Book Review: "Persuasion" by Jane Austen

I've just finished reading "Persuasion," Jane Austen's last novel. Because of the archaic language (written in 1816), many people mistakenly assume that reading Austen is some sort of an academic exercise, like reading Latin, but it is pure pleasure! With all of its hilarious characters, witty words and romantic elements, it's a bodice-ripper for the mind.

I could not put it down and dreampt of it in my sleep. The language does effect speech patterns (and writing styles), however.

The main characters in most of Austen's books are slightly unpredictable, idealistic youg women, but in this novel the heroine, Anne Elliot, is older but wiser, jaded by disappointing life experiences. The bloom of her youth is behind her. She is useful to everyone but valued by almost no one. At the outset of the novel, it looks like her life will continue in that vain until the end.

But,of course, love intervenes.

I found myself wishing with Anne Elliot that the object of her affection would appear at a party or chance to meet her on the street. or that he would glance at her at just the right moment to convey some meaning.

Jane Austen is all about subtlties!

I read this book over 20 years ago and had fond memories of it, but the only part I remembered clearly involved a minor character at the end of the book.

Here are some excerpts I loved:

"There is hardly any personal defect," replied Anne, "which an agreeable manner might not gradually reconcile one to."

On Mary Musgrove: "While well and happy and properly attended to, she had great good humor and excellent spirits, but any indisposition sunk her completely; she had no resources for solitude."

"A thousand feelings rushed on Anne, of which this was the most consoling: that it would soon be over."

"She found that to retentive feelings, eight year may be little more than nothing."

"Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement."

Mrs. Harville: "I hate to hear you talking so...as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days."


It was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship.

Like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.

After all she had gone through, nothing was so likely to do her good as a little quiet cheerfulness at home.

Family connections were always worth preserving, good company worth seeking.

"My idea of good company, Mr. Eliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company."
"You are mistaken, said he gently. "That is not good company, that is the best."

A sick chamber may often furnish the worth of volumes.

There is so little real friendship in the world!

"I am no match-maker, as you well know," said Lady Russell, "being much too well aware of the uncertainty of all human events and caluculations."

He had an affectionate heart. He must love somebody.

Of course they had fallen in love over poetry.

She had some feelings, which she was ashamed to investigate. They were too much like joy, senseless joy!

Whoever suffered inconvenience, she must suffer none.

When pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure. One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it.

Anne saw nothing, thought nothing of the brilliancy of the room. Her happiness was from within.

On women loving longer than men: "We certainly do not forget you as soon as you forget us. It is perhaps our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us. "

A word, a look will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening, or never!

To flatter and follow others without being flattered and followed in turn is but a state of half enjoyment.