Persuasion (Signet Classics)
by Jane Austen
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jane AustenIntroduction: Margaret Drabble
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1996-08-01
ISBN: 0451526384
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Signet Classics
Book Reviews of Persuasion (Signet Classics)
Book Review: It's all about sex
Summary: 5 Stars
Persuasion was the last book Jane Austen wrote and in many ways it is the most complete example of the style that endears her as much to modern readers as it did to readers from the nineteenth century. Austen was always demure but she had claws and her books are much more about sex than most of her contemporaries' work. (The act itself, of course, is never mentioned).
Persuasion's plot is based around the possibility of the rekindling of a romance, which burned brightly when the two protagonists were younger, and which was thwarted because the forces of familiar persuasion made Anne Elliott reject her love for Captain Wentworth. All of Austen's plots are romantic staples revolving around the constant impediments placed between the heroine and her ideal man but, unlike the plots of many novels contemporaneous to Austen's, these impediments are not Gothic in nature - they are merely the frustrating minutiae of everyday life. To be sure, the denouements are invariably happy but when we think about what would happen, if these people were real, afterwards, we can foresee myriad problems and further barriers to happiness. (For example, in Pride and Prejudice: how is Lizzie going to cope with Darcy's family and, in Persuasion: how is Anne, happily ensconced with her paramour, going to cope with her own dysfunctional family? No matter, Jane has done her job and brought the two lovers together.)
One of the most entertaining aspects of Austen's technique are her ironic narrative asides. We, as readers, are given access to the feelings of the main protagonists before they reveal them to the world (in Pride and Prejudice we know that Darcy is besotted with Lizzie well before he declares his amour, and in Persuasion we know that Captain Wentworth still carries a torch for Anne Elliott while she is still assuming that all hope of a rekindled romance has been dashed because of her earlier propensity to be persuaded against her emotions).
One of the most curious aspects of Austen's wonderful assortment of characters is the strangely brutal way she portrays families. There is always at least one member of the principle family who is deeply flawed - both Lizzie's parents in Pride and Prejudice, Marianne and Elinor's weak brother and vile sister-in-law in Sense and Sensibility, and Emma's neurasthenic father (a mild critique compared to the sharpness of the other characterizations). Nowhere is this "critique of the family" more keenly delineated than in Persuasion. Anne Elliot's father is a complete fool obsessed with physical appearances above all else, and it is clear that Anne has little respect for him or her own sisters. Austen invested all her idealization of character in her main protagonists - in this case Anne and Captain Wentworth. While not always physically attractive, Austen's heroines are always morally complete (except for the ever-so-slightly capricious Emma) - and Anne Elliot, the heroine of Persuasion, is surely more a portrait of Jane Austen than any of her other heroines: she is no longer young, has lost the full bloom of youthful beauty, and has been disappointed in love because she heeded the wishes of others, and not of her heart and her mind.
We know, by reading any of Jane Austen's books, of her fierce intelligence, biting wit and brilliant observational powers of familiar human behavior. And she could be deliciously bitchy, as this example from Persuasion shows:
"(Anne and Cpt Wentworth) were actually on the same sofa, for Mrs Musgrove had most readily made room for him - they were divided only by Mrs Musgrove. It was no insignificant barrier indeed. Mrs Musgrove was of a comfortable substantial size, infinitely more fitted by nature to express good cheer and good humour than tenderness and sentiment; and while the agitations of Anne's slender form, and pensive face, may be considered as very completely screened, Captain Wentworth should be allowed some credit for the self-command with which he attended to her large fat sighings over the destiny of a son, whom alive nobody had cared for."
That might seem sardonic enough, but here's the clincher!
"Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions. A large bulky figure has as good a right to be in deep affliction as the most graceful set of limbs in the world. But, fair or not fair, there are unbecoming conjunctions, which... taste cannot tolerate - which ridicule will seize."
Anne Elliott is certainly less ironic than the voice of the narration (Austen herself), but she seems to be a manifestation of what Jane Austen thought of herself, or at least, how she would like to be: intelligent, kind, sensitive to other's feelings, and most importantly, someone who is valued for these qualities rather than for beauty and money. Persuasion is a good read: it's not as cheeky as Emma or as involved as Pride and Prejudice, but there are plenty of the great Austen ironic (and even sarcastic) flourishes. And the intelligence of her writing is a delight.
Summary of Persuasion (Signet Classics)
The final novel by the acclaimed writer places heroine Anne Elliot, a woman of integrity and deep emotion, against the brutality and hypocrisy of Regency England. Reissue.Anne Elliot, heroine of Austen's last novel, did something we can all relate to: Long ago, she let the love of her life get away. In this case, she had allowed herself to be persuaded by a trusted family friend that the young man she loved wasn't an adequate match, social stationwise, and that Anne could do better. The novel opens some seven years after Anne sent her beau packing, and she's still alone. But then the guy she never stopped loving comes back from the sea. As always, Austen's storytelling is so confident, you can't help but allow yourself to be taken on the enjoyable journey.
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