My first novel by Austen, and it didn't disappoint. I won't soon forget the characters of Anne Elliott, Captain Wentworth, the Musgroves, etc. I had a hard time putting this book down (at least, after I got used to the style of writing, that is! LOL).

Rated: A ( )

Persuasion to me has seemed a little bit like the country cousin out of the Austen novels. Pride and Prejudice is the popular one, with all the movie adaptations and the novelizations and the good press. Emma is sort of a runner-up. It also has some good movie versions and a lot of humor and lighthearted fun. Sense and Sensibility is also popular.

But before last year, I knew nothing at all about Persuasion. I wasn't sure what the plot was; I never saw it on the big screen; I couldn't even tell you the main character's name. Then I saw the BBC version, the one with Sally Hawkins as Anne Elliot. I was mesmerized.

In case you don't know the story either, Anne is the middle daughter in a very proud, very vain family. Anne has always been overlooked. She fell in love with a young navy officer when she was young. She was 'persuaded' to end the engagement, hence the title. They were both young, neither had any income, and her family was opposed to the match.

Eight years pass. She has not forgotten him, but has convinced herself that he has forgotten her. Then events conspire to bring them together again. Will she get a second chance?

I really loved the story. I only gave it 4 stars, not because I didn't enjoy it, but because the ending was a little weak. Austen didn't seem to find the right way to wrap things up and just sort of tacked on the last chapter. Then I have to admit that I preferred the more romantic ending in the TV version too. But it was really well done and I loved it. ( )

A Plea For Anne
In Cassell's Weekly there is an article by Miss Sheila Kaye-Smith on "The Heroines of Jane Austen," which, quietly and a little cooly appreciative, is a refreshing contrast to the extravagant adulation of most Austenites. But one needn't be an intemperate Austenite to be provoked by one or two errors of fact into which Miss Kaye-Smith has fallen.
She says, for instance, that Mansfield Park was in Hampshire, whereas it was in the country of Northhampton, as reference to the very first sentence of the novel will show. And she repeats an ancient libel when she says: "I think the author was guilty of an unconscious betrayal of Elizabeth Bennett when she made her change of heart towards Darcy coincide with her first sight of his estate at Pemberly." This fiction was first invented by an enemy of Jane Austen's, and ought not to be repeated by anyone who has read PRIDE and PREJUDICE. The change of heart began at Hunsford, when Elizabeth had re-read and fully understood the letter that Darcy had thrust into her hands there. "She grew absolutely ashamed of herself. Of neither Darcy or Wickham could she think, without feeling that she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd." Her mind was in a tumult; her eyes were opened to the real Darcy, or as much of the real Darcy as she could then know, and her feelings towards him forthwith changed. "Mr. Darcy's letter she was in a fair way of soon knowing by heart. She studied every sentence; and her feelings towards its writer were at times widely different. When she remembered the style of his address, she was still full of indignation; but when she considered how unjustly she had condemned and upbraided him, her anger was turned against herself; and his disappointed feelings became the object of compassion. His attachment excited gratitude, his general character respect. . . ." When Maria and Elizabeth were leaving Hunsford, and Maria said, "We have dined nine times at Rosings, besides drinking tea there twice! How much I shall have to tell!" "Elizabeth privately added, 'And how much I shall have to conceal!" Could anything be plainer? Elizabeth's heart was stirred, and it was at Pemberly that the change was complete. Yes, at Pemberly, but not at Elizebeth's "first sight of his estate" there. It was at the talk with te housekeeper - "Every idea that had been brought forward by the housekeeper was favorable to his character; and as she stood before the canvas on which he was represented and fixed his eyes upon herself, she thought of his regard with a deeper sentiment of gratitude than it had ever raised before; she remembered its warmth, and softened its impropriety of expression." There is, then absolutely no justification for the ill-natured gibe about the "estate," and it is a pity that Miss Kay-Smith has lightly accepted it.
These are facts, to be settled beyond cavil by appeal to the text. Another point is a matter of opinion. Which is the truest, the best imagined, the finest of jane Austen's heroines? Miss Kaye-Smith hovers between Emma Woodhouse and Elizabeth (whom she will call Elisabeth) Bennett, both of them self-confident, not to say bold, "baggages." Well give me the timid, sensitive, pensive Anne Elliot. But Miss Kay-Smith turns her down, and, it seems to me, for the oddest of reasons. "I will also rule out Anne Elliot, for I never seem able to get to know her quite well. She is lovable, tender, and sweet, and has depths in her which the others lack, but she is remote, adrift; I wonder if her maker ever quite knew her, if she wasn't always a little ill-at-ease with this her most ambitious creation." "Adrift," yes, that is precisely what she was meant to be, that is her story. But "remote"! Is there any other of jane Austen's women who is so intimately known to us? Miss Thackeray has spoken of "a certain hardness of heart" in Miss Austen's heroines. And it is true of all of them - except Anne Elliot. Miss Kay-Smith wonders if her maker ever quite knew her. How can she, or any one, read "Persuasion" without perceiving that, whatever else it may be, it is a spiritual autobiography? That Jane Austen put something of herself into each of her heroines no one will deny. She was high-spirited and sharp-tongued, like Elizabeth Bennett. She was a born match-maker , like Emma Woodehouse. But into Anne Eliot she put her heart, her disappointment in love, her education sentimentale, her inmost secret self. Read such a passage (too long to quote in full) as the evening party at the Musgroves, with Anne at the piano, her fingers mechanically at work, but her whole soul absorbed in Wentworth. "Once she felt he was looking at herself - observing her altered features, perhaps trying to trace in them the ruins of the face which had once charmed him; and ONCE she knew that he must of spoken of her," etc., etc., and ask yourself whether these are feelings merely imagined, or feelings actually experienced. The consciousness of being loved disposes Anne "to pity every one as being less happy than herself." Whoever wrote that had been in love. I submit to Miss Kay-Smith that in the heroine of "Persuasion" Jane Austen, so far from not quite knowing her, absolutely gave herself away.
It is thus in art the truths of life get told, veiled, transformed, yet plainly visable to all who have eyes to see.

