Persuasion - Jane Austen
“I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men." - Anne Elliot, Persuasion.
Yes, that’s right, another classic!
Look, I am a fan of Jane Austen. Like a big fan. The books, the time period, the romance everything. Not quite a dress up in cosplay and pretend to be Elizabeth Bennet fan, but that has a lot to do with the fact that I’m approximately as poor as a church mouse more than anything else. And, despite what my father says, I do NOT think Pride and Prejudice really happened and Mr Darcy ever existed. Plus, Mr Darcy was a socially awkward rich man who couldn’t admit he found a woman attractive without insulting pretty much everything about her, including her family and situation in life first. The old charmer.
But today, friends of mine reading this blog post because I nagged them to, or strangers who somehow stumbled upon it, we’re not talking about Pride and Prejudice. We’re talking about Persuasion. Where Pride and Prejudice has scenic walks through the Hertfordshire countryside and beautiful stately houses, Persuasion has wild stormy walks on the coastal sea town of Lyme Regis and a main character who’s past her prime (she’s 27 years old, past her prime by Regency Standards, don’t even get me started) living in regret for a mistake she made almost a decade ago. Yes, the mistake is to do with marriage to a man and yes, her family does play a large part in it.
Anne Elliot is the main character, who is the sensible and intelligent second child of Sir Walter Elliot, who seems to be the only person in her family with any sense. The Elliot family is in severe debt and has had to rent out their house to others in order to balance their finances. This is a grave insult to her father and older sister Elizabeth particularly, because let’s be real, who wants smelly peasants in their fancy house. With younger sister and professional drama queen/hypochondriac Mary married and living close by, it’s up to Anne to reassure her family that letting respectable and wealthy people live in their house for a short amount of time while they go off and live extravagantly in Bath so they can continue to bathe regularly in champagne or eat gold plated strawberries (or whatever it is the wealthy used to do in their spare time) is actually a very sensible idea. Because of this, and Anne’s dislike of the city of Bath, the rest of her family see her as “inconsequential”. Of course.
Years before this, Anne had been in a serious relationship with sailor Frederick Wentworth. Of course, this was the Regency Era, so a serious relationship equated to four walks together (chaperone included) and three visits for tea and scones which lasted 15 minutes. I’m not exaggerating, the socially correct amount of time to spend visiting someone at their house was fifteen minutes. He then asked her to marry him but because he was poor and had no standing in society, her family PERSUADED her not too. Jane Austen, I see you and your clever titles.
Big surprise, he reappears into her life, flush from success in the Navy and suddenly a wealthy and massively eligible bachelor. Fate, thou art a saucy minx. She then has to deal with the fact that strangers have moved into her family home which her mother (dead, because plot) loved, her family are all halfwit social climbers and the realisation that she’s still very much in love with a man who she turned down seven years ago, who is suddenly back in her life. There’s misunderstandings, and new family members with obscure intentions, a lot of pining, and a romantic declaration of love that Austen does so well. In the 2007 television adaptation there’s also a really intense running scene through Bath that is quite possibly the most stressful thing I’ve ever watched in my life.
The main reason I love this book though, is because I love a heroine that has a sensible outlook on life, and it’s a very interesting dynamic, especially in a classic novel written at a time when a very patriarchal society existed, where the woman is the one who made the mistake and knows that it’s her fault. Instead of two young people falling in love for the first time, this is an old love reigniting between two people that have become wiser and more determined as they got older. So yes, Mr Darcy may make my girlish heart flutter (that’s rubbish, my heart is about as girlish as a prune), Persuasion will always have a special place on my bookshelf.