story of two teenage girls with romantic troubles, caused by unreliable men they have dark secrets, but who doesn't in's England, calm Elinor Dashwoodand her younger sibling , by a couple of years the emotional Marianne,.
When their father is no longer living, all the family including the mother, Mrs, Dashwood and third sister Margaretmust vacate their mansion in Sussex, Norland Park a large estate which many generations of the quiet respectable Dashwoods have resided.
Only men can inherit this property says the law then, a rich uncle, they received it originally from, insisted in his will this provision and relatives can be greedy.
John
Dashwood their half brother has little family feelings and his coldheart wife Fanny none, take over, Breaking his promise to his dying father to help his sisters and stepmother financially, selfish Fanny persuades him with not too much effort, that these women can survive very well without any assistance, she tells her wealthy husband.
. . And money is money and promises just words otherwise, the couple's child, " poor little Harry", would starve !, Sir John Middleton a kindly cousin of the mother's offers the Dashwood's a small cottage low rent to live, close to his big house.
Desperately wanting to leave the hostile environment of their former home they relocate there in far away Devonshire, by Allenham village, Being very pretty women the sisters soon attract admirers, the shy Mr, Edward Ferrars the eldest brother of Fanny who likes Elinor, unlike his sister, Miss Dashwood thinks, but she can never be sure he doesn't speak much.
On a rainy day the two girls imprudently are walking outside, over the country hills they enjoy exploring the beautiful area, but the weather becomes too much, running for shelter Marianne takes a tumble hurts her leg and unable to go any further and still some distance from Barton Cottage.
What to do Elinor can't get her home, Mr, John Willoughby hunting with his dog in the rain, comes along and carries Marianne back to the cottage, The amazed mother Margaret and the whole family are speechless, Handsome, charming well spoken Mr, Willoughby visits the injured girl every day to see that everything's all right, . . But he doesn't fool anybody, . . the youngest sister falls madly in love and he appears also to experience the same emotion, He's a good fun loving friend of Sir John's, well known and liked in the neighborhood with a rich old relative he wisely sees often nearby, Mrs.
Smith. The perfect man has a rival Colonel Brandon more than ten years older at, with a huge house, a lonely honorable gentleman but Marianne has eyes only for Mr.
Willoughby a secret libertine. And Mr. Ferrars has a fiancee, he never mentions, . . Even the Colonel, might have skeletons in his closet, . . A great book by the incomparable Jane Austen, her likes will never arise again years go by relentlessly, customs and technology changes the Earth either for better or worse, but there will always be her words.
“The more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.
”
If this quote doesnt sum up the entirety of my twentysomething years on this earth This is the third Jane Austen book I've read and it's by far my favorite.
I love the story, love the heroines, love the MEN I just love everything about this, There was so much happening that it never felt slow or boring and the SUSPENSE and REVELATIONS at the end of the book were so fantastically done.
AGH JUST SO GOOD.
TIME TO GO WATCH THE MOVIE,
Reread midJan to early Febfor Austentatious
STILL MY FAVORITE Hmmm, how to critique one of the most revered writers of romance literature Now, before all of your Janeites get on my case for being unromantic or whatever, let me say only that unfortuantely, I read "Persuasion," Austen's last novel, and found it to be one of the best books I've ever read.
Now having read "Sense and Sensibility," I will say that it truly doese feel like a first novel, as if the author was still trying to find her voice.
So I've done the bookends of Austen, much like a concert of Beethoven'sst andth symphonies, . . thus, comparisons between nascency and maturity are inevitable,
I will say that Austen's observations of the human mind, her cutting social critiques, and commentaries on the games and masquerades which were all but a necessity of British society in theth/th centuries are fascinating and beautifully rendered.
Her prose is art, but the story, in my opinion, is lacking, Two semirich young women do the social dance with men who are alternately gentlemanly or cads, reversals and revelations ensue, followed at the end by weddings which are not exactly meant to leave us with the warmest of feelings as many weddings do.
Many of the characters are unlikable some are downright despicable and I felt all along that much like Shakespeare, Austen's stories are meant to be performed rather than read, so that the subtleties of the social ingraces and the sublimations of true feelings can be more truly experienced by an audience.
The plot itself is anything but complicated and I'm sorry to say that without Austen's ingenious prose, this novel would barely merit a footnote in history.
My recommendation for those of you who are not hardcore Austen fans, read "Persuasion" instead,
Here is this book in a nutshell:
Marianne and Elinor: 'O, why are we not married yet'
Hot Guy: 'Let's get married.
'
Elinor: 'Yes, let's. '
Hot Guy: 'Nah, forget it, '
Elinor: pines
Old Guy: 'Let's get married, '
Marianne: 'No, let's not, '
Hot Guy: 'Let's get married, '
Marianne: 'Yes, let's. '
Hot Guy: 'Nah, forget it, '
Marianne: pines
Hot Guy: 'Hey, let's get married, '
Elinor: 'Hark! Now I may stop pining!'
Marianne: 'This sucks, I am way hotter than her, '
Old Guy: 'Let's get married, '
Marianne: 'Yeah, I guess, ' I DID IT. WOOOOOOOOOO! ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!
Not going to lie, the middle was rough, . quite tedious and slow, BUT, the character development in this book was just fabulous Austen truly understands the human condition,
Next PRIDE AND PREJUDICE! One line baby feeding review:
On this reread, it struck me how much more imperfect and/or cringe Elinor and Marianne are allowed to be on the page than they ever are in movie adaptations: Elinor is more bitter, less forebearing, Mariannes teenage things she says much more embarrassing, etc.
