Chapters 5-11: Or, Anne's Pity Party

Here we are, plugging our way through Persuasion by Jane Austen. Before I begin my synopsis, I'd like to deliver my evolving opinion of the novel: the plot pretty much serves as the first "textbook" for all modern-day romance and chick-lit authors. Now, don't get me wrong here. I devour books written by Sophia Kinsella, Marian Keyes, and that author who wrote the Twilight Saga. I love me a good chick-lit book. But there is something to be said for reading a novel written by the author who, in all likelihood, created the genre. It adds a layer of excitement, an element of surprise for me, as I eagerly turn each page of the book to see where Austen will take me. Even though I think I've predicted the final outcome of the book, I'm still interested in finishing it. I think the fact that I WANT to finish the book even though I've read countless like it before, stands alone as a testament to Austen's standing as a writer whose skills transcends centuries.

SPOILER ALERT: Will continue until the end of the post.

Chapter 6 begins with the start of Anne's two-month visit at the home of her sister Mary's husband's family, Uppercross. Charles Musgrove, Mary's husband, and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove, and his two younger sisters Louisa and Henrietta, are all ensconced within a huge amount of familial in-fighting. Anne put it best when she thought to herself: "...the sort of necessity which the family-habits seemed to produce, of every thing being to be communicated, and every thing being to be done together, however undesired and inconvenient." Needless to say, almost a whole chapter was dedicated to describing the intricate and annoying family dynamics of the Musgroves, including when Anne becomes a mediator between all of the family members. However, what is exciting is that the very own Captain Wentworth, the man that Anne loved passionately for a few months but was persuaded by the (evil, in my opinion) Lady Russell and her father, Sir Elliot, to reject because he was below the family's "standards," has made his entrance.

As I mentioned in my teaser yesterday, C. Wentworth is a kind, generous, and very polite man. I also envision Liam Neeson as the man who would play the C. Wentworth in the movie, but that is beside the point. Needless to say, C. Wentworth is prime property for the very eligible "Miss Musgroves" Louisa and Henrietta, and the two ladies know this very well and act accordingly.

I'd like to take some time now to address how Anne has been handling all of this. When C. Wentworth first came to Uppercross, she tried to busy herself with all manner of projects to prevent an encounter. When she finally did sit down to dinner with him and the rest of the Musgroves, he was cool and distant, whereas Anne tried everything in her power not to be noticed by him. And, since, as the reader, I am privy to Anne's prolific thoughts about how he mustn't truly love her, but how could he really forget their time together, but after the way she treated him why would he ever want to even look at her...we find out that both Anne and C. Wentworth are both still very much in love with one another, even if the plot is suggesting otherwise. And Anne is not handling this whole experience very well.

I discovered the fact that C. Wentworth still loves Anne when he showed up early to the Cottage where Anne was staying while she was at Uppercross. He was there to pick up Charles Musgrove, Mary's husband, to go for a hunting outing. Anne was babysitting her two young nephews and C. Wentworth strode into the room and Austen wrote: "The surprise of finding himself almost alone with Anne Elliot, deprived his manners of their usual composure....before he walked to the window to recollect himself, and feel how he ought to behave." Now, if the simple fact that Liam Neeson, err, C. Wentworth lost all sense of manners and how to behave at the mere sight of Anne tells me that he still loves her. And, Anne's constant quibbling tells me that she still loves him.

But here is the rub. Lousia Musgrove and Henrietta Musgrove are gunning hard for C. Wentworth. Henrietta is taken out of the game when her old suitor, Charles Hayter, came back in the picture and she realized that Louisa had a stronger hold on C. Wentworth anyway.

A final major plot development is a very long walk that happened one morning throughout the countryside surrounding Uppercross. Louisa, Henrietta, C. Wentworth, Mary and her husband Charles, Charles Hayter, and Anne all went a'strolling one fine October morning. During a brief rest, Louisa and C. Wentworth went off by themselves to stroll. Anne, wanting to go pick some nuts off of some hedgerow bushes, was minding her own business when she heard Louisa and C. Wentworth talking. Louisa was discussing the fact that Charles Musgrove had actually offered marriage to ANNE before Mary! And Anne rejected him!! C. Wentworth was very interested in the timing of this rejection and discovered from Louisa that Anne had rejected Charles M. during the exact time that C. Wentworth and Anne had been in love. Verrry interesting. And C. Wentworth's interest in this fact is all too telling about his still existent love for Anne.

