This is the first day of Advent with Austen, a celebration of the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen’s first novel, Sense and Sensibility.
Hope to see you later today for AwA Twitter Movie Night’s viewing of Pride and Prejudice (2005).
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This is the third time I’ve read Persuasion, the first two were very close together, about 10 years ago. Just as I suspected even back then, this time around it became official: Persuasion has overthrown Pride and Prejudice as my favorite Austen novel.
New things caught my attention this time around. I realized for instance, how innovative Persuasion must have been at the time, with its focus on a woman’s intimate point of view. Her earlier novels use an objective narrator, but Persuasion goes further and we get an “interior” perspective of Anne’s thoughts. At times I think it even comes close to stream of consciousness.
She now felt a great inclination to go to the outer door; she wanted to see if it rained. Why was she to suspect herself of another motive? Captain Wentworth must be out of sight. She left her seat, she would go, one half of her should not be always so much wiser than the other half, or always suspecting the other of being worse than it was. She would see if it rained.
Notice the subtle self-awareness and even mockery. It must have been a writing style completely new at the time and we can only wonder where Austen would do if she lived longer. Charlotte Brontë does something very similar with Jane Eyre, but that’s 27 years later! JE was also considered radical because it put a plain woman in the lead, but Anne is not far from it, with her “lost bloom”. Claire Tomalin in Jane Austen: a Life said something very interesting about this:
[Persuasion is Austen’s] present to herself, to Miss Sharp, to Cassandra, to Martha Lloyd.., to all women who had lost their chance in life and would never enjoy a second spring.
On a different note, Austen is not the revolutionary type and is far from wanting to challenge the social status quo (Mrs Clay, shame on you for wanting to step out of place!). Yet, Captain Wentworth is an ode to the self-made men if there ever was one. How heroic, how strong and dignified he is, compared to the Elliot family and their pedigree.
On yet another note, this time around I couldn’t help comparing Anne Elliot with Fanny Price. Their families undervalue them, both have strong moral compasses and a discreet presence. Fanny would probably be the only other Austen heroine who could support Persuasion’s plot. I think Elizabeth, Emma, Elinor and Marianne wouldn’t be persuaded and Catherine wouldn’t wait eight years. What do you think?
(By the way, if you’re a Fanny Price lover, please let Yvann, Iris or Violet know. There have been talks on Twitter about forming a Fanny Price Secret Fan Club…)
I’ve often seen Anne and Fanny compared, so it was interesting to try to figure out what makes Anne loved and admired by some many, while Fanny is often the least popular of Austen’s heroines.
First, as a friend of mine said, Anna has “eaten her own dust”. She’s suffered a big disappointment of her own making and that makes her less naïve than Fanny. Age, of course, also helps, as well as the fact that Anne has a “place” in her family (even if undervalued), while Fanny is almost a non-person at Mansfield.
But what makes Anne so great are the moments when we see her sharp mind in action. She’s ironic and often we see her mentally roll her eyes at the silly people around her. In one scene she’s even positively scheming, when she expertly maneuvers herself to a chair close to Captain Wentworth at the concert in Bath. One of my favorite moments in the book is when she’s returning to Uppercross after Louisas’s fall:
Don’t talk of it, don’t talk of it,” he [Captain Wentworth} cried. “Oh God! That I had not given way to her at the fatal moment! Had I done as I ought! But so eager and so resolute! Dear, sweet Louisa!”
Anne wondered whether it ever occurred to him now, to question the justness of his own previous opinion as to the universal felicity and advantage of firmness of character; and whether it might not strike him that, like all other qualities of the mind, it should have its proportions and limits. She thought it could scarcely escape him to feel that a persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness as a very resolute character.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is proof of Anne Elliot’s subtle mental subversion. I love all the little indicators about Anne’s “level-headness”, intelligence and her own value of these traits. She is the perfect mix of passion and practicality. Fanny on the other hand, is more of an early version of the future Victorian feminine ideal: suffering in silence, docile, erased, stoic.
I tried to look for evidence whether or not Austen knew she was dying while writing Persuasion. She started it in 1715 and finished it in mid 1816, by which time she and her family probably knew she was seriously ill. She died late 1817, still revising the novel. Wikipedia says that “Austen wrote Persuasion in a hurry, during the onset of the illness from which she eventually died.”
If she did know she was sick and feared for her life, did that somehow influence Persuasion‘s plot and characters? It’s interesting to think about the book in this light. It’s a novel about second chances and the right to personal pursuit of happiness. On purpose or not, it is a lovely message to leave behind in a last novel. As Mrs. Croft said, “We none of us want to be in calm waters all our life.”