From Arthur Bingham Walkley's STILL MORE PREJUDICE. 1925. The letter at the beginning of MAN AND SUPERMAN is written to ABW. ( )

Although Jane Austen is more beloved for "Pride and Prejudice", "Persuasion" is my favorite of all her novels. It is the story of a twenty-seven year old woman who, eight years prior to the start of the novel turned down the offer of marriage by the man she loves. Now he has come back to England from the war, but he doesn't seem to be in love with her anymore. Anne, the main character, is poignant and insightful and for some reason I identify with her. She is quiet and sensible, not as daring as Elizabeth Bennet, and much more reserved yet I love her character. Persuasion is moving and reflective of an older Jane Austen. If I was forced to choose I would probably state "Persuasion" as my favorite book. ( )

Summary: When Anne Elliot was nineteen, she was in love with a young naval officer named Frederick Wentworth, but was talked out of it as being an imprudent match by friends and family. Now, eight years later, she is still unmarried, and still in love with Frederick - who is now Captain Wentworth, recently returned to shore with the large fortune he made in the war, and looking to settle down. When they are forced back into each other's company, things are strained between them, and she fears that by her earlier weakness, she has lost him forever. For how can they overcome eight years of heartbreak and regret to be together once more?

Review: I always feel like a bit of a fraud reviewing Austen, or any classic, since so much has been written about it already - who cares about my opinion when many generations of masters theses have been written on the book by people better educated than me?

Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed Persuasion, perhaps not quite so much as Pride and Prejudice, but certainly more than Emma. (I read Sense and Sensibility so long ago that I really can't compare it.) Persuasion's a more mature, sober book, less sparkly and quick-witted, but still an effective send-up of class, vanity, social climbing, and the strictures of society... plus it's one heck of a compelling romance.

Anne Elliot, while not a particularly lively heroine, was immensely sympathetic. First, being a unmarried lady of eight-and-twenty myself, I was rather predisposed to identify with her (although I got somewhat tired of hearing about how her - and by extension, my - bloom of youthful attractiveness was in danger of disappearing at any second and therefore she'd never get married and her life would have no meaning.) I also think that most people have, if not a long-lost love that they look upon with regret, at least someone in their past that they look on with nostalgia, and a hint of "what if...", and that makes Anne's plight recognizable and relatable. Finally, I've long acknowledged my inordinate fondness for boys on boats ("Sometimes you're just in the mood for the British Navy."), so Captain Wentworth is an eminently swoon-worthy leading man.

There are two things that I did wish were a little different. First, there's no secondary romance involving sympathetic characters. Anne's story is enough to fill the pages, but in the other Austen I've read, there is a secondary couple who deserves (and of course gets) their happy ending. In Persuasion, Anne's not surrounded by any other particularly sympathetic young people, and so there's no other couple to root for. (Certainly no one to equal, say, Jane and Bingham from Pride and Prejudice.) My only other quibble with the book is that the pivotal scene at the end of the book is mostly lacking in dialogue, choosing instead to have the narrator explain to us how Anne and Frederick made up without actually letting us hear it. That's a shame, because Austen can certainly write wonderful dialogue, and by not including it at the end, it felt like we were being kept at a distance from the most important part of the story. Still, overall I thought this was a wonderful book, and most definitely one I will return to. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Oh, c'mon. It's Austen, it's a classic, it's not as intimidating as you might think, and it's a wonderful story of love and faithfulness and hope in the face of all seeming lost. Read it, if you haven't already. ( )