Persuasion

"...if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything." --Miss Anne Elliot

I have enjoyed many TV series and movies based on Austen's novels, some viewed multiple times, snuggly cozy entertainments. That explains why I'm not entirely sure I haven't read her until now; I feel so familiar with her work. But I am pretty sure this my first legitimate Austen.

Her writing is amazing! Witty, snarky, precise, observant, perfectly controlled, and done so as woman of her time and within great limitations. That last bit is surely our loss.

If she could create show more stories that are eagerly and frequently read continuously 200 years after she wrote them, that is a testament to her genius talent! I cannot help but wonder what her pen might have also included if she had traveled, had received a formal education, had "a room of her own" and a modest financial foundation.

Certainly not all is lost. She told us her story, a fabulously entertaining but clear-eyed portrait of a woman's life, its limitations back when women had few options, few rights, and little education. It's good to never forget that state of affairs that lasted eons before now. And, remarkably, like Virginia Woolf insisted that any great work must not do, she didn't grind her axe.

Instead, she illuminated. With greatness.

P.S. Why just 4 stars? I rate those books 5 stars that I would love to read again. Honestly, I don't have that desire with Persuasion. There are many more works, 20th and 21st century works, that I prefer, that invoke stronger feeling, stronger connections. I, too, am a woman of my own time. I will continue to happily stream Austen-based films on my big screen TV on cold rainy Sundays with a hot mug of coffee. show less

Love lost and love renewed, but oh so much more complicated when it occurs in upper English society. And who better to lay it out for us than Jane Austen. The plot is fairly uncomplicated: Anne Elliot is the overlooked middle daughter of the arrogant baronet Walter Elliot, who spends flagrantly beyond his means and feels that it’s his right to do so. More than seven years prior, Anne turned down a suitor, Capt. Frederick Wentworth, on the advice of her good friend and mentor, Lady Russell. He was completely unsuitable for someone of Anne’s fine breeding and station in life. After all, he had no fortune. Now, Capt. Wentworth has returned, in a much improved position, financially, and Anne sees in him what might have been. All these show more intervening years had found no match for him in Anne’s eyes. Austen throws in a couple of other romantic possibilities for her but they are rather unacceptable because Anne is not only beautiful but very, well, intelligent.

That Austen is a master of characterization goes without saying, but I especially enjoy her skewering the upper class know-it-alls who love their position on high, looking down their noses at the rest of the insignificant populace. Although not quite as pompous and lacking in common sense as the infamous Mr. Collins of Pride and Prejudice, (because let’s face it, no one does obsequious quite as well as Jane Austen)Austen’s depiction of Anne Elliot’s sister Mary is priceless. She seems never to be given her full due and is often ill, which becomes suspect to those around here as Austen describes her illnesses so deliciously. Anne goes to Mary’s for a lengthy visit:

”Here Anne had often been staying. She knew the ways of Uppercross as well as those of Kellynch. The two families were so continually meeting, so much in the habit of running in and out of each other’s houses at all hours, that it was rather a surprise to her to find Mary alone; but being alone, her being unwell and out of spirits was almost a matter of course. Though better endowed than the elder sister, Mary had not Anne’s understanding nor temper. While well and happy, and properly attended to, she had great good humor and excellent spirits; but any indisposition sunk her completely. She had no resources for solitude; and inheriting a considerable share of the Elliot self-importance, was very prone to add to every other distress that of fancying herself neglected and ill-used. In person, she was inferior to both sisters, and had, even in her bloom, only reached the dignity of being ‘a fine girl.’ She was now lying on the faded sofa of the pretty little drawing room, the once elegant furniture of which had been gradually growing shabby under the influence of four summers and two children.” (Page 27)

Austen is the master of satire and wit, which is what I find so surprising about her writing and so unexpected. And of course, so good. And her characterizations are unparalleled. And she can take a very simple, uncomplicated plot and turn it into as mesmerizing a read as any thriller. Up onto the reread shelf with this one. Very highly recommended. show less

This was so much better than I recalled. I read this over 30 years ago, and in my youth Anne Elliot lacked the luster and the humor of my beloved Lizzie Bennett. Fast forward to middle age and Anne is suddenly not just wise and good, but appealing and charming. A cross between Lizzie and Mary Bennett perhaps. I had forgotten how deliciously despicable were all the other members of the Elliot clan. Sir Walter gives Caroline Bingley and Fanny Dashwood a run for the best villain title. I just enjoyed the heck out of this book and it gave me what is now my favorite literary love letter: "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope." Swoon

I love both Anne Eliot and Captain Wentworth; I think Persuasion edges out Pride and Prejudice as my favorite Austen because of the depth of characterization and emotion we see in each, thanks to the maturation of the author. It may be the least overtly witty and most overtly romantic of all of Austen’s work – despite that, or maybe because of it, I find it near perfection. 4.75 stars

Janeites, sit down and grab your smelling salts: I did not like this novel. I've avoided reading Persuasion for years and now I know why - the characters are either unlikeable caricatures or sickly saints and the story is slow, even by Austen standards (and my favourite novel is Emma!) Why are we supposed to care about Anne, exactly? Because she's stuck with her ridiculous family after dumping the love of her life on the advice of a 'friend'? That makes her weak, not admirable, in my view - although Anne certainly needs a fault or two, to make her even slightly appealing. Give me a headstrong Emma Woodhouse or even a puffed up Lizzie Bennet any day. Anne is so pathetic she can't even make a two year old child listen to her!

