r/janeausten

I've been looking to replace my very old and worn versions of the Austen novels and I was inspired by comments on this sub to look for used editions. I came across these three on a reselling website and I just love them. They are the Winchester edition published in 2007 and they feature not only pretty illustrations but also some contextual information in special sections of the books. I am going to be searching for the rest of the novels; my guess is they'll be harder to find!!!

In which Elinor reflects and we meet some very droll characters...

[Men] come and go so quickly here!  We've now had Colonel Brandon, Willoughby, and Edward leave without one of them being forthcoming as to why.

placed all that was astonishing in this way of acting to his mother’s account

"How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!" (Persuasion)  Or, rather, how quick come the reasons for excusing what we want! Elinor is, all unknowingly, thinking along the same lines of her mother in turning to the happiest excuse for what she doesn't understand in Edwards's behavior. I feel this is our third or fourth passage which contain happy speculations for questionable behavior.

“it was happy for her that he had a mother whose character was so imperfectly known to her, as to be the general excuse for every thing strange on the part of her son.”  I don't know exactly why, but this passage put me in mind of Mr. Knightley's expounding upon a man's duty in Emma: “There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do, if he chuses, and that is, his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and resolution." A spoiler-ish question that I'll make as general as possible: for those of you who know the ending, do you think Edward is doing his duty in how he's acting towards the Dashwoods, his mother, or another person who shan't be named? Or is it a sort of half-commitment in every direction that is leading to his unhappiness?

This is the second time that appearances are tied to a young man’s vehicle. “Knowing gigs” calls back the barouches of the earlier chapter.

“Their means were as different as their objects, and equally suited to the advancement of each.”

“her mother and sisters were spared much solicitude on her account” - this is as a bit of an indictment of Marianne's very indulgent behavior earlier. I think it's interesting how blunt the narration is in condemning Marianne's choices. The narrator has a much more neutral tone for Austen's other occasionally wrong-headed heroines (such as Emma, Elizabeth, and Catherine).

“…and therefore exerted herself to ask Mr. Palmer if there was any news in the paper.”
“No, none at all,” he replied, and read on.  Very Wildean!

“I could look at them for ever.”  And then sitting down again, she very soon forgot that there were any such things in the room.”  Very Austenian!

"But they had no curiosity to see how Mr. and Mrs. Palmer ate their dinner, and no expectation of pleasure from them in any other way." Very droll!

I just marvel at Austen's ability to transform the tedious into the entertaining. How bored most of us would be listening to a Mrs Jennings or a Miss Bates in real life, but how fun did she make them to read!

Wanting to change up my usual list of things I label "What to Turn on for Background Noise when Folding Laundry," and being naturally nosy, I thought I'd finally give the infamous 2022 Persuasion ("the Dakota Johnson one") a go.

So I got settled in amidst the towels and unaccountably single socks and watched. My initial impression was "Not too bad." I enjoyed the heightened caricaturization of Sir Walter very much, for example. It seemed like they were attempting to create something similar to the vibe of Love and Freindship overall but with a modern girl-boss overlay. But (there are many buts in this review as an fyi to those who are sensitive to those things), I wasn't sure then and I'm very positive now that that particular tone doesn't quite work with Persuasion, a story of longing, quiet sadness, and reviving hope. The adaptation does have moments of sadness for Anne, but they almost felt shoehorned in and not really organic to the narrative tone. Like hitting a story speed bump. Funny funny funny *bump* wait, Anne is actually very sad, funny funny funny *bump* and repeat. But (I mentioned the buts, yes?) none of this was enough for me to turn it off. As we approached Uppercross for the first time, I remained cautiously optimistic that I might just enjoy watching this adaptation, at least to the level of "Okay for laundry folding!"

In fact, my biggest criticism at that point was Dakota Johnson being just too pretty. The opening exposition doesn't really adequately explain the whys/hows of someone looking like that has raised no romantic interest in anyone in the post-Wentworth years or why her shallow father would look down on her. But (there were to be many of those) I guess that could be smoothed away on the grounds of Anne being uninterested due to the aforementioned Wentworth.

So I kept watching. I did not understand at all Louisa-as-Anne's-BFF-slash-wingman, but (see, I told you) it wasn't offensive, it was fine. The drunken shouting, gravy-faced awkwardness weren't my favorite, but (again) I could see how it worked with this particular adaptation.

But (there it is again) then we got to the Uppercross dinner party and my sprouting cautious optimism withered and died. When Anne was casually and publicly cruel about Charles first having proposed to her, it was time to be done. I can see maybe why that scene was written and included - to show that someone had been interested in the gorgeous Anne in those intervening years and to provide a definite cause for a new rupture between Anne and Wentworth for Louisa to enter in, but (!!) I didn't feel that it worked with novel Anne or even this adaptation's interpretation of Anne. This new Anne might be goofy and awkward, but she still was presented as good, dependable, and reasonable. An Anne that is carelessly cruel isn't an Anne I can get behind. DNF and back to rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender for sock sorting.

I was in Lyme Regis last week and of course I had to visit the famous Cobb where Louisa Musgrove took a flying leap from the top step. Let me tell you it gets very windy at the top there and some of those stairs are no joke!

Lyme itself is so beautiful with lots of little shoutouts to Austen to be delighted by and so many gorgeous walks you can do. Highly recommend!

Been re-reading all of Jane Austen’s novels this year & wanted to come on here to show you my two little cuties! Mr Charles Bingley is my seal bicolor ragdoll & Mrs Elizabeth Darcy is my seal mitted ragdoll! They are also half siblings. He is 7 months old & shes 16 weeks!

In which teasing occurs and is also anticipated...

