Jane Austen: Persuasion
Finished reading this for a second time yesterday-- still the best.
In fact, this time it was even better. I was more attuned to the most eloquent and touching passages in the book.
I think the less-celebrated works by Jane Austen are actually better. Granted, I have not read Emma for over a decade (and was too young to properly understand it at the time), nor Mansfield Park. But I did reread Sense and Sensibility last year, which is definitely better than Pride and Prejudice.
Whilst rereading Persuasion, I kept having to pause and appreciate just how brilliant the story is. The fact that it may be loosely based on Jane Austen’s own thwarted love story with Tom LeFroy (or someone else), the fact that she was ill and dying whilst finishing this, and the sad beauty throughout narrative passages, enhanced my reading experience.
Anne Elliot’s quiet dignity, honesty, and dedication throughout are incredible. I think that Jane Austen’s quieter heroines deserve greater credit: Anne Elliot, Elinor Dashwood, and Fanny Price. They have great character, inner strength, resolve, and a strong moral compass-- all whilst having relatable and understandable flaws. For example, Anne Elliot feels on reflection that she had a duty to listen to Lady Russell when the latter warned her against marrying Captain Wentworth. I don’t agree, and neither did he. But this scene gives her complexity.
One of Jane Austen’s great strengths is adding a twist at the end of the romance. My favourite by far is when the rogue Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility fools around with Marianne Dashwood, only to fall irrevocably in love with her and continue being in love with her whilst she eventually married. On the very last page, Austen writes that Willoughby considered Marianne the gold standard in womanhood and thus offended other women.
In Persuasion, the threat of Captain Wentworth dying in war remains on the very last page, the only way that Anne Elliot’s happiness could end. I view this as a glimpse into Jane Austen’s own declining health and the sense that she will not write another novel. Very poignant, sad, but powerful.
Onto Mansfield Park next!
