Austen, Jane - Persuasion

[oyceter]

Errr... thanks to strange inability to concentrate on anything for over five minutes, I honestly don't remember very much of what goes on. So, no real impression of the character of either Anne Elliott or Captain Wentworth, sadly.

It did seem like something I would have liked, given the entire lost love angle. I also really desperately wanted for someone to ask me what I was reading so I could hold it up and say, "Oh, just a Regency."

I was incredibly surprised at Louisa Musgrove's fate -- it seems like much more action than normally takes place in an Austen book, but perhaps I say that because I have only read three. I also squeed over Captain Wentworth's letter in the end. I find it interesting that many of the climactic moments in Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice are told or happen because of letters.

Er. Anyhow. Perhaps I will have more intelligent comments when I reread it sometime.

ETA:
coffeeandink's review

Comments

[deevalish.livejournal.com]

I love Jane Austen. I never ever really considered myself a romatic until I read Jane Austen. I liked her idea of romance. I loved how the climatic scenes occured when the moment was "quiet". Loved Wentworth's letter. Loved how Anne had such a private moment in such a busy and not-so-quiet environ. Just plain loved it. The BBC adaptation was pretty good, too.

I've read four of her books. Pride & Prejudice, Emma, Persuasion and Mansfield Park. In that order. I've also got the dvd's. I'm obsessed, I know.

[oyceter]

I've read... Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and now Persuasion (in that order). And I obsessively watch the BBC/A&E version of Pride and Prejudice (Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy!). My favorite right now is still P&P because of the snark and because I adore Mr. Darcy's first proposal in all its insulting glory.

I love Wentworth's letter! Awwwww ^_^.

[deevalish.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I haul out the P&P dvd's every now and again just to watch the first proposal and then the ensuing, "I'll show her I'm not arrogant!". Colin Firth is just so good. He's one of the reasons I watched Love, Actually and Bridget Jones's Diary. I also watch Emma just for Jeremy Northam.

[oyceter]

Mmmm yes ^_^. I was laughing my head off when Bridget Jones was ogling over shirtless Colin Firth in the book. That was so me and my college roommates!! "Rewind, rewind!!"

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that many of the climactic moments in Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice are told or happen because of letters.

Hmm. That is interesting, since Austen is often credited with causing the demise of the epistolary novel because she did so well outside of letters what previously had only been done through letters in novels. (If that makes any sense.)

The best thing i could say about Persuasion when i read it was that it ended. Anne is the most perfect of all Austen's heroines, and the entire novel i was just waiting for her and Wentworth to get married so i could be done with the bloody book. There was one moment where i thought perhaps they wouldn't end up together after all but nope, whatever that was got resolved. I knew from very early in the novel that they were the two who were meant to get together and the whole thing was just leading up to them finally getting married. I didn't care about any of the characters. Blargh.

But then, i don't particularly like Austen in general. The second half of Pride and Prejudice possibly made up for the first half; i am undecided. Northanger Abbey is fun if you read it on the heels of such novels as Romance of the Forest because it so blatantly making fun of them. I do actually kinda like Mansfield Park, which figures, because it seems to be the Austen novel that gets the most "I don't like this novel" essays written about it. And Clueless is the closest i plan on getting to Emma. What am i forgetting. Oh, Sense and Sensibility. I think i thought that was okay. I don't actually remember any of it.

[oyceter]

Huh, that's interesting! I don't remember reading any epistolary novels for class (the latest one I've read is Brust and Bull's Freedom and Necessity, most definitely past Austen's time!), so I suppose Austen is really one of my first exposures to the use of letters in novels. Now I want to go read some...

This would probably horrify any English prof., but I was reading it from a romance novel standpoint, so knowing who was going to get together, so to speak, wasn't detrimental. I'm still trying to make up my mind to see if I like Anne or Wentworth.

I absolutely adore Pride and Prejudice (the snark! the cattiness!) but don't remember much of S&S at all, except that I felt sorry for Captain Brandon in the movie.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Austen is the culmination of the 18th-century novel. Richardson's Clarissa immediately springs to mind as an epistolary novel. Also Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Robinson Crusoe is largely in diary format. When the novel was first developing, its authors claimed traditions that already had legitimacy, such as travelogues and histories. It wasn't until about Austen's time that it was okay to say "I'm making this up;" prior to then authors claimed they were telling the truth, because their works didn't have legitimacy otherwise. (Gee, can you tell i just spent a semester taking The 18th-Century Novel?)

Well Austen is essentially a romance writer. I mean, for all the social commentary and everything, the driving plot is always a romance. I'm not particularly interested in romance novels, though. And in Persuasion there wasn't tension like in a romance novel where you know the couple is supposed to get together but there are all these obstacles and you wonder if maybe they won't really get together after all. This was like: Okay, you two are going to get together. I know it. And i don't care. Hundreds of pages of stuff happens. I'm never worried -- except for a page or two once -- that you won't actually get together. I couldn't care less about you or anyone else in this novel. Is it over yet? Have you finally gotten to get married yet? Can i finally give this book back to the library and never read it again?

[oyceter]

LOL! I take it you had to read it for class or something?

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

I actually read Persusasion on my own. Every teenage girl seems to love Jane Austen, esp. P&P, so i finally read some (my rule is 2 books, or other major works as appropriate, of an author before i'm allowed to write off said author).

[mogens.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that many of the climactic moments in Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice are told or happen because of letters.

I'm actually reading a biography of Jane Austen right now (well, not at this very moment, but you get the point ;)). Apparently, the first draft of Sense and Sensibility, which had a long gap between initial writing and publishing - about sixteen years - was called Elinor and Marianne and was done in letter form. According to the author (Claire Tomalin) Austen experimented with the epistolary form in her early, unpublished writing before abandoning it.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

One of her pieces of surviving juvenelia is a hysterical parody of Gothic romance, done as an epistolary novel, called "Love and Freindship" [sic].

[oyceter]

Is that in print somewhere?

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Lots of places -- take a look at the Penguin Austen juvenilia volumes. I think it's also in the Penguin edition of the combined juvenilia of Austen and C. Bronte, surely one of the oddest couples you could put together.

[oyceter]

Thanks!

[oyceter]

Huh, nifty!