With this read-through, I've really noticed how hard it is to get acquainted with Edward the character. He waffles from sensibly sassy to drearily drippy. And he hasn't had much "screen time" either way. The annotations offer this explanation of the issue that I think is "exactly so" (spoiler alert!!):

“Stuart Tave notes, 'The least successful part of Sense and Sensibility is the character of Edward. We most be convinced of Edward's value, not for his sake but because we must believe in Elinor's feelings, believe that her love is important because the man is important, that her suffering in the loss of him is deep because the man has depth. But the requirements of the plot >!are such that his secret engagement!< forces him to be reserved, dispirited, and dull and that flattens not only his spirits but his freedom to allow himself to be attractive to Elinor.'"

I would add that it diminishes his ability to be attractive to the reader as well. He has glimmers, but I'm not sold on him.

“…Marianne, who was always eager to promote their happiness as far as she could…”. Marianne's own ideas of behavior and her impatience with societal norms can be alienating for some readers, but she is a good, loving young person, with little phrases such as this adding to the evidence.

The “picturesque” both here and in Northanger Abbey seems to be a great source of fun for Austen.

“I suspect, said Elinor, “that to avoid one kind of affectation, Edward here falls into another.  Because he believes many people pretend to more admiration of the beauties of nature than they really feel, and is disgusted with such pretensions, he affects greater indifference and less discrimination in viewing them himself than he possesses.  He is fastidious and will have an affectation of his own.” -This reminds me of Darcy calling out Bingley’s humble brag about his handwriting in P&P.  It’s interesting how comfortable the characters in S&S are talking each other’s personalities over right in front of the person in question.  

“…sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in but what was worn and hackneyed out of all sense and meaning.”  Is this meant to be funny to the reader, or a real complaint about the limitations of language?

“Marianne looked with amazement at Edward, with compassion at her sister.  Elinor only laughed.”  This is a really charming little scene!

Is it particularly reasonable for Elinor to assume that Edward removed or caused to be removed a lock of her hair without her notice?  Especially, if I’m understanding the hair experts around here correctly, it would have been improper for her to ever be around him with her hair down or even half-down?  Also related to the ring – if this is a ring that the notice of gives Edward such embarrassment, why is he wearing it?  Just pop it in your pocket, bro, if you don’t want anyone to see it.

“You must drink tea with us tonight,” said he, “for we shall be quite alone – and to-morrow you must absolutely dine with us, for we shall be a large party.” -This is one of those sentences, frequent in Austen’s writing, that really makes me feel how amused she must have been at her own writing as she went along.  I don’t know how an author could put pen to such a funny little sentence without a little smirk at their own wit.  I myself was grinning ear to ear just typing it out.

Edward’s “quiet archness” is similar to Elinor’s humor.

Poor Elinor is not going to have a good time with Sir John and Mrs. Jennings in the upcoming chapters, now is she?

In which conversations are had and Margaret is allowed to speak three whole sentences...

This is a very quotable chapter:

“I cannot be forced into genius and eloquence.”

“I wish as well as every body else to be perfectly happy; but, like every body else it must be in my own way."

“What have wealth or grandeur to do with happiness?”

The early part of this chapter is mostly, for lack of a better word, cute, I think. Elinor and Marianne's discussion of what it means to be wealthy; Marianne's including hunters in her imaginary establishment; Margaret's "striking out a novel thought"; Mrs. Dashwood saying she would have no need for wealth if her children were all provided for; Edward's being "very saucy" - all combine together to achieve something very akin to cute.

"At my time of life opinions are tolerably fixed. It is not likely that I should now see or hear any thing to change them." So spoketh Methuselah Dashwood. She does quite well sitting there and being talked over by Edward and Elinor.

The annotations suggest that Elinor's little speech about character reading can be taken "as an authorial warning that the novel's characters are not necessarily exactly what they seem." I think what follows is interesting - Marianne takes a very ungenerous view of Elinor's character. Very "and yours...is willfully to misunderstand [her character]."

There is one phrase in Edward's speech about his own judgement that I would very much like to highlight, but it's a spoiler, so first time readers beware >!"I have frequently thought that I must have been intended by nature to be fond of low company..." I wonder if that is a retroactive excuse on his part? An explanation to himself as to why he became entangled with Lucy? At any rate, I love how Austen sows these little seeds of what's really going on in her novels!!<

In the last chapter, Marianne called Edward Edward and Elinor called him Mr. Ferrars. In this chapter, Edward calls Marianne by her first name, but Elinor gets a "Miss Dashwood."

As always, I do appreciate the recurrence of Elinor's dry humor in this chapter and that we get to see a thought more of what she might perceive as charming in Edward, though he ends it on a dull note.

Because we never hear about it if they do, or meet them, so I can’t help but wonder if Mrs Elton’s attachment to her brother-in-law & sister is much stronger than their attachment to her.

Come summer in Highbury, Mrs Elton is being a grump at Box Hill and talking non stop but not actually picking strawberries at Donwell, with no sister Selena to help her or rich brother-in-law to ferry her around in his barouche-landau

O Sucklings, where art thou? 🤔

I am working my way through the various Austen adaptations and really enjoying the costumes from each era. I stumbled on this 1971 Persuasion adaptation on YT and am just giggling over this green checked day dress alongside green walls & green sofas... Everything is green! And orange! With dark brown accents! It's so iconically 70s. Not pictured: the hot pink swag curtains (alongside jarring racist statues, absolute yikes and I have no idea if that's period accurate or just a 1971 *choice*).

Honorable mention to the sailor collars in the 1980 P&P!

Edit: omg, Captain Wentworth's ruffled tuxedo front evening dress 💀 it looks exactly like my dad's white wedding tuxedo with tails from 1983

Do y'all have any favorite anachronistic or unhinged costumes/sets?

Guess the book :)