Persuaded by a book

26. Persuasion by Jane Austen

So, finally here to discuss Persuasion. I have certainly read the beginning of the book a few times (I had actually just begun to do so again when Heather said she was going to do it next on Craftlit), but I amn’t sure I had previously finished it. Not that it’s a bad book, by any means, but somehow it hasn’t generally grabbed me so much as some of the others. Thankfully, listening along with Craftlit worked out very well. Some of the characters are still annoying (but then, I do get annoyed by characters, as my regular book-post readers will know), and the attitudes are worse, but that is a lot of the point of Jane Austen’s novels: she aims to show up the snobbery and other vices of the class-based society she describes, and to have (eventually, with many many false steps along the way) virtue win out. Usually.

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Anyway, Heather’s commentary was helpful and fascinating, as always, although we didn’t manage to convert my DH. (He has disliked JA’s writing since school, and isn’t compelled by Austen’s portrayal of the social nuance and patronising behaviour described in her books.) Thankfully he’s enjoying the current Craftlit book (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court) much more, as he expected to. I’m finding that quite interesting, as I’m not at all familiar with it, which Heather’s obviously expecting everyone to be (it is an American classic, after all). I’d heard of it, of course, but don’t know the story at all, so being told repeatedly that it’s not what we’ll be expecting doesn’t mean very much to me.

Now, as to Persuasion itself; well, as above it’s not my favourite Austen novel. Part of my problem with it is that so much of the story, and especially the character development, happens before the start of the novel. The former wouldn’t bother me half so much as the latter. In short, Anne Elliott many years ago allowed herself to be persuaded not to marry a penniless young naval officer, and has since learned to regret it, particularly now that he’s turned up in her circle again, as a very successful and far-from-penniless (as her family has become, in the meantime) career officer. Of course, having rejected him before she can’t throw herself at him now (pride good and bad showing itself as one of Austen’s recurring themes) and has to watch while younger friends do just that. I suppose what I do like about JA’s work, is that while the ending  generally is happy and predictable, the path to get there really isn’t so much, and that’s what it’s worth reading for.

Related Articles

• I Hate Jane Austen (thegloss.com)
• Dash it all – give Jane Austen the last word (telegraph.co.uk)

Supposedly cooler

Apparently the temperature has decreased, very slightly, from the craziness it reached on Thursday and Friday, and should properly start to go down come the middle of this week. I’m still too hot. As is my computer. This is not good for my peace of mind, either. I should just focus on the good/progress news I got this morning, and stop letting my imagination go into overdrive, like it has been doing.

The next book I should be discussing is Persuasion (by Jane Austen), but I really don’t think I’m in the frame of mind for doing that right now.

Not something I’ve done before

So, thanks to Heather on Craftlit – which has just started Persuasion, one of Jane Austen’s lesser known novels, with one of the five Librivox recordings – I just found out that Librivox is having a fundraiser. They’re trying to raise $20,000 to upgrade their website, hardware, and pay for their hosting costs. As my readers must know, I listen to a whole lot of Librivox content, so I’d like to help them out if I can. Since they haven’t advertised the fundraiser much, I thought some of you might like to know about this too.

Doing what I want

Okay, I think part of the reason catching up with the booklist (what there is of it) is taking so long is that it is so long since I read some of those books. So maybe I’ll just tell you about this year’s books for now instead. (All 6 of them so far…)

The first four are Librivox audiobooks. For now I’ll leave out number 4, as it’s the sequel to a couple from 2009 that I haven’t discussed yet.

1. Miss Pim’s Camouflage by Dorothy Tennant, Lady Stanley

This is a propaganda wish-fulfilment novel about World War I. Specifically, Miss Pim is the middle aged and unfortunately female (considering she has the soul of a general) scion of an English military family, who feels limited in doing her bit for the war effort by simply growing vegetables and joining local committees. One day she discovers that with a simple movement she can become invisible, and under the guidance of her local vicar she offers her services to the War Department and is sent behind enemy lines to spy on the dastardly Germans. Usefully she speaks fluent and nearly accent-less French and German and gets to do all sorts of helpful things, including telling us all just how terrible the Imperial Germans are. (This novel basically suggests the WWI Germans were committing Nazi-style atrocities on a vast scale, which doesn’t sound like history as I learned it.)

2. Ophelia, the Rose of Elsinore by Mary Cowden Clarke

This may be part of a series of novellas about the apparent girlhoods of Shakespeare’s heroines, but it’s decidedly not for children. Abuse of all kinds is implicit in this one. Some of it is interesting in relationship to the Ophelia of Hamlet (which is also at the end of the 2009 list), but some of it has not very much to do with that at all.

3. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

It was interesting to finally hear the actual story/play of this. (It’s a well-edited-together group reading of the play.) I’ve never even seen My Fair Lady, but it’s one of those stories one simply will hear discussed. This was both more thoughtful (in the early story) and less (in the later one) than I had anticipated. I do like the Professor’s mother far more than I like him.

5. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

It’s been years since I read this, and I remember liking it more than some of the other Austen novels. This one is far more about ethics, I think, than are, say, Emma or Pride and Prejudice, and I like the way most of the characters are given the opportunity to grow over the course of the novel. In particular, that the castigation is really for those who fail to fulfil that opportunity, more than for their lack of morals in the first place. (I think all the young people we get to know at all in this book are shown to have had inadequate parenting.)

6. Invitation to Go by John Fairbairn

And this is the one I really wanted to get to discussing today. We got to talking about Go last night, and how I wanted greater clarity on the rules and strategy, so when I couldn’t sleep I ended up spending much of the night and most of the morning reading this clear little book, including working through its examples and problems on the board. I need a whole lot more practice (soloing, playing the game with my husband, and really preferably playing with someone with more experience) to be any good, but this did give me a lot more confidence to see what’s going on, after the event at least!

Close to home

I want my crocheting inspiration back! I’m too hot to work with anything big, but I amn’t getting on with the small projects either.

220. Memoir of Jane Austen by James Edward Austen-Leigh

I still amn’t clear as to how much time the author of this memoir personally spent with his aunt, but he does quote several other members of the family, as well as letters and other documents, throughout the account. There is a definite 19th Century style, but I enjoyed listening, and now appreciate more of where Jane Austen was coming from as a novelist, which is presumably the point. There are several readers through the book, but they are all quite reasonable, and some very good.

221. Moonfleet by John Meade Falkner

Somewhere among my childhood books should be a copy of this (although it probably originally belonged to one of my parents), but I don’t think I got very far with it then. I’ve enjoyed it this time, however, although I think many of the morals and ethics apparently learned by the young hero, and indeed generally espoused by the protagonists, are … interesting.

Not, I suppose, that one couldn’t say the same for the protagonists of Niccolo Rising. Chapter 2 had me landing on a line that I wish could have been true, throughout the series, even if it is possible here, both for the character who says it and for those around him: “‘We will have care in the future. We did nothing with malice, nor ever will.’” It seems to me now that much of what goes wrong later on is because they forget or ignore these principles. (Which isn’t to take away the blame from those who act consistently with malice.)