Anne also overheard C. Wentworth expound upon how he finds women with characters of "decision and firmness" very attractive, and that: "It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive of character." Anne practically went in to convulsions over that. (Remember, she was too yielding and indecisive of character to remain with C. Wentworth in the face of pressure from her family.)

Needless to say, I'm excited to see what happens. Anne is off to Bath to reunite with her father and sister, Elizabether, soon.

Look for Chapters 6-14 Tomorrow evening

Dear Readers,

Due to a meatloaf that took an exorbitant amount of time to cook tonight, I will be delaying my post for chapters 6-14 until tomorrow night. I wanted to give you a quick teaser, in the meantime.

SPOILER ALERT

1. We meet Captain Wentworth (remember, the man with whom Anne fell desperately in love with but backed out of an engagement with upon some major cajolling on the part of Sir Elliot and Lady Russell and a rather weak spine on the part of Anne) and find out that Anne is STILL a total ninny when it comes to stepping up and telling C. Wentworth she is still *madly* in love with him.

2. Little Charles, Anne's nephew, breaks his collarbone. Horrors! (He's a brat anyway- and it gave Anne an excuse to duck out of seeing C. Wentworth a lot).

3. The descriptions of C. Wentworth remind me of Liam Neeson. Perhaps it's the fact that both Liam and C. Wentworth are polite, soft-spoken gentleman who also happen to have a high level of intelligence and the ability to kick some major butt in the way of fighting (C. Wentworth was at war with France on behalf of HRM, Liam was at war with European sex traffickers on behalf of his daughter- connection MADE).

Look for a more detailed synopsis and review tomorrow night.

Chapters 1-5

Before I begin the post, I wanted to alert my dear readers to the fact that yes, I will be posting spoilers to the plot of the books I am and will be reading. I will be very clear about when and where I will be posting these portions of my review. In case you are really interested in actually reading Jane Austen's Persuasion in the near future, please note any SPOILER ALERT labels that I will be incorporating into these posts.

On to the post.

I purchased Persuasion for an astounding $4.95 at my local Border's down the street from work. I was very excited about the beginning of my project. So excited, in fact, that I sat down and read the first few pages when I got back to my desk. And promptly had to look up three words. One of those words is "Baronetage" (noun) meaning a book that self-absorbed nobleman like to read in order to revel in the fact that their family has been in the upper classes of society since X century and have been granted X number of honors from HRM. I then needed to look up "solicitude" thinking that it had to do with being solitary, but because of the confusing sentence that resulted from inserting "solitary" in place of solicitude, it led me to discover that solicitude actually means "care or concern for someone or something." Fascinating.

I put the book down until the end of the day and read in on my way home on the T, and felt completely superior to everyone in my car because my book had "Jane Austen" on the cover.

SPOILER ALERT! SCROLL DOWN UNTIL YOU SEE "END SPOILER ALERT"

Persuasion started off as any good Victorian-era book should with a brief description of the heritage of the main family, the Elliot's. Sir Walter Elliot married a woman named Elizabeth Stevenson on July 15, 1784, who bore him three daughters and then died. The three daughters, in order of birth, are Elizabeth, Anne, and Mary. As the narcissistic and shallow man that he is, Sir Elliot bases his daughters' worth on their looks, and so the three daughters, ranked according to Sir Elliot's preferences are: Elizabeth, Mary, Anne. Elizabeth, close to 30, has yet to marry. However, she was meant to marry the family's heir (still need to figure that one out- I think this guy, William Walter Elliot, is the heir because Sir Walter Elliot, the father, had no sons.) but that plan went up in smoke when William Elliot ran off with a younger and more attractive young lady. A thoroughly embarrassed Elizabeth was scorned; this might account for her atrocious behavior of mis-treating Anne. Mary, the youngest, married a young country squire, Mr. Charles Musgrove, whose family is very rich. Mary is, for lack of a better word, a complete Debbie Downer- she must have had bi-polar disorder because she would be gay and lively one day, and dark and dreary and unable to stand anyone the next. She was only briefly introduced in this portion of the book, so I'm sure there will be more on her later. Anne, the middle child, is the obvious protagonist of the story. Her life reads as any rejected middle-daughter: pretty when a young teenager, but whose "bloom" extinguished. This might have something to do with her failed love life (see below). Anne is also an extremely intelligent, curious, and all around cool lady. I would like to sit around and have a cup of tea with her any day.

