Jane Austen Book Club - Book number 1, Persuasion.

[Mathor]

STOP HIJACKING MY THREAD.

I'm serious, take it somewhere else.

If it doesn't relate to Persuasion, then do not post it.


That being said, I will not be participating in the Persuasion read. I haven't been able to get in to Persuasion, which seems odd to me, and I do not read books that I do not take to, SO, i'm going to wait until Sense and Sensibility rolls around in October (i think?)
until then, i will still be reading this thread etc, and will send you all reminders when S&S rolls around.

I can see why you were not moved from the beginning of the book, as neither was I. There were a couple good parts, but the story begins with very little story, quite intentionally I might add. It is the sort of drama that you or I might have in our daily lives but wouldn't bother to write down or even write a book about. But in Lyme a very peculiar accident, and the things that unfold from there are what have been drawing me in. The story is all excitement from there, and it seems as if that is sort of the turning part of the book, and what really "begins" the story. You should try to continue, you might find you were wrong about it. It's also halfway through the book, at Chapter 12.

[kiki1982]

I agree. Persuasion starts off very slow, unlike other Austen-books, but it gets more intriguing and interesting.

If you can't get into it then justread one chapter a day or something (that is how I sometimes get through boring bits).

I find it alway so sad for book not to be finished...

[prendrelemick]

It all kicks off for me at the end of chapter 3. when Anne thinks:

"-a few months more ,and he, perhaps, may be walking here." There is a frisson of excitement, here at last we have a hint of what the story will be.

[qimissung]

My thanks to all who have posted before me. I started the book (a re-read for me) Sunday night. I am currently on Chapter 11: Anne and her family have effected their move, the groundwork on the main character's characters ( Please don't tell me if I didn't get all my apostrophe's in the right place!) has been laid and the little group comprised of the Musgrove sisters, Mary and Charles, Anne and Wentworth are enjoying the pleasures to be found at Lyme.

I love "Persuasion" mainly because I love Anne. I find it fascinating to see Austen create this quiet, unobtrusive lady and then proceed to write a quiet, unobtrusive, and brilliant book about her.

Virginia Woolf commented on Austen in this:

"Anybody who has the temerity to write about Jane Austen is aware of (two) facts: first, that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness; sceond, that there are twenty-five elderly gentlemen living in the neighborhood of London who resent any slight upon her genius as if it were an insult to the chastity of their aunts."

My question is, why do you think, or do you think, that Austen is hard to catch in the act of greatness?

I suppose it has something to do with the fact that she writes mainly about women and usually about their efforts to secure a mate, and perhaps find love in the process, usually the purview of the dreaded romance. Does it just seem too prosaic, too ordinary? I think it is a quest that we are all engaged in, the ability and the desire to make something meaningful of our small and generally unimportant lives, and Austen was simply unafraid to admit to the world that this was what she was most interested in, too; and her genius, therefore, lives in her unadorned interest and insight into these people, who as we look at them with a critical eye, do not make that passage into greatness without revealing themselves to be only what they have always been, rumpled, prosaic, ordinary. It is only in her hands that they become more.

[kiki1982]

I don't know why I love Persuasion, I don't know why I read it in three days solid... Maybe because I am the same age as Anne, and feel the same? I thought you could see a certain calmness in there tat was not present in her eartlier works.

After my first book of her (P&P) after watching a crazy look on it in Lost in Austen I decided to read it, and I found it great!

Ever so funny.

It is maybe that mirthful quietness which the story advances with. And then suddenly that explosion at the end where everyting seems to find a new place in reality... It is kind of the French style, but in a much more closed environment.

Because of some peculiarity Austen manages to keep your interest, although the things she writes about are dull (can you imagine living in that closed world?). But at the same time, despite that closed world in which she lived, Austen managed to capture that human nature and that is what makes her books so timeless.

What struck me at first was that her language was very French in structure... Anyone felt the same?

[qimissung]

Kiki, You say that this book seems French in style and structure. Can you elaborate on that? My reading, sadly, has mostly been limited to English and American authors.

As to your other comments, I agree. In fact I think that's what I find so fascinating about her work She is an acute and faultless observer of human nature, and yet in this circumscribed environment she sees so much.

