description of the natural world and the river and the way the river cuts through the rock and what the Montana scenery is like. but the way it’s described is just, very mesmerizing and but there’s also the, the fly [00:33:00] fishing itself also gets out a lot of, and it’s described even when you like go to Wikipedia to look it up, like it really gets at the root of these metaphysical questions.

Like how do you fit into the earth? And, and as time unfolds, where are we? And, you know, we’re just kind of a small blip in, in time and what’s our impact and what are we going to leave behind and what has come before us and what will come after us. And, and a lot of the, it is, and a lot of the fly fishing, it asks questions. About how, and this is going to sound silly, but like in order to figure out how to be successful fishing, you have to really connect with nature around you and think like a fish. And so one of the things that Paul was really good at this brother, the younger brother was fishing because he could really distill out.

All of the other distractions of life and just focus in on if you’re a stonefly and you hat and you [00:34:00] hatch upstream, and then you get caught into the spray of the water. As it crashes around shallower rocks, then you move downstream and you sink and you’re six or seven inches below the surface of the water.

If you’re upstream and you’re a fish, you’re going to be eating off the surface. But if you’re downstream in, you’re a fish, you’re going to be looking for your food six or seven inches below the surface of the water. So if you’re a fishermen, you adjust how you fish based on where the fish are. And it really is tied to this concept of how do you understand all of these creatures and how they relate to each other and like their physical presence and how the rocks change the way the water flows and.

Aileen: Seems like, yeah, there’s a lot of metaphor, like metaphor in the fishing. I’m just wondering if it would hold it, like if it was written now, would it hold up? Cause I just think about how male relationships have evolved. Like very quickly, like toxic masculinity is now something that’s just part of our vernacular and we discuss, and this was written by a man in his [00:35:00] seventies, reflecting back on his relationships.

So does it feel like a book that was written awhile ago or does it doesn’t have any kind of timeless quality to it?

Alisa: Well, it does feel like a book that was written awhile ago because of, I mean, it takes place in the 1920s and thirties. And so the, the role of the women, the role of the mothers and the wives in their relationships with the men. It is very much a product of the time that it was written in. But I think what is relatable to now is the introspective examination that, um, norm McClain takes where the theme really is, how Paul is flawed.

Paul is an alcoholic And, and so a big part of this is how nobody really understands Paul and how to reach him, but everyone truly loves him and they want to help him, but they don’t know how to help him.

And how do you help someone needs it, but doesn’t want it. And [00:36:00] That’s the relatable part. It’s it’s relatable in terms of having very complicated relationships with family members that you love, having a difficult time, speaking your emotions, having a difficult time, trying to offer help, having a difficult time, trying to receive help.

Aileen: Yeah, it just occurred to me as you were talking about, obviously this book and Nora Ephron’s book, very, very different. But I was just thinking about, even though Nora Ephron’s book took place, not in the twenties, but in a different time and things have changed so much of like women’s behaviors and emotions are so still so relatable and so relevant at like, we can look back at female characters and say, wow, I completely connect with that.

I understand that. I relate to that. And I feel like with men it’s changed a lot. Like just very recently it’s become okay for men to talk about their feelings and be more sensitive and be more open and men’s role. And I mean, women’s role in society is changing, but so is men’s role, you know, but I, I feel like male characters are probably going to keep evolving even more and more, which isn’t to say that women’s [00:37:00] women won’t, but there’s just been a huge shift in how we think about the genders.

Alisa: I also think this, this spoke to me for two reasons. One, I’m a geologist by training. I love water and how it carves the landscape and the history of our planet and how these canyons have formed. and also. Grandfather is the oldest of four brothers. And they have a long history of hunting and fishing and, the hill finger family has hunting and fishing logs that go back to the early 19 hundreds where

they talk about going out and, what the weather was like and what they caught and what the recipes of what they cooked for dinner with the grouse that they, you know,

got that

day

Lauren: do that.

Alisa: they

do. And, and that has been passed on and carried on through generations. So

Josie: and it still resonates for TIFF cause that’s his favorite

Alisa: exactly, and as I was listening to this audio book, I very much felt like I was being told a love story from [00:38:00] my grandfather. It just, it was, it, it was the right book at the right time with the right. Message. And so then you get to the end.

