Austen Ruminations
Sep. 6th, 2006 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI gave Dave my three favourite Austen novels to read (Northanger, P&P and S&S), and determined that it was high time I read the other three myself.
I started with Emma - very far from being my favourite, it was yet made all the more enjoyable for being less familiar. I still have a problem with the union of hero and heroine at the end - their previous relationship and her being unworthy of him combining to make me disapprove the match - but it's still a good book.
I finished Persausion today. I always used to relate very much to Anne, but I've become rather too outspoken and impatient with the world to claim a likeness to her now. Real life intruded most annoyingly this morning - Captain Wentworth was just about to come to the purpose, after more than 200 pages of thinking his love unrequited, when the arrival of my train at London Bridge interrupted him, and I was forced to wait until my lunch hour for the conclusion. Persuasion is probably the novel in which the least actually happens, but it's one of only two where I like both hero and heroine, so it's always satisfying in the end.
Mansfield Park will accompany me to Canada - the longest and most dreary (if Austen can ever be called dreary) of the six. I read it seldom, but am always pleasantly suprised by the amount of enjoyment I derive from it - which is presumably helped by the amount of time that elapses between repeat readings. It's the only one of the six in which I like neither hero nor heroine, but there is still much pleasure to be found in Austen's skilful storytelling and character portrayals.
I started with Emma - very far from being my favourite, it was yet made all the more enjoyable for being less familiar. I still have a problem with the union of hero and heroine at the end - their previous relationship and her being unworthy of him combining to make me disapprove the match - but it's still a good book.
I finished Persausion today. I always used to relate very much to Anne, but I've become rather too outspoken and impatient with the world to claim a likeness to her now. Real life intruded most annoyingly this morning - Captain Wentworth was just about to come to the purpose, after more than 200 pages of thinking his love unrequited, when the arrival of my train at London Bridge interrupted him, and I was forced to wait until my lunch hour for the conclusion. Persuasion is probably the novel in which the least actually happens, but it's one of only two where I like both hero and heroine, so it's always satisfying in the end.
Mansfield Park will accompany me to Canada - the longest and most dreary (if Austen can ever be called dreary) of the six. I read it seldom, but am always pleasantly suprised by the amount of enjoyment I derive from it - which is presumably helped by the amount of time that elapses between repeat readings. It's the only one of the six in which I like neither hero nor heroine, but there is still much pleasure to be found in Austen's skilful storytelling and character portrayals.
