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Heaven: 2020 November Book Club - Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
This month's read is Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. I've just re-read it ahead of leading the discussion this month and it is a great read, with lots of themes I'm sure we'll find interesting to discuss. It is widely available, including free copies on-line. So if you have never read Austen, not read her for a while or are an avid fan come and join in the (I hope) fun.
For a start off the book has one of the most convincing 'villains' in literature.
For a start off the book has one of the most convincing 'villains' in literature.
Comments
That's in Persuasion isn't it?
I have borrowed a copy from the Library on my e-reader as my own appears to to have been hidden by the cat - or taken by the Borrowers.
Yes, I know the quote! I thought it was in Persuasion where the wife of the retired Admiral was talking about how glad she was to be shot of the Navy.
Now I will have to go back and read Persuasion again - oh dear - life is so demanding.
But you'd better reread Persuasion, just to check.
Dafyd - I was wondering about that, because I did remember it was a character who was nasty and not proper, whereas the nasties in Persuasion are proper.
Despite the temptation I will postpone Persuasion until I have re-read Mansfield Park .
There is loads of stuff out there on the net about Jane Austen, and about Mansfield Park. I thought this Austen and Antigua was interesting.
I must admit I suggested this book as there is a housing estate near here called Mansfield Park and it always makes me smile when I see a bus with that on the destination board.
It now perhaps, but at the time and for upwards of a century after, it was unexceptional. Happens to words -
"With his little ruddy daughter Bess"
W. Wordsworth
In the mean time, in general terms, which of Austen’s books is your favourite?
Emma!
Re buggery: There may be an oblique reference to it in her juvenilia work A History of England--in the James I section, there's a charade in which the answer is "carpet" ("Car" was the nickname of the Duke of Buckingham, one of James's favorites).
(And though admittedly from about a century earlier, 5-to-6-year-old girls singing obscene songs ("Girl Ballads") used to be a popular entertainment,* so one must be careful about assuming any Pre-Victorian era was particularly prudish).
* A History of English Opera by Eric Walter White
I've tried again. I can't - life's too short.
But I look forward to the discussion. Still hoping to catch The Jane Austen Bug.
I'm now going to embark on a re-read of Emma to try and decide whether I prefer it to Mansfield Park or not.
Re Dickens - I gave up on several, until I read Hard Times which I loved.
Emma is her most respected.
Persuasion is the most romantic.
Lo and behold, as I've been reading, I find myself saying, "I know what happens next!" It finally dawned on me that when Daughter-Unit was very young, I read all of JA's books. That was thirty years ago!
Hopefully this time the story will stick a bit better!
The mix of the two genres plays well with where I'm at, whereas a variant of Poe's law applies when I look at the others. P&p/emma work perfectly well as what I expect from generic romance and I can read them as such.
Austen said after writing Fanny that she was going to write a character whom nobody but herself would much like: I think most people find Emma much more likeable even though Emma does something terrible.