And the reason why I had to bring up the four count piece was because this is mentioned and it’s, there’s no other context, except they mentioned the four count, which has to do with the fishing. So,

norm is now at the end of the story, reflecting on becoming older. Of course, I’m too old to be much of a fishermen.

He’s then retelling about what it was like when he did then in the Arctic half flight of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sound of the big Blackfoot river and a four count rhythm. And the hope that the fish will rise. Eventually all things merge into one and a river runs through it.

The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time on some of the rocks or timeless raindrops under the rocks are the words. And some of the words are [00:39:00] there’s. I am haunted by waters and it’s just

this

generational, like he goes, and he sees like, he hears his father’s words as he’s listening to the water when he fishes as an old man.

And it just, it was beautiful.

So that’s the book I picked.

Aileen: Should we get, can we go on to Josie’s book?

Josie: my book. Oh, I did Charlotte. Bronte’s Jane Eyre and like, look at all these notes.

Alisa: That’s a

lot of

Lauren: I love that book.

Aileen: I’m so proud of you, Josie.

Lauren: Just talk

about that book. Talk about the romance.

Josie: Okay. So I picked this book for, I don’t know, I saw it on my bookshelf and I was like, oh, dang January. And I loved the Cori Fukunaga. Um, I loved that version of Jane Eyre. The one with, uh, Mayo was a cow SCA. Is that how you say her last name was a Cosco

Lauren: I don’t know. I’m gonna have to look it up cause I

Josie: and Michael Fassbender and Jamie bell plays St. John.

Who’s just, and that’s actually that characters. Why, what I want to talk about most anyway. So [00:40:00] Jane Eyre is the story of a girl who is orphaned taken in by, Her mother’s brother who dies

left with his mother’s brother’s husband. I, mean, wife, wife. That would be interesting. that would be a really interesting story.

And she’s got these two, she’s got these three wretched kids. Um, she’s Mrs. Reed. She’s a horrible woman and she’s got these rotten kids and, um, Jane Eyre is sort of always told that she should be grateful. And she’s obviously not grateful to be living there with

kids who bully her. Eventually she and Mrs.

Reed have this huge falling out because Mrs. Reed basically after her, the boy knocks her down and she’s bleeding from her head. Mrs. Reed sticks her in the red room, which is where they kept the body of her, uncle who took her in before he died. And he it’s like haunted there. All of these supernatural elements in Jane Eyre.

I when rereading it, I was like, oh yeah, I forgot. There were, there were this many supernatural moments in the book. It keeps coming up over and over again, this [00:41:00] haunting, these ghosts, she hears voices. It’s like, it’s very Gothic. I was

surprised. so, uh, in the red room she’s and finally she has this huge breakdown.

She’s screaming her brains out and she gets sent away to this school, which is just a nightmare. it’s

like this Christian school And she’s from this super wealthy family. So she’s, she goes away to this school. She winds up surviving this school, which is run by this blow heart of a Christian dude. Like this preacher, who’s basically taking the money and like making the girls eat like crap

food, and it’s pocketing all the money.

And like the only retribution for him is that he’s embarrassed. He’s publicly embarrassed. When half the girls die of this

fever,

it’s like horrible. They’re burying them in the backyard,

and he gets bed, but he’s still on the board for the school. Like they don’t even take him off the board of the school.

He’s just publicly embarrassed. But to her, to Jane air, from her perspective, that’s retribution. And then.[00:42:00] After she goes to the school, she becomes a teacher for a little while, and then she just feels this restlessness in her spirit is how she puts in. It’s really, it’s

beautifully written. It just like this caged bird that

she is like, her mind is caged her body’s cage.

And she feels this restlessness. So she takes out an ad in a paper to be a governess. And she goes to this big house. She mistaken the, She thinks that the maid,

Mrs. Fairfax is the woman that she’s going to be working for in the, but it’s really this other dude Rochester. So she starts working there and she gets this little, this little French girl becomes her, her ward and she’s teaching her cause she speaks great French and all that stuff.

And she meets this dude out on the road and he thinks that she’s a ferry. And this is Rochester when she meets him. He’s this older guy. Rochester is this he’s broken by the world. the child is from this show girl, basically. who he was sleeping with in Paris. And it’s not even his kid.

