This was my second read of MP, the first being 9-10 years ago, and I sadly didn't find this GR until nearly the end and I was 10 chapters behind the schedule (I have been reading back through all your older threads, though).

I think the thing that struck me most in this read, with the help of the GR comments, is the humanity in the characters. On first read, I thought Fanny was a little too perfect, but on this read, I see that she is flawed like the rest of us, but has a remarkable sense of integrity that I admire. And even though the narrator fills in a lot of future details, there is still room for conjecture based on any reader's own views of human nature. For example, I like to think that in spite of Fanny's belief that Henry will never overcome his bad tendencies and the narrator's conceding he might occasionally regret them, his character is as able as any real person to fix what they want to fix about his or her life, repent and move on, newly-improved, so to speak. There is a side of me that wants Henry to suffer, but maybe, just maybe, he learns to find the "better guide" in himself (42) and improves, so the guilt will have served its purpose.