(Apologies for skipping a week – my website is under construction. I’ll be back on track soon)
The book-a-week challenge resumes with Persuasion, by Jane Austen.
It’s hard to go a decade or so without running into another television or film adaptation of a Jane Austen novel. I never gave the writer or her works much thought aside from catching comments, usually on social media, and deciding those who are devoted to Austen are very devoted. It sparked a curiosity. After watching several adaptations of various novels, it was inevitable I would go to the source. So, I became a Jane Austen reader. In no time I became a Jane Austen fan.Straight off I’ll admit that what I thought she wrote about, quiet domestic middle class British life two hundred years ago, did not immediately interest me. I’m not a fan of the trials and travails of sensible or unhappy marriages and drawing room intrigue. What I found, though, was a writer with keen observations of the human condition, skillful ability to deconstruct ironclad rules of society she was forced to endure, and apply humor and wit to prove a point where kindness or sarcasm may have been an easier route for her narrative.
Fans of Austen know the stories, the heroines, and the heroes, as well as they know their own lives. Generations of fans and scholars have studied, discussed, and defended their favorite works. For me, two novels rise to the top. Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion. Austen’s “this versus that” themes found in Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility helped me learn the rules of Regency society, and Britain’s notion of conduct forced upon women in that era, and appreciate the limited mobility a young woman with little means or status must face. I believe Austen’s greatest gift is describing the triumph of her characters confronting these barriers without unnecessary cheer or pathos.
But it is in Persuasion that I find Austen at her best. Published in 1817 in a volume with Northanger Abbey shortly after her death, Persuasion is a triumph, exhibiting all of Austen’s skills, not only as a writer but as as storyteller, observer, and chronicler. I believe that in Persuasion she drew from all she knew, in her life and her craft, to describe the circumstances of Ann Elliot, a lonely but nevertheless persevering woman who had ‘lost her bloom’ and dealt with the benign neglect of those closest to her, save her godmother, her sole confidant. The neglect is almost comical. Is there anyone more vain and useless than her father, more inconsiderate than her sisters, more conniving than her cousin? The foibles of Austen’s characters within the scope of her story are irresistible. I almost delighted in learning what new way her family ignored and disrespected her. I wondered when she would put a stop to it.
Persuasion is true to its name. At first reading it seemed only a subtle hint until I realized the novel is replete with nearly all the characters major and minor at some point attempting to persuade or be persuaded of something small or grand, or consequential in the extreme. At age 19, Ann Elliot was persuaded by her godmother to turn down a proposal of marriage from an untested and unconnected young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth. Despite the disappointment it is a memory she cherishes, feelings unforgotten, but the passage of time forces a realization that her chance at marital happiness has slipped away.
Persuasion. Her conceited, spendthrift baronet of a father, facing financial ruin, is persuaded to give up his ancestral home by a move to Bath, an opportunity to maintain his absurd sense of dignity and status while slowly paying off his debts. A sinister relative persuades almost everyone that he is sincere in wanting to rejoin the family he once claimed to detest, to become heir to the title and estate. A sickly widow is persuaded that her schoolfriend, Ann Elliot, might help her regain what is rightfully hers. In the midst of it all, Ann is confronted with Wentworth’s return to her life nearly eight years after his proposal. Can Wentworth persuade himself to care for Ann? Or not care? What persuasions will he confront?
As with Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, Ann Elliott knows her heart, knows her feelings, but she has only her own counsel to rely on as circumstances change wildly about her. A series of events both dreadful and ironic offer ample opportunity for persuasions anew for Ann, who remains ever steadfast; and for Wentworth, who must navigate domestic society and its rules and regulations, a challenge far different than his experiences in the navy.
Austen has a gift of creating a tidy, satisfying ending to her novels. In Persuasion, some characters may find themselves the victim of their own folly, others with new challenges to ponder, but for Ann Elliott and Frederick Wentworth I am happy to know Austen found an ending no reader need persuasion to believe.
Persuasion, by Jane Austen.
5 stars out of 5.
Available everywhere.
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Check in every week for Book Review Wednesday. I’m reading and reviewing a book a week throughout 2018. Join me. Authors, if you have a book you would like reviewed, send me an email at joe@josephmarkbrewer.com.
Joseph Mark Brewer writes the Shig Sato mysteries. Mix up some Lieutenant Columbo and Kurt Wallander and you have an interesting character in Sato and a thrilling new series set in the heart of Tokyo. And click here for your copy of The Gangster’s Son, The Thief’s Mistake, Traitors & Lies, or Cat’s Meow at a special discount you’ll find only at this site. To get the latest Shig Sato news and previews, check out Shig’s Readers Club — you’ll get a free copy of Tokyo Summer, the exciting Shig Sato prequel that tells the story of the events that led up to The Gangster’s Son. No obligation. Shig insists.
There are wonderful things that happen when you fall in love with a novel. You read words as if they were meant only for you. If you must stop reading, you cannot wait for the moment you can return. Once finished, a hole opens inside you only the book can fill. You cannot wait to begin reading the novel again, and you treasure the notion that you now belong to a secret society that also treasures the novel, and you are certain of your admission to the society. Its members will see that you care for the novel as much as they do.
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