He doesn’t even [00:43:00] think that this kid has his, but he sort of raising her because she was left destitute when this woman like upstates and ran off to Italy with some other guy

anyway. So he’s nice. He takes him this kid, but it’s actually really, you know, racy. When you think about it, it’s like he’s got this prostitutes kid basically.

And, um, Jane Eyre is raising this kid and she meets Rochester and Rochester is this angry man. And we find out that the reason why he’s angry and I’m totally gonna blow it quick,

 they have this love affair. Like they fall in love with each other. but she finds out that he’s already married and through the course of the whole thing, she thinks there’s this ghost.

That’s like haunting the castle that they live in. And it’s not it’s

Rochester’s wife, who’s gone mad. So Rochester, who was a second son, he wasn’t going to inherit. His father was so worried about the fortune. He didn’t want to divide the money that he was going to leave to his two sons. So he basically married off his younger son, Edward [00:44:00] to this woman who was rich, but who he knew was crazy.

Like he knew that the girl was going to be nuts. So he married off his son. And she’s like basically a Savage animal. She tries to kill anyone who comes near her. It’s like. He’s stuck to basically this harpy

and then the father and the elder son die and Rochester gets the whole estate and it’s like, all of that was done for money and it becomes pointless anyway.

And he saddled with this crazy woman. He falls in love with Jane, but he can’t marry her because he’s still married to this crazy person. So Jane leaves him and it’s super dramatic. And there, I mean, there are all of these beautiful lines in it. I have this feeling that we are connected by the string, like my heart to yours, and that if you were to leave me, it would break.

And I would take to breeding bleeding inwardly there, all of these

beautiful lines in it that just stick in your head. so, but.

she leaves him because she’s like, I won’t be your mistress And. you can’t marry me. she takes off into the wild all by herself, [00:45:00] half dies like she’s destitute. she gets like, basically to the doorstep of the, of the rivers, this house, and they take her in. So she’s taken in by the, this great family, two girls who are governess and St. John who’s a pastor St. John is the eldest son and he is going to be a missionary. that’s what he wants to do.

He’s going to go away and be a missionary. And he’s the character that actually, while I was reading this, I was like, Duty frigging bugs me. he bugs me, so Jane air gets the inheritance from an uncle who dies and she has this money and she divides it between all of them because she thinks all of them should get the money. And, Um,

St. John decides that she should be a missionary, his wife, and he’s a missionary and she should marry him and go to India with him.

And she’s like, I don’t, I don’t, want to go to India. I want to be a missionary.

Aileen: Josie. Does he have a question for you? is January, would you call her a strong feminist character?

Josie: Yeah, And I’ll tell you why She even says it herself in this thing, like. when St. John is basically like, you have to [00:46:00] marry me, like, if you’re going to come with me to India and she says, no, I will go with you to India. I will become a missionary.

Even though I think going to India is going to be the death of me. she’s like, but I’m not going to marry you because you don’t love me. And I, and he’s like, we shouldn’t be together for love and all that stuff, And she says to him, like over and over again, seek one elsewhere in me then St. John sequin fitted to you. because he decided that she should be a missionary, his wife. That God was saying that she should be a missionary wife and she was going against God’s word.

If she didn’t marry him and go away with him and inwardly, she goes, well, that’s a load of crap. And weirdly she sort of is like, Nope, I’m not going to marry you even still, I will go with you. I said, I would go with you, but I will not definitely, you know, that’s never gonna happen. And he says, listen to this, do not.

Let us forget that this is a solemn matter one that we might neither think of nor talk of lightly without sin. Like if you don’t do this, you’re sinning is basically what he’s saying to

her over and over.[00:47:00] He is the biggest Dick I’ve ever seen. I’m like horrified by this person. But since he’s like a man of God, she even defends him like Jane Eyre’s character, defense St.

John saying that he’s the best of men and all this stuff. He’s not, he’s this manipulative asshole who thinks he has the right to tell other people what’s going to happen to their soul after they die. And

that I grew up Catholic, even, I know that’s a sin, like it’s wrong. If you say I. Okay. Even for a priest to say, you’re going to hell, you’re doing the wrong thing.

Like, that’s actually considered like a big no-no in the church. Like you, nobody knows,

but God intends for anybody else. Exactly. God.

is the only one who decides stuff like that. I was like horrified when I was reading this and St. John’s characters, the one that stuck with me the most through

all of this, he’s like gaslighting

her.

