(no subject)

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"...well, Miss Elliot," (lowering his voice), "as I was saying we shall never agree, I suppose, upon this point. No man and woman, would, probably. But let me observe that all histories are against you--all stories, prose and verse. If I had such a memory as Benwick, I could bring you fifty quotations in a moment on my side the argument, and 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."

"But how shall we prove anything?"

"We never shall. We never can expect to prove any thing upon such a point. It is a difference of opinion which does not admit of proof."

---

So I've finally read Persuasion, which by some chance I'd never read before. It was a delight to read another Jane Austen novel for the first time; the ending wasn't much in doubt, but it's not the destination so much as the journey that I read these things for.

And my goodness, what a sharp and brutal book this is. Austen always has her wit and her wry disdain for people who can't see past themselves and their own desires, but it much more brutal in this novel than I'm used to. The protagonist's family is outright dysfunctional, and even the happier families that she spends time with end up problematic in their own ways.

I always end up wanting to write something angry and revolutionary, after reading Austen. There's a quiet desperation to her protagonists--some more conscious of it than others, and I think Anne of this book more so than most--who are trapped in a privileged, constrained, etiquette-bound position that leaves them almost no room for maneuvering. It's like reading Misery all over again, except instead of literal chains and a wild-eyed woman making demands, it's all the soft, constant, gentle bounds of what people are raised to and told is inherent and natural to them.

Maybe now I'll go write something where heads roll.

Comments

[neogrammarian]

Yay! So glad you liked it. I have never understood Austen fandom, admittedly, but I keep trying bc my friends love her. Persuasion is one that I found I actually do like- it's like Austen's gloves are a bit more off than usual, as you noted.

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I'd put it up there with Emma, for Austen's more vicious books. Even her most pointed of parodies, Northanger Abbey, is much sweeter, and usually she's merely wryly observant and witty. But by god, in Persuasion, you get the impression that she would also be rooting for the guillotines to come out with some of the characters she portrays.

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--oh, and one other thing I found interesting: the villains of this book are about 50% composed of people who would be protagonists in a Heyer novel. Pretty, fashion-obsessed, strong-minded people with very firm views on class and noble titles.

[neogrammarian]

hah! My folks love Heyer novels, and I've always suspected I would loathe them. This confirms that suspicion! I find Austen's clear interest in the navy as a sort of potentially-ennobling near-meritocracy interesting- not perfect, but in just one example- the navy wives are clear partners with their husbands in a way not seen elsewhere in the novel. (And of course Austen's brother served in the navy.)

[fadeaccompli]

I enjoyed several Heyer novels, but made the mistake of starting with the very best, and thus burned out hard once I started noticing patterns. I mean, there's a certain necessity to be able to enjoy reading about people with wildly repugnant approaches to life, or I wouldn't be in classics; but it's a lot easier for me to do when the author is actually from the time period described, and not implying, from an uncomfortably close decade to my own, that they merely admire the views of that period.

And after reading all that O'Brian, it's really interesting for me to read about the naval captains in Austen from the outside point of view. Both in the way it affects gender relations between husbands and wives, and in the way it's the deeply unsympathetic characters who sneer at it for raising low-born men to high positions.

[neogrammarian]

While clearly Austen has a much different impression of the army than the navy, her naval families do call to mind Dickens' army family in Bleak House- that's another case of genuine partnership, though among the poor rather than the middle class or gentry. Again- Austen's brother was a navy officer iirc, so it may be more of an insider view than not. (I admit I have no idea whether Dickens knew any military families or not.) Still interesting that both authors would imagine those families to be real partnerships in a way that other families, both higher and lower in status, were not.

[rikibeth]

*dances the dance of joy that you are observing and enjoying all of this*

Especially because a lot of the things you're noticing (about class, about the navy's potential as a meritocracy, about horrid status-seekers, about the role of wives) is stuff I played up even harder in my novel, because, dude, those are the things that caught ME.

I highly recommend the 1995 adaptation of Persuasion, with Amanda Root as Anne and Ciaran Hinds as Wentworth. And also Samuel West as Mr. Elliot, playing an Austen cad as he SHOULD be played - outwardly pretty and pleasant and charming, with the wickedness concealed within. A lot of people really screw up casting Wickham and Willoughby especially -- we shouldn't be able to tell straight off that they're cads!

waaaaaaaaatch iiiiiiiiiiit....

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Oh, god, that was another section I wanted to quote. (Persuasion has so many quotable sections!) The bit where Anne observes that Mr. Elliot is untrustworthy because everyone likes him, and that while he solemnly agrees with her that Mrs. Clay is trouble, he also clearly gets along with Mrs. Clay juuuuust fine. Charming on the outside, wicked at the core, exactly!

[rikibeth]

And Samuel West does it so beautifully -- okay, the fine straight nose and angelic blond curls have something to do with that, but also his delicious voice, teasing Anne for saying she's bad at Italian when she can translate near-simulatneously, and talking about good company vs. the best company... *fangirl squeeing* It makes you REGRET that he proves to be a cad, he's so precious.

Not that I'm biased or anything.

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And it is now at the top of my Netflix queue! (Pity it's not streaming.)

[rikibeth]

Indeed.

I bought a cheap used copy off Amazon, but my goal is to find my favorite adaptation of every Austen novel and own it. Still undecided on Emma and Mansfield Park. I do NOT recommend the recent Mansfield Park with Billie Piper as Fanny, who seems to constantly be looking for her next line of dialogue in her cleavage.

[rikibeth]

well, the difference in Heyer novels is that her people who fit that description are often good-natured and kind-hearted, or, if they start out arrogant (as the heroes often do) they learn to mend their ways. And a lot of the most class-obsessed ones are taught the lesson that character matters more than birth.

The villains in this one are generally petty (Sir Walter, Elizabeth), well-meaning but insufficiently perceptive (Lady Russell, if you call her a villain instead of an obstacle) or duplicitous (PRETTY MR. ELLIOT O HAI SAM WEST what was I saying? Right).

[fadeaccompli]

Hm. I don't know. I would agree that the protagonists in Heyer novels are usually meant to be taken as good-hearted, though there are at least a few where even by the end I didn't believe it. As for the class stuff, it's the ones who don't obsess over class--but just take it as granted that one should know one's place--which tend to read most loudly as in favor of clear class divisions, for me. But there's also a lot of Heyer I haven't read.

[rikibeth]

I read all the romances in a period of about six weeks, twenty years ago, and have tended only to re-read the ones I like best, which skew very frothy. I like the schoolroom chits better than the older heroines, for example.