Lisa (Harmony)

I have rather mixed feelings about the resurgence of Austen's popularity in the 1990s. Selfishly, I rather relished that it was my secret that "classics" of the kind that could be assigned in school could be such a pleasure to read, such a winning blend of social satire, humor and romance. I've read a lot of genre novels recently, as well as rereading Austen, and what struck me is what separates classics, why they endure, is rather than quickly feeling dated, they still feel relevant and resonate with our times. Austen's novels could be seen as formulaic. She centered her works on the courtship dance among the landed gentry. Happy endings (more or less) guaranteed and focused mostly from her heroine's point of view, her novels are seen as the forerunners and foundations of both romance and chicklit, although they certainly transcend both. All of the novels in this volume are worth reading, even if not all are favorites. Sense and Sensibility is the first novel in this volume. Sisters are usually important in Austen's novels, although they're not always close, and are usually in the background. This novel is unusual in having two contrasting heroines in Elinor and Marianne. Unlike say Elizabeth and Jane of Pride and Prejudice the two Dashwood sisters here both grow and learn from the other and are of equal importance to the story. The novel is interesting in its themes of prudence versus passion for which the sisters make perfect exemplars and foils. If this sounds dry--well, almost no Austen novel is without a large leavening of humor--just look at the second chapter where by degrees, their sister-in-law convinces their half-brother not to help them so that finally she has him convinced their needs are so modest they "will be much more able to give you something." That's typical of Austen. The sharp characterizations that are so funny because they're timeless in their illustrations of human foibles and how being scrupulously polite and socially correct can cover pettiness, cruelty while being of itself at times comic and ridiculous. I'll admit Elinor is my favorite. The one in the family who is sensible in a family of sentimental romantics. Who doesn't have much room to assert her own feelings because someone has to be the grownup. But I feel for Marianne too. I don't, like some, feel she "settled." I think she simply grew through her experiences to appreciate qualities that would have been lost on her earlier. That's the way of the Austen novels and rather why I love them. Love isn't something that solves problems and brings on the happy ending but an experience that, even when you're disappointed, widens and deepens you so you become wiser and so more capable of happiness. At least if you blend a bit of a romantic sensibility with a modicum of sense. Pride and Prejudice features Austen's most sparkling and witty heroine, Elizabeth Bennet. As for Darcy, the hero, he has a reputation of the perfect romantic hero--which has even discouraged a friend of mine from reading the novel. But what I love so much in this story is that it's far from love at first sight. Darcy is rude when we first meet him and earns every bit of disdain which Elizabeth originally feels for him. And his initial opinion of her? Not pretty enough to tempt him as a dance partner. The original title of the novel is famously "First Impressions" and the way this novel credibly develops the relationship between Darcy and Elizabeth from their initial mutual contempt is a marvel. It's why this is so much more than a love story--it's a novel about perceptions, assumptions and prejudices and how they can be reversed and in the process of which cause characters to grow. That's why I see Austen as the opposite of Emily Bronte--love as a force for and as the result of growth--not destruction. Beyond the central love story this novel has so many wonderfully memorable characters. I love the relationship between Elizabeth Bennet and her father; his own marriage makes an interesting foil for the other pairings in the novel. Mr Collins is a comic marvel--as is his "patroness" Lady Catherine de Bourgh. So much of the novel is laugh-out-laugh funny, so much of the dialogue memorable and quotable. Mansfield Park is for me Austen's most problematical novel, and I rather hated it on first read--I found the heroine Fanny Price, a prig and completely unlikeable. A friend of mine who is basing her graduate thesis on the novel urged me to give it another chance, and particularly to look at Fanny's bitterness and the "carefully crafted sense of dissatisfaction in the last chapter." Although on reread I still can't count Mansfield Park a favorite, I can see what she means. Fanny is treated as an unpaid servant in her uncle's household and taught to "know her place," particularly by her aunt Mrs Norris. A very low place. As her rival Miss Crawford notes, Fanny dreads notice the way others dread being ignored. The only person who treats her with any consideration is her cousin Edmund Bertram. He is a prig. But given the circumstances, it's understandable Fanny would mold herself after him--and given her situation, her ability to speak up and act is heavily circumscribed. All in all, she's a more complex character than I first gave her credit and on reread she did gain my sympathy. Another friend of mine said we might more highly esteem Mansfield Park if it weren't by Austen, and she may be right. You can't go into this novel expecting Pride and Prejudice or Emma. There is irony and humor and even wit to be found in it--particularly in the character of Mary Crawford, but it's nevertheless Austen's darkest work--the only one where I don't really like the hero and heroine, but a fascinating study of the enduring damages of childhood and the questions of propriety and principle. Emma is among the lightest in tone and the most comedic of Austen's novels. No one comes close to death or is disastrously spirited away. The closest thing to a tragedy is being snubbed at a dance. I don't remember liking Emma as a character much at first, but she slowly won me over, and she has one of the more interesting arcs of any of Austen's characters. Almost all Austen protagonists grow, but I think she arguably travels the farthest as a result of her comeuppance. One delivered as a result not of her own humiliation but because of words of reproach that