Audiobook: Rosamund Pike
New review to come eventually, Can't quite put it all into words yet,
ORIGINAL:Ah, the third member of the Holy Trinity of Austen, Also deservedly so. This is my intellectual favorite of the Austens, By that, I'm not calling it "intellectual" I'm just saying that taking emotional attachment to other books out of it, this is my objective favorite Austen.
I actually believe that the story of the women is better than Pride and Prejudice, Go on, shoot me for that one, I've taken it before for that, The romance might be better, more tight, more like one would idealistically want in Pride and Prejudice, but the ones here are more realistic and would have a better chance of lasting in real life.
Colonel Brandon and Marianne are one of my favorite flawed couples of any piece of literature, This book finds faith in romances that are less than perfect, heroes who don't act like heroes Colonel Brandon wins over the romantic figure of Willoughby in the end, and heroines who are at times geniunely ridiculous in the things they choose to do.
Not because Austen writes them ridiculously, All women do things like that, and these girls find their way to love anyway, And not with the people conventional plotlines or even gothic strangeness would normally put them with either, By all rights, Eleanor and Colonel Brandon should make a quietly sensible couple, if one thinks about it, But that's not how this ends, There's enough romance left in it for some poetry to how the story ends, None of the men are one or even two dimensional, either, They don't merely serve as the means to the narcissitic heroine's end, No cardboard Prince Charmings with one ridiculous flaw here, They're very believable. I've always thought one of the strengths of Austen is that she writes novels that are undoubtably marketed to women, but men can still see themselves in her heroes if they read them.
The movie is my favorite Jane Austen movie, as a side note, And one of my favorites in general, I've been watching it since I was about, It's beautiful. So is the soundtrack. Emma Thompson's performance alone is worth the viewing, Ang Lee. . before he switched over to gay cowboys, Yes, he did period pieces, Who would have known, right reread,.: added another star this time round
My penultimate Jane Austen novel, nooooooo!
For me, it took too long to get going, Not until they arrived in London that I started to get curious about how the story will unfold and what will happen to the Dashwood sisters.
Elinor, I liked well enough but I found Marianne to be too selfrighteous and annoying, She did turn a new leaf in the end but I think it came too late for me to start liking her at that point.
Owning to the fact that because of HER, I had to deal with a selfish man named Willoughby.
And even after I thought I was in the clear, had to suffer through his long arse, asinine speech of how he pitied himself
ARE YOU KIDDING ME
Insufferable man! Get lost already!
sitelink
I'm afraid I was not partial to any of the men in this.
Can you tell Ha!
The only one with Y chromosome who was a bit interesting was Colonel Brandon but he had such a small role in the book.
I wish we could see more of him! Even Mr, Palmer was entertaining to read about, As for the rest, I hated Willoughby yes, needed to be point out again and Edward was, . . well, he was kind of boring,
All these main characters in this book made me appreciate, probably for the first time, the 'mouthy' characters in Austen novels.
I know, I know, I'm shocked myself, I never endeared myself to any of them before, Although I was real close to do that for Miss Bates in Emma but ended up didn't she was okay but that was all.
Here, I loved it whenever Mrs, Jennings and Charlotte/Mrs. Palmer were in the scene, Delightful in contrast of several insipid, stoic characters,
August:
This is my first Jane Austen,
Okay, I LOVED this book, I don't even know why, It's about girls who like boys! Who are jerks! Um, the end! But it was funny, But clever funny, which is my favorite kind, And I enjoyed deciphering the lateth century prose, It made me feel smart, just to figure out what she was saying half the time!
Also I love all the wacky British society stuff.
Like sending notes! And walking places! And having breakfast at other peoples' houses! And I enjoyed figuring out the etiquette of the day.
Like, it's improper to exchange letters with a member of the opposite sex with whom you are not engaged Crazy! But it's cool to be engaged and not TELL anyone Insane! I love it.
I didn't get a chance to return this to the library right away, so I'm currently audiobook free, and instead of listening to music like a normal person, I STARTED IT OVER AGAIN.
Seriously, who would think I would like Jane Austen so much
The narrator was Donada Peters, I've never heard of her before, but she did a great job, I don't think I'd've enjoyed it nearly as much had I actually had to READ the thing,
I am now going to listen to every Austen audiobook I can get my hands on, and also a biography, I'm reading Frank Herbert and Jane Austen at once! I love it,
September/October:
I listened to this book again for the fourth or fifth time because of my new strategy of listening to Jane Austen audiobooks in order to fall asleep.
I have since read every Jane Austen novel, most of them several times over, and think of her as an old friend, I always forget how much of it takes place in London! This is probably my thirdfavorite Austen, after Persuasion and Emma.
This one is nice because most of the characters are decent people, even if they might be, like, rude or overbearing or boring or something.
I mean obviously not the bad guys, the Dashwood son and his wife and her mother, But everybody else is okay, As opposed to, say, Mansfield Park, which I also reread recently, in which everybody suuuuuuuuucks, even the people we are ostensibly supposed to be rooting for or are we Elinor is the best, obviously.
I have no idea how this Elinor is spelled, as I only have listened to his, but I think I have it right, because it's weird and oldfashioned.
Oh and Willoughby sucks too, forgot about him, And I kept falling asleep at the conversation that he has with E at the end where he apparently partially vindicates himself and his actions so I can't remember why E partially forgives him.
She is possibly my favorite Austen protagonist I'm not sure, I'll have to read Persuasion again, Anyway if you want to talk about Jane Austen, get at me, .