Anne Elliot, show more a 27 year old spinster who has lost her 'bloom' but is otherwise pretty and kind and intelligent, etc, lives with her vain and pompous father and equally shelf-based elder sister in the family home which they no longer afford to keep. Eight years previous, Anne fell madly in love with the first man to move into the neighbourhood who wasn't a relation, but rejected him after being engaged for only a few months because her father pulled a face and Lady Russell, her late mother's friend, said he wasn't good enough. So the fiance, Frederick Wentworth, went off to sea to make something of himself. When the Elliots are forced to leave home and move to Bath to save money, Anne discovers that her father's new tenants are the sister and brother-in-law of her former beloved, and spends most of the book fretting that she will have to face him again, which of course she does. There are fake suitors, scoundrels, sisters who come between the lead couple (one of whom is so flaming stupid that she jumps off a wall and lands on her head) - all standard Austen fare. I just didn't care. About any of them. Anne and Frederick are built up in an unconvincing 'tell don't show', very un-Austen-like manner - 'He was, at that time, a remarkably fine young man, with a great deal of intelligence, spirit and brilliancy, and Anne an extremely pretty girl with gentleness, modesty, taste and feeling' - and then the reader is expected to pity Anne for being 'persuaded' to choose wealth and prospects over love.

Captain Wentworth himself, although famous for the letter he finally writes Anne in the final chapter, is a bit of a nonentity. He returns rich, after eight years at sea, saves Anne from a marauding two year old, receives a glowing reference from a friend a la Darcy's housekeeper, and lets Anne's sister-in-law fall on her head (what grown woman goes around expecting to be 'jumped' down stairs and off walls like a child? No wonder a bang to the head was considered so serious, in her already weakened mental state!) That's the sum total of what Wentworth achieves to win over Anne and the reader. While she just hovers in corners, eavesdropping on people talking about her. I honestly despaired of the pair of them.

I did appreciate Austen's increased snark, from Mrs Musgrove and her 'large fat sighings' over her son Richard who only ever earned the name 'Dick', but honestly, the rest bored me to tears, and even at 200 pages compared to Emma at 500, I started skimming through. I'm sure Austenites will be quick to tell me how Persuasion is Austen's most mature and thoughtful novel and I obviously just don't understand, but I hope I never become the type of woman who does understand Anne Elliot, show less

This is the first Jane Austen book I’ve managed to finish. And unless I’m very much mistaken, it will be my last. I wanted to finish one, because I refused to accept the stereotype that they’re all about a bunch of worthless, hoity-toity British twits with nothing better to do than sit around whinging and meddling in each others’ relationships. I learned something valuable from finishing this—I learned that sometimes stereotypes are absolutely dead on. Austen spends most of the book subtly mocking this class of people, which I suppose might feel transgressive and radical to some of her readers. But of course she never comes anywhere near mentioning the very existence of the other classes who make this ridiculous existence show more possible.

My biggest complaint about the book, though, isn’t about class or anything along those lines; it’s a straightforward literary one: the book is entirely populated with detestable characters. Even the very few who are not simple mockery fodder are nevertheless completely disingenuous (even with themselves), and pathetically subservient to the arbitrary pretenses that rule the lives of everyone around them. I can’t see how anyone would have any attachment to them, or concern about the fate they bring entirely upon themselves.

I will grant one thing: Austen is a skilled writer. She does an effective job portraying the very subtlest hints of action or exposure of emotion in her characters. It’s a shame her skill isn’t applied to anything more interesting or substantive than this. show less

Persuasion is a novel of memories and regrets, a novel of second chances. The feeling is autumnal; and then, there is an unexpected Indian summer. While reading, I wondered – how many books about second chances for women have been written in the 19th century? There are the Brontes, of course, but I can’t think of anything else. This makes me love Jane Austen and Persuasion all the more.

“Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands.”

Ah, the layers of classics :)

According to GR, this was the fourth time I have read this novel, but I have a strong suspicion it’s closer to the tenth. When I open the book, the author takes my show more hand, gently but firmly, and drops me right in the middle of Kellynch Hall – and it’s as though I never left.

Jane Austen is merciless towards her characters, especially Sir Walter and Elizabeth, there are sentences that drip with delicious word poison. The satire is toned down here, though, compared to earlier novels. Persuasion is less exuberant, more mature.

Anne is an introvert in a family of extroverts who do not have wisdom enough and love enough to appreciate someone who is different from them. I just realized that Jane Austen was writing about found family long before the expression was invented. The Crofts! The Harvilles! They went right into my heart on this reread, and I loved them together with Anne.

There is so much more to enjoy: Anne keeping her cool in a crisis and everyone looking to her for guidance; everyone taking her into their confidence and complaining about each other – exhausting and hilarious; Anne talking poetry with Captain Benwick and recommending a larger dose of prose, for emotional health reasons – priceless, really. “...like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.” Ha. Mrs Smith’s info dumps are probably too long and way too convenient. But I do like a mental image of her as a lady spider (she is knitting in bed!) in her web, waiting for the juicy, juicy gossip to come to her.

Show me a person who doesn’t love Anne and Captain Wentworth! Every conversation they have after the events in Lyme is fantastic, there is so much emotional turmoil and delight.
Theirs is the love that has stood the test of time, it has matured, it has grown stronger. This is a romance for grown-ups. This is why Mr Eliot has neither the charisma of the likes of Wickham, Willoughby or Frank Churchill nor the dangerous potential to charm the heroine. Anne is not fooled by glamour and glitter; Wentworth can stop, think, and ask.

“She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.” (This sentence is genius, in its truth, its sarcasm, and its structure.)

I have yet to find a more amazing love letter than Captain Wentworth’s…

“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight and a half years ago.”

A perfect conclusion of a perfectly crafted novel. show less