make her aware of having hurt someone else. I'm not sure ultimately what to make of her drifting away from Harriet Smith. I think in the end there's still plenty of social snobbery in Emma, and I'm not sure if Austen would in any case disapprove given the class roles of her time. (Although it does seem Mr Knightly, the hero of the tale has no problem having a mere farmer as a friend.) Austen makes you wonder about her characters even after you finish the novel because she creates a whole community within Emma. And so many of the people within it, like the Eltons, are great comedic characters. Northanger Abbey is notably a send-up of the popular genre fiction of its day--the Gothic novels by writers we don't generally read these days such as Matthew Lewis' and Ann Radcliffe. I've read only the (cheesy and quite fun) The Monk by Lewis of the works alluded to in Austen's novel, but I didn't feel lost. When Henry Tilney plays off the gothic works in telling a story to Catherine Morland and later Catherine's imagination runs wild in the ancient manse of Northanger Abbey, I get the jokes because we have our own successors to the Gothic tradition in slasher movies, thrillers, horror and "romantic suspense." Moreover, the characterizations still feel real and are often funny. I was particularly taken with a passage where John Thorpe, a puffed up idiot, boasts to Catherine of his horses and carriages. Change all that to automobiles--and well, one is struck the male of the species hasn't changed much in two centuries. Catherine herself is Austen's youngest heroine, only seventeen during the course of the novel. She's unsophisticated, naive, with a head full of lurid novels and away for the first time in a city and for the first time having to make sense of male attentions. Given her flights of fancy, one might be tempted to count her as a featherbrain, but somehow she escapes that. She's a rather lovable combination of tomboy and bookworm. Her romantic interest, Henry Tilney, is among the most winning of Austen heroes--playful and witty, he's very appealing. And the novel itself doesn't take itself too seriously. Naive and unsophisticated Catherine might be, the narrator isn't, and the prose is filled with wit, irony and early nineteenth century snark--but rather good humored snark. I wouldn't recommend this novel as as introduction to Austen or rank it quite as high as her mature masterpieces (Northanger Abbey was the first work she ever submitted for publication), but it's still quite fun. Persuasion is my favorite of all of Austen's novels. Not the one with the wittiest or with the most appealing heroine--that would be Pride and Prejudice. Nor the funniest. That would be Emma. I do find Wentworth the most appealing of the Austen heroes though. He's a self-made man and the theme of merit versus aristocratic privilege and pride runs through the story. Which is not to say I don't feel for Anne. She's a quieter heroine than you usually see in Austen. Someone that seemingly was too easily persuaded years ago and seems destined to end her life alone. I think if for nothing else, this novel would have earned a place among my favorites because of one scene. My inner feminist cheered at Anne's defense of women, and their faithfulness in love. And truly, if you aren't melted by the letter Wentworth writes to Anne, you have no beating heart. Lady Susan, which finishes this volume, is actually the earliest work, and in my opinion the weakest. (Really a novella, not a novel--it's only 23,021 words.) It was written in 1794 when Austen was still in her teens. I found it hard to get into at first. Unlike the other works in this volume, this is an epistolary novel told in letters, not third-person narration. The story feels thin compared to her other works as a result, although about halfway through we got more of a sense of scenes, with actual dialogue. It's not that I don't find it worth reading. This is very different in tone than Austen's other novels--her titular heroine is a villain--a catty and malicious adulteress trying to force her daughter Frederica into a marriage of convenience. But if I weren't an Austen fan, I doubt I'd have persisted in reading it far enough for the fascination of Lady Susan's machinations to take hold, although take hold they did. The ending nevertheless feels abrupt to me. (I understand Phyllis Ann Karr did a third person narrative adaptation of the story. Particularly since she's an author I've liked, I'd love to read that. Sadly it's long out of print.) These truly are beloved novels--witness all the professionally published fan fiction based on them. I can understand the impulse. It's hard to finish these and know there's not more Austen to read, other than letters, juvenilia and fragments of two novels never finished, Sandition and The Watsons. Both have been completed by other hands, and I might try them sometime. Other Austen sequels and pastiches I've tried have almost all been unsatisfying--they just don't rank with the originals and can't match Austen's wit and insight. I do rather like the Darcy mysteries written by Carrie Bebris--I think because she captures the personality of the beloved characters enough so you feel you're visiting old friends without trying to imitate Austen's style--which often just underlines the author is no Austen. The Austen resurgence was based in particular on filmed adaptations made in the 1990s. I do love the BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice made with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, the theatrical films of Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet and the Emma with Gweneth Paltrow. I thought each was faithful to spirit of their books while, especially in the case of Sense and Sensibility, wonderfully dramatizing aspects only hinted at in the narrative. The Pride and Prejudice miniseries made me laugh out loud and the film of Sense and Sensibility made me cry. I find the filmed adaptations I've watched of Persuasion, Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey problematical. (As far as I know, no filmed adaptation of Lady Susan exists.) And I haven't see Clueless--the modern-day adaptation of Emma--although from what a friend tells me I definitely should! But there's nothing like the novels themselves. I envy those who will discover and enjoy them for the first time.