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

[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 According to the author (Claire Tomalin) Austen experimented with the epistolary form in her early, unpublished writing before abandoning it.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!