In this episode of Doug Reads with Friends, Doug talks with Erik Simpson, Professor of English at Grinnell College and one of Doug’s dearest friends from his years in Grinnell. Erik chose Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, giving Doug a long-overdue first read of one of the most beloved novels in English. Their conversation begins with Erik’s work in book arts, paper engineering, teaching, bird photography, and the strange habits of professional readers, before turning to Austen, rereading, Darcy’s listening, Elizabeth’s changing judgment, whether the novel is feminist, and why Charlotte Lucas may be one of the book’s most important characters. Along the way, Erik does what great teachers do: he takes a sentence, a small moment, or a strange detail and opens it up into something much richer.

Next time: Graciela Guzman and The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler.

Music by Eiren Caffall. Please check out her music on Spotify and visit her website at https://www.eirencaffall.com/.

Chapters:
0:00 INTRO: Erik Simpson, friendship, and Pride and Prejudice
2:13 Paper engineering, book arts, and making books physical
8:42 Reading on paper, ebooks, and audiobooks
11:35 Birds, photography, and becoming a cliché
13:11 Start small, start strange: Erik as a professional reader
18:08 Growing up with books and becoming an English professor
20:11 OK, now the book: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
25:31 Darcy listens, Elizabeth rereads, and Austen’s slow romance
34:19 Feminism, neurodivergent Darcy, and Charlotte Lucas’s choice
41:04 Bath, rereading, and a future Austen reunion
43:48 Next time: Graciela Guzman and The Parable of the Sower