He basically is like, oh, but you promised that you would come with me and therefore you must marry me. And she says, yes, I promised I would come with you, but I’m not going to marry you.

Lauren: I wonder, [00:48:00] wonder if Laura Escovedo was thinking of that book when she was writing the doctor? I don’t know. You never know because the doctor in like water for chocolate is so forgiving, like, uh, Tita it’s okay. That you had sex with Pedro. Pedro is such a Dick, but I still want to marry you because whatever happened happened, and I still love you, you know?

Aileen: it’s it’s so interesting reading these older books with a modern perspective. Um, but there was an article recently about how they’re taking all these historic care, like female characters and turning them into woke bad-ass cysts. Like there’s the gray, which is a great show. It’s a great show. It’s about Catherine, the great, but she,

it kind of dismissed as who she really was and just

makes her this like super like modern feminist, which it’s an interesting approach, but also erases the real experiences that women

Lauren: Well, I mean, Even, um, like water for chocolate, like Jane Eyre, there was so many restrictions on women and.[00:49:00]

Josie: but here’s the thing. Jane Eyre actually is a woke character. so, okay. So she says no to St. John. There’s no way she’s going to marry him. And when he, he harasses her for basically two more weeks and while he’s, there’s like a second period where he’s basically they’re on a walk together and he’s got her cornered in the Heath.

And he’s basically saying that God is going to judge you. If you don’t do what I tell you to do, if you don’t marry me and come with me to India and she hears Ross child’s voice, like Edward Rothschild voice on the wind, he’s going J J Jamie was like whispering her name. And she like runs off to go find him.

And she leaves this family and goes off to find him. he’s gone blind. He’s been burnt in this fire. So the crazy wife set the whole house ablaze, like she tries to do it. There’s foreshadowing in it. That’s very well set up in a literary sense. She finally burns the whole place down.

And while he’s trying to save crazy, she jumps and dies. And then. burning wood falls on him and he burns out his eyes and. [00:50:00] Bubba. So he’s like this broken down mess who can barely see like he’s blind. His hand has been ruined and all this stuff. And Jane comes back to him and she’s like, but like, now that he’s free, she can be with him.

And she doesn’t care what he looks like. Their relationship was never about that. It was about their souls being fit for each other. And it’s so beautiful. It’s so beautiful. Like, because she, chooses him now that she can finally be with him. She’s strong enough to say no to him when she supposed like, when it’s wrong.

And then she’s strong enough to go back to him and be like, I don’t care what has happened to you. I’m your wife, you and I are fit for each other. But when she’s leaving Ross child for the first time, like she finds out on the wedding day that they can’t be married. Cause somebody stands up

and says, I Did I say Ross child, I met Ross jester. What does the same Rochester? Edward Rochester.

Alisa: of New York.

Josie: Yeah. So, um, he Rothschild so she’s, she’s always talking about how she is a thinking individual with her own will [00:51:00]

that she, now that I now exert to leave you I think she’s like the first modern woman ever written

Aileen: So Josie two questions. So this is one of the classics that you read in school. Um, is this a book you want your daughter to read?

Josie: yeah.

Definitely.

Aileen: still value in it.

Alisa: Like

what

Lauren: daughter read it.

Josie: value in it. because it’s

Lauren: I read it when she was 15.

Josie: She leaves Rochester, because it’s not about emotions. It’s about right.

and wrong. And about her respecting and valuing herself, she says no to St. John, even though she’s basically been like, told you’re going to go to hell, if you don’t do what I tell you to do, she says no, because that’s not what my heart says. Like, I, you deserve someone who loves you. And I deserve someone who loves me she basically won’t let anyone bully her into being something that she’s not. And whether she loves him or not, like, that’s the thing. She truly loves Rochester. But, and he’s like at one point he’s like, I could see like he’s holding her, but he’s not hurting [00:52:00] her.

He’s never squeezing her neck or anything. He just has his finger.

He’s like, I could snap you like a Reed. Like you’re so tiny. I could break you, but I can’t get inside you.

like, I can’t get inside who you are as a person. It would do me. No good. Even if I were to, and she’s, that’s when she’s like, I have to leave you, you

know, I think it’s fantastic.

She’s she remains true to herself even when she has to break her own heart to do it.

