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

[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).