At the end of Chapter 11 she writes: "When the evening was over, Anne could not but be amused at the idea of her coming Lyme to preach patience and resignation to a young man whom she had never seen before; nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her ow conduct would ill bear examination."

I love her for her ability to look at her own behavior with such clear-sighted honesty.

[kiki1982]

Well, I am in the meantime past that and I don't really notice it anymore explicitely, but it still strikes me that there are these paragraphs with a few subclauses much like the French 19th century writers. It is not that other writers like Scott did not do that, but when you start with Austen, it really strikes you. All through the 19th century they didthat, bt still Hardy did it differently. I'll have a look tomorrow.

Chapter IX:

'Captain Wentworth was come to Kellynch.' We would now say 'Captain Wentworth had come' or 'Captain Wentworth came'. This phenomenon is also there in French where verbs with meaning like 'go' (so go out, in, from, towards, up, down, away and the verb to die) get not the auxiliary verb to have, but to be. Of course this is not only Austen, though, it is also other authors. As far as Brontë, they still used to say 'I am come' and possibly they still do now in certain dialects.

The negative imperatives are also more Latinised than now: 'Tell me not...'; 'Dare not...'. In modern English we would say 'Do not tell me...'; 'Don't dare...'.

It also struck me that Austen started her sentences a lot more than later writers with things other than the subject. It sounds a little unnatural now, if we were to try. Only in very rare cases we would do that kind of thing.

These are only observations from a natiive Dutch speaker, though. And I am fully conscious of the fact that older English, as was spoken in Austen's days and also written by Scott for example, was indeed like that. So I am talking about a period, nt about Austen herself.

[qimissung]

Thanks Kiki.

[mollie]

I would disagree - I think the whole plot bends around Wentworth being rich when he returned, and Anne being no longer in her prime. What if he had not had success in war, and not captured ships and become a millionaire? What then of their relationship? Would Lady Russell again be right in saying they shouldn't marry.

I think the point is that they don't, and as a result, lose so much time and opportunity - 10 years, Anne is no longer the same person - 10 years essentially wasted on this persuasion based on the values of the Aristocracy.

If we compare that to, for instance, Pride and Prejudice, we can come up with some interesting things. First of all, it is portrayed as normal for Darcy to accept a poor Elizabeth, whereas not for Anne to accept a up and coming Wentworth. Secondly, novels like Emma generally try to show the lack of sense in following such advice.

Anne is potrayed as somewhat pragmatic, and logical - fit for making the right decisions - yet she follows Lady Russell, and what does it lead to - OK, she ends up married, but had that not happen, what would have? Well, for starters, she would either have had to marry her cousin, which wouldn't have been likely, or die alone. Anne's lack of prospects are essential to the beginning of the story. Her family doesn't really like her, she is not beautiful, and her fortune is ebbing. The plot bends around Wentworth not heeding any Persuasion against his second proposal, rather than Anne actually, like Elizabeth, maturing alongside her male counterpart.

That's the real problem I see with the text, which makes the text work I guess - in our terms, I think, culturally, we like to think of Anne's first decision as somewhat ridiculous, and clearly a mistake - what is Austen getting at though, does she see it as a good call? I'm of the mind that she also sees it as a mistake, but it's hard to tell.

Apologies for the delay in replying, I mislaid my copy of Persuasion when I was starting my re-read, and so I am working from memory of a re-read a few months ago.

Respectfully, I disagree with your theory that the plot bends around Wentworth's riches and Anne's declining fortunes. To me, the plot bends around the increased maturity of the two lead characters, and the proof of the strength of their love for one another, as neither one cared to marry anyone else.

Lady Russell is not some monster of malevolent snobbery, as your reading seems to portray her. Her objections to Wentworth are not just based on his not being a member of the aristocracy, but are fourfold -

1. His attitude - she believes that he is too flippant and does not take his responsibilities seriously, and has a "don't worry be happy" attitude that makes Lady Russell think that he will prove a bad and irresponsible husband.

2. She also believes that at nineteen, Anne is too young to marry, that she has not met enough people or seen enough of the world to make an informed choice in marrying Wentworth.

