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Loading... Persuasion (1817)by Jane Austen
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![]() ![]() I reread Jane Austen’s classic regency period romance Persuasion, as the movie comes out this year. Persuasion is the last novel she wrote before she died in 1817 at 42 years of age. While it still cannot top Pride and Prejudice for me, I appreciated her exquisite writing and the depth of emotion in this novel. It feels older and wiser somehow than her earlier work. In Jane Austen’s world, Anne Elliot is an aging spinster who broke up with the love of her life, Captain Frederick Wentworth, when she was young, due to pressure from her family. Now she is older she must watch him return to their circles and pursue a younger woman. One feels the awkwardness and pain of Anne’s situation, of feelings reawakened, and Anne’s valiant attempts to rise above it and conduct herself with equanimity. Although Anne starts by being seen as weak for allowing her chance at love to be taken from her; her strength of character, fortitude in a crisis and sensible nature come through, particularly in contrast with the impetuosity and vacuousness of her rival. This is the ultimate second-chance romance and captures the tenderness and yearning beautifully. As always Austen gives us a razor sharp social commentary on her times, and draws out the foibles of the upper classes with humour and wit. Anne’s father Sir Walter Elliot and sister Elizabeth are painted as vain and superficial, having to lease the family estate Kellinge Hall in Somersetshire due to mismanagement and over spending. The story then takes Anne to Lyme where the lighthearted holiday takes a dramatic turn, and then to Bath where she is pursued by a wealthy suitor and forced to endure interminable social occasions with the who’s who of polite Georgian society. I was intrigued by the cleverness of Austen’s writing. Not the modern “show but don’t tellâ€, but not the old-fashioned heavy-handed telling either. She has a superb mixture of revealing a character by their words and actions, their thoughts and internal monologue, and some sharp commentary of her own alongside it. Jane Austen was definitely a master craftsman and I know I will return to her books again and again. Anne and Wentworth were engaged and very happy. Anne's godmother thought that marriage would be imprudent (because he wasn't financially stable), so she persuaded Anne to end the engagement. Eight years later, Wentworth comes back to the neighborhood. I'm very torn about how to rate this book. I loved some parts. The letter was amazing, and the ending was good. But other parts of the book seemed wordy and sometimes kind of flat. 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 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.
L'occasion de s'attacher aux amours empêchées d'une héroïne tout sauf résignée. Belongs to Publisher SeriesIs contained inSense and Sensibility / Pride and Prejudice / Mansfield Park / Emma / Northanger Abbey / Persuasion by Jane Austen Is retold inHas the (non-series) sequelHas the adaptationInspiredHas as a reference guide/companionHas as a studyHas as a commentary on the textHas as a student's study guideNotable Lists
Anne Elliot lives at Kellynch Hall with her two sisters and vain father Sir Walter. When financial struggles begin to affect the Elliot family, they decide to move to Bath. Anne decides to visit before the move, and runs into many old friends. Most surprisingly she is reunited with Fredrick Wentworth, a past fiancé who under advice from her father and friend Lady Russell never married. Wentworth's lack of wealth and rank in the community were their main concerns and therefore eight years later Anne is still unmarried with little romantic prospects. However, through her journey and move Anne may find that what she has been looking for was right in front of her the whole time. No library descriptions found.
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.7Literature English English fiction Early 19th century 1800-37LC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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