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Other thoughts: Fyrefly’s Book Blog, The Blue Stocking Society, Dot Scribbles, The Literate Mother, Jayne’s Books, The Literary Stew, Open Mind, Insert Book., A Guy’s Moleskin Notebook, Just Books, Rebecca Reads, All Consuming Books, Fashion Piranha, Presenting Lenore, Alita Reads, Worthwhile Books, LesleyW’s Book Nook, The Book Pirate, Fingers and Prose, Desperate Reader, You’ve GOTTA read this, Adventures in Reading, MariReads, Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Stella Matutina, Deliciously Clean Reads, Lost in Books, Reading Reflections, My Random Acts of Reading, Stacy’s Books, The Literary Omnivore, Books. Lists. Life., Tony’s Reading List, A Striped Armchair, Lit Endeavors, Aneca’s World, Bookworm Nation, Shelf Love
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15 comments
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November 27, 2011 at 2:26 pm
Teresa
I’d never thought to compare Fanny and Anne before, but I can see where you’re coming from there. I can definitely see Fanny letting herself be persuaded, but it’s harder to imagine Austen’s other heroines in this plot. Just off the cuff, I’d say that Catherine might be persuaded to reject Wentworth, but I can see her moving on more quickly. Elinor might perhaps be persuaded if marriage to Wentworth were couched as a poor way to support her family—she not only wouldn’t be coming into a fortune, but she might end up leaving her family for long stretches if she went to sea with him.
And I’d join a Fanny Price fan club. She’s not my favorite Austen heroine, but I like her and don’t get what seems like the near universal disdain for her among readers.
November 27, 2011 at 3:19 pm
Christina
I haven’t read Mansfield Park so I have yet to meet Fanny Price. I recently came across the idea that Anne and Wentworth are Elizabeth and Darcy had the later not met again at Pemberley. I haven’t decided I agree with that idea yet, but it certainty is interesting and now I want to reread Persuasion and P&P to see if I agree.
November 27, 2011 at 5:20 pm
Advent with Austen has arrived! | Reading Fuelled By Tea
[…] has already got the event off to a great start with an in-depth reflection on […]
November 27, 2011 at 5:21 pm
readingwithtea
I see Jane in the same sort of way, I think she would have waited 8 years but Anne has a bit more get-up-and-go.
A great start to AWA!
November 27, 2011 at 6:47 pm
Kirk C.
Wonderful posting! Persuasion is my 3rd favorite, after P&P and S&S(huge Marianne Dashwood fan). Adm. Croft is my favorite minor character. I love that he gives up the reins on the carriage to Mrs. Croft when there is danger.
November 27, 2011 at 10:16 pm
Larissa
I still have to read 2 and a half (I’m still not finished with “Emma”) Austen novels, but as soon as I was reading “Persuasion” it was my favorite. I prefer it to “Sense and Sensibility” and to “Pride and Prejudice”. It’s so more mature and so more interesting to me to see these people who missed their chance, and this woman who made a terrible mistake of youth and how they cope with it while not showing anything to the people surrounding them.
A masterpiece.
November 28, 2011 at 7:15 am
stacybuckeye
I loved this one. I haven’t read Mansfield Park yet, but having seen the movie I don’t quite get the Fanny hating. Maybe I will after I’ve read it.
November 28, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Alex
@Teresa: Yes, Catherine would be both persuaded and likely would forget him more easily. Good point about Elinor, also think she would sacrifice herself if necessary. However, I’d think she would resist if, e.g. she knew that Marianne was happily married and able to help out her family.
@Christina: I think that Elizabeth would never become an Anne Elliot. There would always be much more fire in her!
@readingwithtea: yes, Jane would also be persuaded to let Bingley go, especially if the “it’s for the good of the family” card was played.
@Kirk C.: I could have written a whole post about the Crofts and how they marriage was portrayed as ideal, but felt sorry for you guys 🙂 The Crofts are like Aunt and Uncle Gardiner in P&P, only better.
@Larissa: I read it right after P&P and at the time I was the same age as Anne. I remember thinking “this has the potential to become better than P&P the next time I read it.”
@stacybuckeye: I think people are just so in love with the other Austen female leads (Elizabeth Bennett’s feistiness, Emma’s independence) that in comparison, Fanny looks to passive and meek.
November 28, 2011 at 7:36 pm
Audra (Unabridged Chick)
I loved this — Persuasion is my favorite Austen by far. I just fail to see the appeal of P&P.
May 29, 2012 at 5:51 am
Mohamed
I read Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre and Little Women and all the Anne of Greengables books and the Emily books every year again and again….I just finisched Jane Eyre…don’t know what to read next…mabey Persuation or Cranford….they have not been read that much 😉
November 30, 2011 at 5:14 pm
Melissa
Persuasion is my favorite Austen. I love them all for different reasons, but then I read Persuaion again and it reminds me why I consider it her best work. It’s not about first impressions or infatuation, it’s about a love that survived 8 long years and deciding to be true to your own feelings instead of doing what others want you to do. Great review.
December 8, 2011 at 9:54 am
Alex
@Audra: P&P is great, but there is something about this one… It makes me wonder jsut what Austen would have done if she had lived.
@Melissa: Exactly. It’s a much more mature novel.
December 8, 2011 at 4:20 pm
Nymeth
I finished this yesterday and completely agree with you about the way it present the reader with a woman’s subjectivity – and a woman who is deeply in love on top of it. The passion and desire may be subtle, but they’re very much there.
December 30, 2011 at 11:59 pm
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