Surprisingly, I felt extremely sad!
What's your feeling when finishing this book?
Surprisingly, I felt extremely sad!
Cogito, ergo sum.
Amicus Plato, Amicus Aristotle, sed magis Amicus Veritas.
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Cogito, ergo sum.
Amicus Plato, Amicus Aristotle, sed magis Amicus Veritas.
Glad i fininshed, but I had it for summer reading and I already knew the ending from the movie.
Last edited by quoththeraven98; 09-09-2007 at 05:21 PM. Reason: grammer
I felt that Elinor had her Edward, that Willoughby found out he could have had Marianne and money together, & that "what goes around comes around." I did not get the feeling that either sense or sensibility were better, but that each had its good points.
I guess i was sad aslo. i felt that both marianne and willoughby had found thier one great love and lost it. and i felt like marianne just gave up and married a man she through the whole book had no interest in. it was a bit dissapionting i guess, but so far is my fave austen book.
I loved the ending.
Surprisingly or not, me too! it's my fave, better than Pride and PrejudiceOriginally Posted by Jacki217
Cogito, ergo sum.
Amicus Plato, Amicus Aristotle, sed magis Amicus Veritas.
It's my favourite of her books too, but I was quite sad about Marianne and Colonel Brandon - it's the bit where she's described as some sort of prize (I can't remember the exact quote) but it felt almost as though she was settling for second-best and denying her true nature.
"The magic gave me insight, and you gave me a heart, but for all the heart and insight in the world, I am still a cat."
I agree with all the above posters. Why should lovely 17 year old Marrianne marry that old man with a flannel waistcoat? And a bit of a stick in the mud too, and she feels no attraction for him. From the practical point of view I guess it's Ok. He's a nice guy and his 'very good property in Dorsetshire' and 2000 a year must count for something. I always felt that Lizzy (of Pride and Prejudice) was only half joking when she tells Jane that she started liking Darcy after seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.
Sorry for being so cynical....
Last edited by mona amon; 10-17-2008 at 01:17 PM. Reason: to correct a spelling mistake
I had liked Colonel Brandon throughout the whole book, so I was quite glad when he came together with Marianne finally. Though, I read the book only after I saw the film, so my opinion might have already been influenced by the actor.
When I read at first that Marianne accepted to marry Brandon although she didn't feel any emotion superior to esteem and friendship for him I was disappointed cause I had so hoped that she would finally fall in love with him. However, only a few sentences further it was said that Marianne couldn't "love by halves" and that she learned to love Brandon as much as she had Willoughby before "and her whole heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband as it had once been to Willoughby". So in the end she does really love him, doesn't she? And if that is so, the ending couldn't be any better, for I wanted for Marianne a man who loved her so deeply that he would die for her and the Colonel certainly would. Willoughby in the contrary might love her but only as much as a person like him can love, and in my opinion this love is not enough for Marianne. She doesn't need any selfish husband but one that cares only for her rather than himself and spends money for HER comfort, not for his. So if Marianne finds that man in Brandon and at the same time really loves him, how could the ending be any better!
I agree with you. Also, Austen was writing for her times, and trying to illustrate a hope that even when marrying for situation, you can find love. It's a very pretty sentiment.
I adore this book-- it's one of my favorites.
Too great to say anything
Last edited by difanchen; 01-05-2009 at 04:07 PM.
Inspired
I had also liked Colonel Brandon from the start... And didn't see any film...
Anyway, I felt kind of relieved about Edward & Elinor, but quite sad for Willoughby. But at the same time, I think that Colonel Brandon was going to be a very devoted husband to Marianne and that you couldn't get any better. At the same time you would be able to ask 'what would it have been like with Willoughby?' Maybe it would have been the same or maybe not. Who knows?
I think meant 'sense' to win, as portrayed in Elinor, but in a marriage there must be feeling because that is what makes people come close together. You have one without and with a lot of sense, and look what hapens (Willoughby and Miss Grey): they don't stay happy.
This quote made me smile at the end: 'A three weeks' stay at Delaford, where, in his evening hours at least, he had little to do but calculate the disproportion between thirty-six and seventeen, brought him to Barton in a temper of mind...'
Poor man, thinking alone in his mansion about nothing else than this young girl whom he is not sure wants him because of his age...
Their marriage and the encouragement he receives are a far cry of the 'infirmness' he was accused of because he talked of 'flannel waistcoats' in a very early chapter by Marianne... Impressions change, don't they?
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
The irony is, we feel pity the whole time for Willoughby, despite the fact that he is in essence a liar - a facade, who sells himself out to the highest bidder, despite what he pledges and pretends. Yet Brandon, who ironically seems as driven by his sensibility as Willoughby, is never truly accepted, despite the fact that he has done nothing but what he could to help her, and didn't even stand in her way with Willoughby, out of a sense of duty towards maintaining the possibility of their love to each other.
Either way though, he is only 35 at the beginning of the novel - though old, he isn't as old as Allan Rickman played him in the movie. All things considered, he is probably the only redeeming character of the book, given that the rest are driven by the basest of instincts - Elinor by her obsession with practicality, Willoughby by his obsession with money, Edward by his sense of duty, and Marianne by her romantic sensibility - which of course, is ironically tied in with her reading of literature, AKA lies.
Brandon is the only one who acts with sense and sensibility throughout the text, and the ending is only natural, given that the Byronic (I use this term loosely, given the composition date of this book) could not possibly win, while maintaining the theme of sensibility.
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