The Art of Persuasion

I just finished reading Jane Austen's Persuasion, and let's just say I'm a little overwhelmed... and making plans to reread every Austen novel ever. I'll tell you why!

When my dad convinced me to read Pride and Prejudice, I didn't really see much beyond the face value of the romance. And let's face it: P&P is an awesome romance. Lizzy and Darcy's love/hate relationship has inspired countless other love/hate love stories. (Plus, Darcy is pretty much one of the most attractive men in all of literature.) Meanwhile, my fourteen/fifteen year-old self had no appreciation for anything resembling "depth". It was a love story that made people think you were smart if you said you read it! What's not to like!?

Fast forward to eighteen year-old me closing her copy of Persuasion. I felt satisfied, and yet... This wasn't "bright, sparkling" P&P. I mean, I had giggled over Wentworth's swoonworthy declaration of love (give that man an AWARD), but still... Had I missed something? Wanting to read some more, I flipped to the front of the book to read the introduction essay.

Those who are attracted to Jane Austen because of nostalgia for the stability of class and clarity of old-fashioned values in picturesque English villages miss the most profound theme in her writing. Celebrated for simplicity, quaintness, and old-fashioned certainties, Austen in her last novel turns out to be complicated, thorny, and most of all, anxiously uncertain about the world developing around her. At times she appears to be talking herself into a "cheerful confidence in futurity." It is tempting to imagine where she would have taken this direction had she lived. But this novel was to be her final attempted act of (self-) persuasion.

Um, wow. That's a lot to swallow.

The extra bit of insight Susan Ostrov Weisser's essay provided had me analyzing every chapter, every character, everything. Furthermore, the essay called into question the Jane Austen stereotype: "sweetly old-fashioned, genially mild and reserved, spirited but primly spinsterish". The mysteries of Austen's character make her novels even more open to interpretation, if you ask me.

This comic makes me proud that Mansfield Park is my favorite one of her novels.

In short, I now want to reread all of her books and start asking some bigger questions. I'd highly encourage you to do the same!

Of course, this doesn't mean I'm going to stop enjoying period dramas from a nostalgic perspective. (see below)

Have you ever read a book and were surprised by the deeper meaning of its contents?