3. Her objection on the grounds of his lack of money and connections is not entirely based on snobbery either. This is a time when military commissions were bought and sold, not earned, and Wentworth, going into a profession where influence and nepotism were the only way to promotion, has no money, no connections. He is also entering into a profession that is dangerous, and if he is wounded, his pension will be meagre (Captain Benwick's barely allows him to keep himself) and if Anne is widowed, she will be destitute. I looked up naval widow's pensions - a means tested pension of twenty pounds was afforded the wives of lower ranks of officers, which is the equivalent of about a thousand pounds, or $1250 per annum by today's standards.

4. Even if he remains alive and unwounded, Lady Russell sees Anne spending long periods of time alone, while Wentworth is at sea, with very little money and a life of poverty and hard work and anxiety and uncertainty is not the life she wants for Anne, whom she considers too good for anyone.

Her reasoning is not all "based on the values of the Aristocracy". Mrs Croft, whose good sense is praised throughout, we find agrees with Lady Russell that long engagements waiting for the man to be able to earn a livable sum are a bad thing, and it seems likely would have given similar advice.

Anne may be logical and well able to make decisions, but she is only nineteen. Girls at that time were not encouraged to be strong minded and make their own decisions. Parental consent could be and was witheld from unsuitable marriages and girls were disowned for marriages that were against the wishes of their families.

Anne's circumstances are not as dire as you paint them. She will have a home with her father until his death, and after that with her sister and brother in law. Her situation is unhappy, because she is not happy in either place, and is in love with Wentworth but separated from him, but it is not desperate like that of the Bennet sisters, who will be homeless and penniless if at least some of them do not marry well. To call her hypocritical is highly unfair - Austen notes that she can only be persuaded to break with Wentworth because she believes she is acting in his best interests, and it is quite possible that his career might have been stymied by having a wife at home.

It is portrayed as acceptable for a poor Elizabeth to marry Darcy because Darcy has means in his own right, and can support a wife. Anne is not - the estate is entailed to William, and Anne will not be able to support a husband when William inherits. There is no reason at the time of the engagement to believe that Wentworth is up and coming - he looks at the time like he's stuck in the equivalent of a dead end job, and a dangerous and uncertain one at that. Aside from which, the idea of the up and coming man, the concept of social mobility and earning your way in the world on merit was so new as to be revolutionary at the time Persuasion was written.

Wentworth's situation is not reflected by that of any character in Pride and Prejudice, imo. It closer to that of the husband of Frances Ward in Mansfield Park, a novel also written in Austen's maturity. The only exception was that Wentworth has more education than Price. The marriage of the Prices is exactly the chaotic mess of sordid poverty which Lady Russell envisions for Anne, which even the saintly Fanny, who never thinks anything that is not exemplary, finds disgusting.

Novels like Emma try to show the inadvisability of following advice from Emma, who thinks she is fitted to dispense advice, when in fact she knows nothing whatever. Mr Knightley, the hero of Emma and fount of common sense, is appalled by Emma's attempts to lift Harriet up in the social scale, and thinks she should stay where she belongs, and Emma herself sneers at Mrs Elton for her vulgar social climbing ways.

I don't see Anne's decision as ridiculous at all, and I am not sure that I think it entirely a mistake, and it is certainly not one that could have been seen as unreasonable at the time. I think that we would mistake Austen's intentions by viewing this from the perspective of our modern mores. I think Austen sees it that it just turned out badly, but nobody acted badly or unreasonably - Lady Russell genuinely thought this marriage would be a disaster, and acted to protect Anne, Anne tried to act for the best by both Lady Russell and Wentworth, Wentworth, assuming Anne didn't care for him was understandably hurt and went off in a strop for years on end.

As to your question - if Wentworth had come back without having made his fortune? Who knows? But the action of the novel being a different time and place to the background of it, I think Lady Russell would no longer interfere since many of her objections are removed. Wentworth is not the flighty charmer she thought him, they are still in love with one another, Anne is no longer too young to make an informed choice, and Lady Russell would, I think, take a step back and recognise that Anne is old enough and wise enough to make her own decisions. However, I think it is a moot point. That is not what happened, and speculating as to "what ifs" can lead only to purest supposition.

I think what Austen is getting at is the great beauty of this novel. When I read it at sixteen, and twenty, and twenty three and twenty five, I did not appreciate it as I do now, at thirty five.