Austen continues on to introduce the Elliot's doting and slightly self-absorbed neighbor, Lady Russell. Lady Russell, a widow, takes great pride in being closely associated with this local nobility of the region (Kellynch Hall, county Somerset). Lady Russell also takes great care in maintaining the family's reputation. When the Elliot family finds themselves in dire financial straits due to an outlandish lifestyle with no major income, the bulk of the story's action begins. Lady Russell takes charge to insure that the Elliot's do not fall out of grace, thus securing her own future as an indispensable friend to the family.

Austen sets the stage for the coming plot and describes, in horrifically familiar detail, the family's living outside of their income and the impending economic doom (Recession 2008 anyone?) In order to drag the Elliot's out of financial ruin, the family's lawyer friend, Mr. Shepherd, arranges for an Admiral Croft, recently on leave after the end of whatever war the British were engaged in with the French at the time (the Admiral served in the Battle of Trafalgar, for those history buffs out there), to lease the house, while the Elliot's go to Bath to reduce their costs while still managing to maintain a modicum of dignity.

When Anne learns of the news that Admiral Croft will be renting her house, she is immediately transported to her younger and wilder days of nineteen and a brief romance with a young Captain in the Navy, who happens to be the brother of the Admiral's wife. Anne fell in love with this man, Captain Wentworth, and he asked for her hand in marriage. However, Sir Elliot, believing that Anne should not make such a low brow match simply for love, forbade it. Thus, Captain Wentworth left Anne with a broken heart and went on to make his (immense) fortune. Typical.

Another character, by the name of Mrs. Clay (a widow), and who is the daughter of Mr. Shepherd, has shown her freckled face (to the distress of Sir Elliot, who has big issues with freckles) and who is quickly beginning to make some trouble for the family, in ways that have not yet been revealed. But Lady Russell is deeply distressed about it, I can tell you that.

END SPOILER ALERT


This is where I will now begin my reviewing of the portion of the book I've read so far. As for the accessibility of the book, I would give it an 80%, and that is because the style of writing is more difficult than your run of the mill Sophie Kinsella or whoever-wrote-the-Twilight-series. This fact thus directly affects the accessibility of the book. The language is so expressive and detailed because it had to be. There were no televisions, computers, or radios to dumb it down with CGI or 3-D for the masses. These books were read by only a fraction of the population; those people wealthy enough to send their children to school and who had enough time to read a book. So the books of this era are largely inaccessible to our era for three reasons:

1) the author needed to paint a picture of the characters and places in order to draw in her readers and maintain interest because there were no silver screens to be had (When a book is the only thing you have in front of you, you really want it to excite and transport you to another world, to forget the fact that your maid burned your favorite shift and you have to go visit that superbly idiotic man down the road for another round of "will you marry me's.")

2) the books were catering to the highest denominator of society; these people could read, and read well and,

3) the 21st century society simply does not express itself in the same intense and immediate way. Needless to say, in our era of text-messaging and OMG'ing, Jane Austen's expansive vocabulary would probably make most of our next generation ROFL. Personally, I find Austen's descriptions of places and people to be quite addictive, and I enjoy rolling words like "reprobates", "re-trench", and "solicitude" off of my tongue.

On a separate note, I find this book to be completely entertaining. When I get past the vocab lessons, the plot is quite simple: scorned middle daughter who is far superior in every way to the rest of her family (who is only described for sheer entertainment factor) has a lover's-conundrum that will hopefully end with getting her long-lost love back and shoving it down her family's throat. Or at least that's what I hope she does. Knowing Austen, she'll probably have Anne end up happy and promise to support her dog of a father and low-life of a sister out of the kindness of her heart. Oh well. On to some more Persuasion.

Persuaded

I am pleased to announce that I have selected the first book that I will read for this blog: Persuasion by Jane Austen. Her last book, finished mere months before her death and published posthumously, is hailed as one of her finest works, weaving intricate details and passionate characters that transports the reader to the mid-19th century English countryside where the plot takes place. Sounds pretty much like all of the rest of her books. However, I wanted something that wasn't quite as main stream or potentially cliche as Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility.

