Jane Austen

For the last year or more I have been reading works by Jane Austen. Faithful readers of this blog will know that I use my brain extensively at work, requiring more gentle and easy reading at night. I took many Austen works from my mom's library and have been slowly working my way through them and I thought I would tell you what I think.

Northanger Abbey: I just finished this book and I really enjoyed it. It follows Catherine, a young girl of 17 who enjoys "fiction" - as far as I can tell, this means Victorian novels. She lives a somewhat normal life, but injects aspects of this fiction into her life using her imagination. She is lucky enough to be invited to vacation in Bath with Mr. and Mrs. Allen, where she meets several friends, including Isabella, Eleanor Tilney and Henry Tilney . Of course, she falls for Henry, and is invited to stay with the Tilneys for a period of time. A period of drama ensues, partially due to Catherine's imagination, and the story ends with our heroine finally landing the man of her dreams. I liked this book for its ease of reading, but I have to say that Catherine didn't hold much interest to me. She didn't seem to have much personality or opinions, and the most interesting thing about her was the people she surrounded herself with.

Emma: I loved this book. Emma is spunky and funny and ridiculously snobbish and is always trying to mess with people's lives. Emma lives with her hypochondriac father in a giant mansion overlooking the town. She is by far the most clever of the people in the town and she thinks, therefore, that she must help them with her cleverness. She sets out to (disastrously) find a mate for her "dear friend" Harriett, she decides she must be in love with a town newcomer, Frank, and she completely ignores that she is actually in love with Mr. Knightley, a man who has been a constant companion for her family. This book is funny, entertaining, and completely ridiculous because our heroine does not even have a clue of her own feelings.

Masnfield Park: This book I thought was so-so. Fanny Price is one of many children and is sent to live with her very rich aunt and uncle because her family can no longer afford so many kids. She is sent there at age 10 to be what? A servant? Sort of. A companion? Maybe? Definitely inferior. She turns out to be the moral compass for the whole book, resisting temptations of intrigue, sex, and general naughtiness. My only problem with this book was the resolution. She falls in love with Edmund, her cousin, but he does not return her affections. At the conclusion of the book, she and Edmund are finally together, but the actual climax of the book does not revolve around this. Most of her books, the climax involves conversations among characters, while, this book just involves a third person narration telling the reader what happens. Needless to say, I did enjoy this book, just perhaps less than the other. In addition, there is much about slavery (and apparently the name Mansfield would have been synonymous with abolition) but I don't know much about English history so I will leave that to the actual proper book reviewers.

Pride and Prejudice: Of course, the most popular of the books, Elizabeth meets obnoxious and snobby Mr. Darcy and proceeds to contradict him and challenge him to the point of his falling in love with her. One of my favorite Austen books, I have now read this twice and each time was most enjoyable. I love a ballsy heroine, especially one who knows what she wants and Austen absolutely provides in this book.

I have yet to read Sense and Sensibility or Persuasion but I possess them both. I will let you know what I think when I read them!