Aileen: Okay. Then one last question. Is it a book you would read and think, wow, this would be a great movie.

Josie: Hell’s no, but the movie. turned out great. It

Aileen: Yeah. Cause as cause thinking about it, as you’re talking about, there’s a lot going on. Like what, and I mean, just like from your author perspective, like if you’re reading a book, like what is it about a book that would make you say, wow, this would be amazing as a movie.

Josie: a great character arcs. Like a great character arcs, uh, a relationship that we haven’t really seen before, Okay. The reason why I’m reading this, I would think it would make a great movie. Although look how huge it is. I’d be like, who can turn this down? And Moira Buffini did a great job, [00:53:00] trimming this down into a scrimp screenplay and still maintaining a lot of the great dialogue.

I think that this particular movie, the Fukunaga version of this movie.

has just brilliantly done because it doesn’t change the story at all. It just pairs it down to what you

need. huge character arcs and huge reversals. And that’s exactly what this has, which is perfect for film. But if reading this it’s so descriptive and it’s so like, yeah. I mean, there’s the huge, huge passages of it

where you’re just like now we would never, that would never make the film.

That’s gotta

Lauren: So I actually, I, I watched it before I read the book, but I actually watched the PBS version, the

Josie: Yeah, there’ve been a million. That’s why I was like, maybe I should do this one because there been a

million films made of this. like,

what is it about this story where they keep remaking it. And, um, it has all of those huge character elements and those big sweeping reversals, like, because you, you don’t know what that monster is that like the ghost in the, Rochester’s mansion is, and then you find out it’s his crazy wife and that [00:54:00] is a huge reversal.

It’s like one of those big reveals where you’re like, holy shit, he’s married. Oh my God. Like, and that’s what you look for for cinematic value. So yeah, this movie, it makes a great film. Um, as the book is written, I would be like, who the heck is going to be able to turn that into a screenplay because it’s a monster,

Alisa: but that’s why the BBC takes

these. And, and does it

Mitt?

Yeah. Mini series.

Lauren: Yeah.

Alisa: Thank you.

Josie: Yeah.

Alisa: and Collins birth.

Josie: Anyway, anyway, I was surprised at how much it was about. Money ruining relationships basically, and how the commerce of marriage was sort of evil and it made people go like, look what it did to Rochester liquid. It almost did to Jane Eyre, like with, you know what I mean? It’s like marrying and growing up in the Reed’s house, it was all about you don’t have money and how people are degraded for that.

It was

extremely modern in that sense, because when you read and I love pride and prejudice and all that stuff, but they talk about how rich the [00:55:00] man is and how great that is. This book, Jane Eyre focuses so much on her just wanting to have a job and have independence on her own and be able to earn her own money.

And for the, it never to come up

That never to come into her personal relationships because all money ever does is ruin them. And I was, I was like, damn, that’s a really

modern take. And it has a super modern take on religion too, because religions all the way through this, of course it has to be, but the guy who runs the orphanage is a

Dick, even though he’s a man of God, Jane St.

John is a Dick, even though he’s a man of God and she sort of follows her own

truth.

 So I don’t, I would definitely recommend this to my daughter when she was old enough. Definitely.

And I was just blown away with how really modern and forward-thinking the relationship was too

Alisa: Well, sorry, side note about books becoming, um, TV or, or movies alien. The book you had recommended to me, the Stephen King one, the 11,

20

23 63. [00:56:00] Um, Hulu has made that into like an eight part series or something with James Franco. I think I saw advertised.

Aileen: Every, every Stephen King book these days gets made into a movie.

Josie: And that’s how we ended up on the books to movie theme to begin

with. Okay. So.

thanks you guys. Thanks for coming. And we’ll see you in a couple of weeks.

Aileen: All right. Talk

Alisa: recipe, Eileen.

Aileen: Yes. I, I I’ll get it to you cause I’m never gonna make it, so I’ll make sure I’ll get it to you and you can tell me about

Alisa: I will. Yes.

Aileen: All

right. Bye ladies.

Josie: You’ve been listening to fiction between friends to find the show notes for this episode, or to subscribe and get new episodes delivered automatically. Visit fiction between friends.com. Also, if you happen to have a moment and you’ve liked what you’ve heard, please help support our podcast by leaving a review on apple podcasts.

We would be immensely grateful. Thank you for listening.