You might wonder why I didn't select one of the many wonderful suggestions from the below comments. In my research, I came across this on (don't judge) Oprah's webpage. Don't cringe in horror, this was a book recommended by one of the many famous people who visit her show. I was so intrigued that a book almost 100 years old would make that list. Plus, I haven't read a book by Jane Austen. I can't wait to be caught up in the language of an era of strict class distinctions and even more stringent rules of conduct. I'm fascinated by the literary descriptions of this time period because it illustrates a world that, on the surface, seems as though it should be completely different from our 21st century culture of women, dating, and families should be. I experience such a true, visceral affinity towards the people and places that are described in these novels, even though their world of secretive, flirtatious glances and scandalous light brushing of hands is long gone. But in all reality, is this illicit and sometimes scandalous behavior any different than the coy, flirtatious glances one sends at an attractive individual while at a pub? Or how about that family member that just can't quite keep their opinions to themselves about your significant other and how you could do so much better? I'm interested to see if there are any poignant parallels between Jane Austen's England and 21st century America. It is my expectation that question will be answered with a resounding yes.

The First Chapter - Pun Intended

As I sat down to work this morning I was pleasantly surprised to see that I've had quite a few great suggestions from my family and friends. In all the excitement of starting my blog and thinking about which book will be my first victim, I started thinking about how I will review them. Will I write a post after every chapter? Every day after X amount of reading? Three times a week? And then, what exactly will I talk about? What are the parameters for what I would consider a good book to be? Below are my answers:

1. I will try to blog once a day about what I've read. It could be a sentence, it could be a paragraph. I need to warn you all now, that this will be a spoiler for those of you who haven't read the books. But the people that I do know who are out there reading this will probably appreciate the blow by blow summary- it means they don't have to read the actual book but, while in witty conversation, they can conveniently make an educated connection to the book if it is brought up in said witty conversation. I am nothing if not convenient.

2. I have begun a flexible set of guidelines that I will follow while discussing the book. This will include: accessibility to the masses, style of writing, and entertainment factor. The first three are easy to understand: is the book a people pleaser or is it something that only a few will understand? Is the writing style so arcane and difficult to read that I want to throw the book through a window? Am I laughing outloud on the T while reading, or crying in my bed at night when I have to put the book down?

3. I am also very interested in the connection between the reader and the book that they are reading. When I look at people on the T, I often wonder what makes them want to pick a book with a dead white guy on the cover (JFK, or John Adams) or a book that is so clearly sci-fi related that even the sci-fi geek in me cringes a little. I don't judge these people, but I often wonder: why and how do these books play a role in these people's lives? Are they a method of escape, or simply something to fill in the time so they can avoid looking at people on their commute? This is something that interests me greatly, and I hope to share with all of you my own personal answers to these questions.

So, this being said: I will choose my first book later this afternoon, so please, keep the suggestions coming. So far I have:

A Year of Living Biblically

Survival of the Bark Canoe by John McPhee

The Poisonwood Bible and Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbara Kinsolver

A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle

A Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

I've always loved reading. When I was younger, I was the kid with her nose buried in a book. I am able to shut out the sounds of traffic, the T, or people talking just a few feet away from me to read a good book. Somewhere between college and graduate school my want and need to read vanished. It probably had to do something with schoolwork getting in the way of reading for the simple joy of reading. However, I knew something was missing from my life; I always reveled in my imagination's ability to take me out of the world that was in front of my eyes and transport me to the docks of an opium trade ship leaving India or to the streets of Boston during the BPD strike of 1917.

I want to rejuvenate my passion for reading and I want to share my thoughts with you about the books that will reinvigorate my love of books. I'm not going to try to read a book a day, or anything crazy like that. I'll read the book as my interest in it sees fit. Some will be finished, others will be discarded. But my analysis and comments on each one will be posted here. If any of you find my comments interesting, or have differing opinions, please post them here. I certainly don't consider myself a critic by any stretch of the word.

But, I need a book to start this off. So, if any of you out there have any suggestions about good books I should read, please leave them here. I'm interested in most everything of substance; I will not read books with Fabio on the cover, or anything that just doesn't interest me. But alot of things interest me, so I'm willing to try anything. I take Francis Bacon's quote seriously: not every book is meant to be devoured in one sitting; it should be savored. Just as not every book is meant to finished at all.

Amazon.com, here I come. The journey begins!