In Miss Austen's era, reading aloud to a party was common entertainment. When a reading was finished, I would assume that the party would discuss it in depth and at length.

Is it not a stretch that perhaps one of the reasons J.A.'s novels stubbornly yield such rich details and intertwined layers of information with sometimes great effort is because they were meant to be read aloud and shared with a group?

I will confess that without this group-read, I would have never uncovered or understood the complexities and subtleties of Miss Austen's interwoven relationships. Do some of you feel likewise?