My Weekly Book

Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

Whoa. The classics. These are the ones that intimidate me. Not reading them, that’s generally highly enjoyable. It’s just finding something to say afterwards that hasn’t been said a thousand times already. When all the analysis has been done, all you can generally add is your personal reaction, I guess.

So, here goes.

I love Jane Austen, I truly do. From the point a while back when I first picked up Northanger Abbey and realised that, far from being a book to slog through the pages were just turning themselves. It had pace, humour and a delightfully wicked modern sensibility that made it laugh-out-loud funny in places. I think I followed it up with Pride and Prejudice which is as luxurious and self-indulgent as a long wallow in a hot bath full of expensive smellies, with a glass of red wine and a big box of Belgian chocolates conveniently to hand. And, all the time you are enjoying this gorgeous reading experience, you can tell other people you are busy with Serious Literature instead of high-class chick lit! It’s just great.

After this I strayed into a slightly more serious Austen byway - the one containing Mansfield Park and Persuasion. Both of these books have a serious tone and a sad inflection that is not present in the two works mentioned above. The first of these is the story of Fanny Price, a poor girl who is taken in then ruthlessly patronised and done down by her richer relatives. Despite its fascinating references to the sugar and slave trades, it is not the most popular of Austen reads due to its highly ambiguous heroine. It seems obvious from the first few pages what the outcome of the plot must be, and the tension in the book is thus from seeing how this outcome will be achieved. The author indicates where our sympathies should lie, and then makes it hard to sympathise with the people she suggests because they are, to be frank, such dreadful prigs. This is an intensely multi-layered narrative - we seem to see the endorsement of a set of values about society and morality which are then torn down to their foundations by the end of the book. The theme of romantic happiness, which seems at some points to be given such significance, and which figures so profoundly and satisfyingly in other works by the author, not least Pride and Prejudice, is ultimately treated almost superficially.

Persuasion is a bit easier on the reader, being the story of attempts by diffident lovers Anne Elliot and the poor but ambitious young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, to live happily ever after despite the best efforts of their family and friends. Again, the romantic theme one might expect predominates but its progress through the book is characterised more by a mood of disappointment and unhappiness than by the humour and fighting spirit of an Elizabeth Bennet, or the imagination and vivacity of a Catherine Morland.

So, having formed a most perfect acquaintance with these two contrasting sides to the works of Miss Austen did I thus approach Sense and Sensibility.

And it was a great experience. I loved the wry humour, the authorial asides (especially on the subject of besotted parents and their annoying kids), the gripping plot, the sense that the good ended well - but not too well, while the bad got their just desserts - to a degree. I rediscovered all the pleasure I had found in the first two Austen novels I read, was thrilled, entertained, amused and saddened.

Go and read Jane Austen, is what I’m saying, dear reader, or you will sadly regret all the wasted years in which you did not…

Some links:

• Project Gutenberg: Sense and Sensibility
• News on the BBC’s planned adaptation (April 07)
• Pemberley (Jane Austen fan community): Sense and Sensibility
• Was Sense and Sensibility originally an epistolary novel?
• Wikiquote: Sense and Sensibility
• The Austen Blog
• Penguin reading guide
• Random House readers’ guide
• Jane Austen Society UK: Sense and Sensibility
• Wikipedia: Sense and Sensibility
• There’ll be questions later… a Sense and Sensibility crossword

This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 10:35 pm and is filed under 2007 reading challenge, Reads I recommend. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.