Persuasion by Jane Austen
Eight years ago Anne Elliot bowed to pressure from her family and made the decision not to marry the man she loved, Captain Wentworth. Now circumstances have conspired to bring him back into her social circle and Anne finds her old feelings for him reignited. However, when they meet again, Wentworth behaves as if they are strangers and seems more interested in her friend Louisa. In this, her final novel, Jan Austen tells the story of a love that endures the tests of time and society with humour, insight and tenderness.
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Jane Austen books will always bring a measure of comfort to me and I especially love reading her stories in the spring. There’s just something about reading a regency romance in the freshness of spring that brings to mind Mr. Darcy coming towards you out of a misty field in May. I’d read Persuasion way back in High School when I first became a fan of Jane Austen but have never revisited the story since and completely lost track of what this plot was even about. This reread opened my eyes to a lot of things about this novel I didn’t realize the first time around. One being, it feels more mature than the others. You can tell that this story was written with a small reflection of Jane’s own romantic follies and there was a tinge of bitterness in the overall tone of the book. It wasn’t as starry-eyed and romantic as I remembered it to be, but the writing was still just as enchanting.
Anne Elliot is the only likeable person in her family. This sets the novel up for a great crack at satirical comedy aimed at the rich. Coming from money but having to “make do” by living on the more frugal side due to her father’s debts, the Elliots never lose site of their superior ego no matter how dire their situation may feel. With a particular focus on social class, this book seemed to both spend too much time discussing it, and yet not enough actually depicting it. The Elliots “step down” in the world was barely a step, they still attended lavish events, they still lived in comfort and wealth, they still looked down on anyone beneath them. I found this book to be more out of touch in respect to social classes than any previous novels and it definitely added to the humour aspect, yet it still caught me off guard and took a while to get used to.
The Elliot family was a somewhat satirical representation of the “rich” yet still managed to irk me even throughout the humour. Elizabeth, the older sibling who is just as dismissive of Anne as their vain and emotionally absent father, didn’t have much depth. I feel like even minor characters like Mrs. Smith were more fleshed out than Elizabeth and she felt somewhat unfinished. Yet throughout the story, that never changes. Anne’s other sister, Mary, is depicted as a haranguing miserable, busy-body, when in reality, I think she just has a bad case of depression. The “unlikeable” characteristics of these characters felt like shallow observances rather than attempts at humour and made me start to dislike reading from Anne’s perspective as, in her eyes, her entire family and much of their acquaintances had various faults but Anne herself could do no wrong. The “worst” observance of her was that she was “too” quiet or meek. Correct me if I’m wrong but those seemed to be desirable traits in a woman at that time? I feel like these characteristics were attempts at humour yet all it succeeded in doing was making me lose respect for our main heroine. You need to have small ways to make your main character at least a little bit likeable in order for her poorer characteristics to be redeemable and I felt like that was lacking here
Captain Wentworth was a male lead that seemed to have the least amount of “screen time” as any Jane Austen lead I’ve ever read so I don’t feel like I got that attached to him. The small moments where he was around and had actual dialogue with any of the characters were my favourite moments of the book but those moments felt few and far between. I did very much enjoy his interactions with Anne and tabbed quite a few moments that felt more genuine and loving than a lot of other romantic moments in the Jane Austen world. It felt like she really poured her own personal experiences into those moments and the beautiful language reflected that. I just wish there were more of it.
Overall, it wasn’t my favourite Austen novel, I found it hard to really get into. I, personally, cannot enjoy books if the main character isn’t likeable. I just couldn’t connect with Anne and, because of that, I didn’t love this book as much as I should have. The writing was beautiful (but that’s no surprise) and the humour is always very sharp and witty with Austen but due to that disconnect with the main character, I found this my least likeable Austen book to date. I gave this 3.5 stars as it was an enjoyable read, it just wasn’t as wonderful as I’d remembered.