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In her final novel, as in her earlier ones, Jane Austen uses a love story to explore and gently satirize social pretensions and emotional confusion. Persuasion follows the romance of Anne Elliot and naval officer Frederick Wentworth. They were happily engaged until Anne's friend, Lady Russell, persuaded her that Frederick was "unworthy." Now, eight years later, Frederick returns, a wealthy captain in the navy, while Anne's family teeters on the edge of bankruptcy. They still love each other, but their past mistakes threaten to keep them apart. Austen may seem to paint on a small canvas, but her characters contain the full range of human passion and moral complexity, and the author's generous spirit renders them all with understanding, compassion, and humor.… (more)
Not an Austen fan, but I enjoyed the read thanks to the enjoyment of 1book140. The hypocrasy was finely mocked, as was ostentation and pretention. Should have read it when I was younger. ( )
Jane Austen's last finished novel - I enjoyed it more than many of her other novels. The characters seem better developed, the story is a bit more complex, and I liked Anne, the heroine, far better than some of Austen's other main characters (Emma, for instance). ( )
One of my favourite books of all time; on a recent re-read, probably one of the best stories ever written. Perhaps because Miss Austen knew she had not long to live, the writing is much more concentrated and swiftly paced; Emma seemed so long on re-reading that I began to lose interest in her and Mr K, and was bored stiff by Frank Churchill, Jane, and especially Harriet. The gradual changes in the feelings of Anne and Captain Wentworth are beautifully modulated. I kept finding myself about to weep, the writing is so moving. ( )
While other Austen novels concern first love, Persuasion is about second chances, and is a slighter darker, more adult affair than her other works. Yet like other Austen novels, nothing really happens in Persuasion, and yet the story is momentous. At once a satire of the confined world of early 19th century domesticity and comportment, the book is also a moving romance that still readily applies to anyone lucky enough to fall in love. This is the genius of Austen, to plumb the depths of our strongest emotions while seemingly remaining on the glittering surface of drawling room gossip. Austen is an unparallel stylist, her sentences wither and forgive her subjects with dazzling strokes. ( )
Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch-hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there fe found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs, changed naturally into pity and contempt, as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century--and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed--this was the page at which the favourite volume always opened: Eilliot of Kellynch-hall.
Quotations
Last words
She gloried in being a sailor's wife, but she must pay the tax of quick alarm for belonging to that profession which is, if possible, more distinguished in its domestic virtues than in its national importance.
In her final novel, as in her earlier ones, Jane Austen uses a love story to explore and gently satirize social pretensions and emotional confusion. Persuasion follows the romance of Anne Elliot and naval officer Frederick Wentworth. They were happily engaged until Anne's friend, Lady Russell, persuaded her that Frederick was "unworthy." Now, eight years later, Frederick returns, a wealthy captain in the navy, while Anne's family teeters on the edge of bankruptcy. They still love each other, but their past mistakes threaten to keep them apart. Austen may seem to paint on a small canvas, but her characters contain the full range of human passion and moral complexity, and the author's generous spirit renders them all with understanding, compassion, and humor.
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