Austen mocks the sensational novel in Northanger Abbey, where heroines are faultless and villains are unmitigated rotters and heroes practically shine with virtue. In Persuasion, she creates the antithesis of that. She writes about the mundane, the everyday sadness, where Lady Russell, Anne and Wentworth act with the best of intentions, but great unhappiness ensues, the hero is not the shining knight of perfect virtue, but an ordinary man, whose reaction to the wound to his vanity is to leave the country in a fit of petulance, and not come back. The "villains" are not mustachioed kidnappers and ravishers of maidens, but simply petty and selfish. Anne has grown up a bit while Wentworth is gone, Wentworth grows up a bit, and following this, Lady Russell's motivations are recognised as being kindly intentioned, by both Anne and Wentworth. I think it is not our place to second guess them.

[Virgil]

Oh I have been so delinquent. I promise to start the novel tonight.

[Virgil]

Well I've now read the first three chapters of Persuasion and I'm glad to find the second and third chapters are far more engaging than the first. The first was so purely expository without much immediacy of action that I found it rather boring as a start. Certainly no good contemporary writer starts a novel in that fashion any more.

I don't have much to say about the first three chapters, except to highlight some good writing. Here for instance is a wonderful descriptive passage of Lady Russell:

Lady Russell was most anxiously zealous on the subject, and gave it
much serious consideration. She was a woman rather of sound than of
quick abilities, whose difficulties in coming to any decision
in this instance were great, from the opposition of two leading principles.
She was of strict integrity herself, with a delicate sense of honour;
but she was as desirous of saving Sir Walter's feelings, as solicitous
for the credit of the family, as aristocratic in her ideas of what
was due to them, as anybody of sense and honesty could well be.
She was a benevolent, charitable, good woman, and capable of
strong attachments, most correct in her conduct, strict in her notions
of decorum, and with manners that were held a standard of good-breeding.
She had a cultivated mind, and was, generally speaking,
rational and consistent; but she had prejudices on the side of ancestry;
she had a value for rank and consequence, which blinded her a little
to the faults of those who possessed them. Herself the widow of
only a knight, she gave the dignity of a baronet all its due;
and Sir Walter, independent of his claims as an old acquaintance,
an attentive neighbour, an obliging landlord, the husband of her
very dear friend, the father of Anne and her sisters, was,
as being Sir Walter, in her apprehension, entitled to a great deal
of compassion and consideration under his present difficulties.

What wonderful passage, sounds like almost a female version of me. Except of course she's more dignified.

And look at this wonderful sentence that caught my eye:

Mr Shepherd hastened to assure him, that Admiral Croft was a very hale,
hearty, well-looking man, a little weather-beaten, to be sure,
but not much, and quite the gentleman in all his notions and behaviour;
not likely to make the smallest difficulty about terms, only wanted
a comfortable home, and to get into it as soon as possible;
knew he must pay for his convenience; knew what rent a ready-furnished
house of that consequence might fetch; should not have been surprised
if Sir Walter had asked more; had inquired about the manor;
would be glad of the deputation, certainly, but made no great point of it;
said he sometimes took out a gun, but never killed; quite the gentleman.

That is a model sentence and worthy of breaking down into the relationship between the phrases and clauses. Notice how she interweaves parallelisms and dependant phrases. And notice also the rhythm of it, the wonderful beats that one feels with each phrase, as one takes a breath for each clause. That's a major league sentence by a major league writer.

[Mathor]

Does anyone notice that Austen kind of describes Anne as kind of ugly near the beginning, then as kind of beautiful near the end. Does Anne have some sort of physical make-over as she gains more confidence or what?

[Niamh]

I think is more of a not looking after herself, dull kind of unpretty, because she isnt happy, theres no glow in her cheeks. Later in the book, there is a glow, shes happier...
Think the best way to discribe it is, think of a woman who gets sick, not always a pretty sight, but when she gets better, there is a difference in her appearance. Something similar with Anne. (but obviously not sick...)

[kiki1982]

It could be that Austen started with describing Anne as ugly, because for those days she is past her prime, but of course that is quite stupid (although it is the way society worked back then) because it rules out someone's personality.

So when Wentworth is still in love with her, he is not in love with that old ugly girl, is he? Firsly he courts this young girl and now prefers tat old one. Oh my God, is he out of his nut?

[qimissung]

Which brings us to the idea that he has to "persuade" himself to acknowledge his feelings for her have not changed!