Persuasion - Perhaps Starting To Get It

Earlier this week I finished "Persuasion" meaning that I am 5/6ths through the Austen canon. I need to say that I have been struggling with my thinking about Jane Austen as a writer. I read "Sense and Sensibility" some time ago and thought it was a good book although I felt that one part of the ending was somewhat contrived. "Pride and Prejudice," which I have read twice, I think is a great book. However as I got into "Mansfield Park," "Emma," and now "Persuasion," I have been having a lot of difficulty with why so many people think that Austen is a great writer.

I have tried to be very careful about expressing these doubts both because so many people have such high opinions of Austen and because of a concern that there might be some gender issues here. That is as a man reading books written by a woman about women probably in large measure for women, I may be missing something or somethings. At the same time I can say with complete honesty that I think Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot) is a great writer so perhaps it is also a matter of taste.

Some of the things that bother me about Austen's writing include what I think are too frequent use of what seems like divine intervention (deux ex machina) to resolve her plots, other endings that are never adequately explained and endings where it seems like everyone gets what they deserve (very different than life itself). I was thinking about this last night while driving home from a church meeting and remembered something that Elaine from Random Jottings wrote about "Jane Eyre." While reading Charlotte Bronte's classic as a teenager, Elaine was moved by Jane's standing up and demanding equality with Rochester - an example I think of what might be lost on a male reader.

This led me to think about Austen's heroines and what they have in common. I think it is fair to say that in the five books I have read so far all of them have a high degree of integrity. At least three of them turn down marriage proposals that would have been advantageous to them financially for which they are criticized by other family members. This, of course, is reminiscent of Austen herself who made a similar decision which for her (unlike her fictional heroines) had a real cost financial and otherwise. Given how limited women's options were in those days, it may be that Austen's consistent message that women should live their lives with integrity is something that resonates today even though circumstances are different.

I still need and want to think about this some more especially after I read "Northanger Abbey" and "The Jane Austen Book Club." I mention the latter book because I hope it will give me some insights as why Jane Austen is so popular. In the meantime if there are any "Janeites" out there reading this who would like to have some dialogue about this, I would greatly appreciate it.

Mansfield Park

Since I last posted about Jane Austen I have finished both "Mansfield Park" and "Emma." What follows is written without doing any real research, just my reactions and observations. To me it seemed that Austen after enjoying some success with her first two books, was now moving or trying to move into the next level of her writing career. Both books are significantly longer than what came before and my sense is that she was trying for more fully developed plots and characters.

What held my attention about "Mansfield Park" was what I saw to be the drama in who Fanny would ultimately marry. Although the Edmund/Fanny possibilities are made clear throughout the book and certainly seem to be written to attract our sympathy, Austen also gradually starts to make Henry Crawford more sympathetic. I found this especially true when he visits Fanny and her family in Bristol, the last place where Fanny would want anyone from her life at Mansfield Park to visit. During those scenes Austen makes Crawford appear to be growing/improving so that if continued it seemed possible that a Crawford/Fanny marriage might be the outcome.

All of this breaks down, of course, when Crawford reverts to the bad Henry, running away with Maria the older of the two Bertram daughters. It felt to me that Austen used this much in the same way she used the Lydia/Wickham elopement in "Pride and Prejudice" as a sort of Deus Ex Machina to move the story to a final solution. The Crawford/Maria relationship had been very strongly suggested earlier in the book, but still the whole thing seemed a little contrived to me.

Austen had created a situation with two possible outcomes (marriages) for her heroine. Her decision to have the one give into the worst angels of his nature also seems too neat and clean. Those who sin are punished for their sins, those who don't are rewarded. This is also the case with the Mary Crawford/Edmund relationship, Henry's sins set the stage for Mary's inappropriate reactions leading Edmund to turn away from that possibility and ultimately turn to Fanny who is, of course, even more available before. An outcome where someone is disappointed even though they did nothing wrong would be more ambiguous, but to me, at least on first thought, more satisfying.

I enjoyed "Mansfield Park," as I said Austen's development of William Crawford to be an almost eligible (from Fanny's perspective) suitor created drama that more than held my attention. There seems to be a pattern in her endings, however, that I find to be disappointing. I will write more about this when I write about "Emma" which will come after I post something about the Henry Clay biography. I should also say that I am thinking a lot about Austen overall which I will probably write about once I have had more time to think about it.