Persuasion by Jane Austen
Persuasion
by Jane Austen
Narrated by: Greta Scacchi
Twenty-seven-year old Anne Elliot is Austen's most adult heroine. Eight years before the story proper begins, she is happily betrothed to a naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but she precipitously breaks off the engagement when persuaded by her friend Lady Russell that such a match is unworthy. The breakup produces in Anne a deep and long-lasting regret. When later Wentworth returns from sea a rich and successful captain, he finds Anne's family on the brink of financial ruin and his own sister a tenant in Kellynch Hall, the Elliot estate. All the tension of the novel revolves around one question: Will Anne and Wentworth be reunited in their love?
Jane Austen once compared her writing to painting on a little bit of ivory, 2 inches square. Readers of Persuasion will discover that neither her skill for delicate, ironic observations on social custom, love, and marriage nor her ability to apply a sharp focus lens to English manners and morals has deserted her in her final finished work.
I really enjoyed it. I don't think it's my favorite though. Pride and Prejudice is still my number 1. Emma is second. And not just because of the movie with Keira Knightly and Clueless. I feel like in those stories the couples that end up together had more interactions. Elizabeth and Darcy are so involved in many scenarios and Mr. Knightly is always going to Emma's house.
We get to know Anne and Frederick as individuals but we don't know anything of what they were like as a couple when they were young. I wish we got some - well maybe not flashbacks because I don't think that was a style method when Austen was writing - but descriptions of their time together in their youth. Maybe through Anne reminiscing. They also don't interact so much in the present.
I mean, I know we're meant to ship Anne and Frederick but at one point I was shipping her with Captain James Benwick because they both enjoy reading.
But I did love Frederick's letter at the end. Swoon worthy romance. So it all works out.
There were many other things I liked. It had some funny moments. Some of the characters are so ridiculous. Mary and Charles bickering like old married couple in Chapter 22 did have be chuckling. And Louisa, that knucklehead, injured herself in a comical way. My note on the bookmark read, "Louisa jumps like an idiot."
I did get invested in the characters. I love Anne. She could have easily been a bitter old maid but she was a good, level headed person. Her family on the other hand, oy! Sir Walter Elliot, is such a snob, and Elizabeth is so mean and unsisterly. Mary is so self involved and conceded.
There are the Austen archetypes. William Elliot is a gold digger like Mr. Wickham and Mr. Elton were in P&P/Emma; and Louisa is not so bright, like Lydia Bennett.
Greta Scacchi did great voice work for the range of characters. There were some odd pauses, that were there not because it was a new scene. Sometimes it was the same scene but the pause was a couple of seconds. I listened on 1x because it's not modern English.
A great novel if not my favorite Austen one.
4 out of 5 poems
Favorite Quotes:
“My idea of good company...is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.'
'You are mistaken,' said he gently, 'that is not good company, that is the best.”
----
“I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men."
"Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.”
----
“Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn--that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness--that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling.”
by Jane Austen
Narrated by: Greta Scacchi
Twenty-seven-year old Anne Elliot is Austen's most adult heroine. Eight years before the story proper begins, she is happily betrothed to a naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but she precipitously breaks off the engagement when persuaded by her friend Lady Russell that such a match is unworthy. The breakup produces in Anne a deep and long-lasting regret. When later Wentworth returns from sea a rich and successful captain, he finds Anne's family on the brink of financial ruin and his own sister a tenant in Kellynch Hall, the Elliot estate. All the tension of the novel revolves around one question: Will Anne and Wentworth be reunited in their love?
Jane Austen once compared her writing to painting on a little bit of ivory, 2 inches square. Readers of Persuasion will discover that neither her skill for delicate, ironic observations on social custom, love, and marriage nor her ability to apply a sharp focus lens to English manners and morals has deserted her in her final finished work.
I really enjoyed it. I don't think it's my favorite though. Pride and Prejudice is still my number 1. Emma is second. And not just because of the movie with Keira Knightly and Clueless. I feel like in those stories the couples that end up together had more interactions. Elizabeth and Darcy are so involved in many scenarios and Mr. Knightly is always going to Emma's house.
We get to know Anne and Frederick as individuals but we don't know anything of what they were like as a couple when they were young. I wish we got some - well maybe not flashbacks because I don't think that was a style method when Austen was writing - but descriptions of their time together in their youth. Maybe through Anne reminiscing. They also don't interact so much in the present.
I mean, I know we're meant to ship Anne and Frederick but at one point I was shipping her with Captain James Benwick because they both enjoy reading.
But I did love Frederick's letter at the end. Swoon worthy romance. So it all works out.
There were many other things I liked. It had some funny moments. Some of the characters are so ridiculous. Mary and Charles bickering like old married couple in Chapter 22 did have be chuckling. And Louisa, that knucklehead, injured herself in a comical way. My note on the bookmark read, "Louisa jumps like an idiot."
I did get invested in the characters. I love Anne. She could have easily been a bitter old maid but she was a good, level headed person. Her family on the other hand, oy! Sir Walter Elliot, is such a snob, and Elizabeth is so mean and unsisterly. Mary is so self involved and conceded.
There are the Austen archetypes. William Elliot is a gold digger like Mr. Wickham and Mr. Elton were in P&P/Emma; and Louisa is not so bright, like Lydia Bennett.
Greta Scacchi did great voice work for the range of characters. There were some odd pauses, that were there not because it was a new scene. Sometimes it was the same scene but the pause was a couple of seconds. I listened on 1x because it's not modern English.
A great novel if not my favorite Austen one.
4 out of 5 poems
Favorite Quotes:
“My idea of good company...is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.'
'You are mistaken,' said he gently, 'that is not good company, that is the best.”
----
“I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men."
"Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.”
----
“Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn--that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness--that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling.”