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elvenpirateladyWhen you have suffered a disappointment there are certainly worse ways to console yourself than reading Jane Austen, and so tonight I have read the entirety of Sense and Sensibility for the first time.
I found that I liked it! It is the second Austen novel I have ever read, after Pride and Prejudice, although I remember stumbling through most of one adaptation of Mansfield Park and Persuasion. I remember a film of Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet and Alan Rickman and, I think, Hugh Grant? in it. but I never saw it and it's not so widely known as P&P, so I didn't know the plot. And it was a pleasant enough ride, because I was sure that everything would turn out all right in the end.
I love Elinor! She is so sensible, and if I have not made my love of sensible heroines and female characters in general clear then I have done this lj a disservice. I suspect that she is sensible because Marianne and Mrs Dashwood are very not-sensible and tend to the emotional side of things, so she has to be the sensible one by default. (I remember a throwaway line about Margaret being emotional too, but she's mostly a cardboard character and she's not much concerned with the story). I love how she tries to be sensible and reasonable and measured about her life, even her romantic life, and she gets flustered and emotional about it in spite of herself. I want to say something about her relationship with her sister - namely, that they are like sisters! Not a mother-daughter relationship! They look out for each other in different ways and talk about things that they could not talk about with their mother, and keep each other's secrets! One day I will make a long and rambling post about older sisters in fiction and how I am not impressed by a lot of them, but for now I will say that I love Elinor as an older sister. And how each of them - Elinor and Marianne - will tolerate multiple snubs and insults to themselves but say something against their sister and it is on. Because I recognise that in myself.
So I identified a lot, with Elinor.
And I identified a lot with Marianne, as well, but in the sense of looking back on your teenage years and groaning as you recognise yourself in her. Because times have moved on and we no longer wear bonnets and women are no longer dependent on marriage to support them - thank heavens! Or whoever - or rather, sometimes they still depend on being married for financial support, but it is recognised as a bad thing - but anyway, times have moved on, but teenagers have not changed an atom since Jane Austen was writing, and Marianne is utterly a teenage girl. She falls in love and has her heart dashed! She is heartbroken and inconsolable and wallows in her misery! She behaves in a way that would be very tiresome if not seen through the eyes of her sister! (Corollary - the tiresomeness bleeds through, but of course we were all once convinced that our lives were going to end because of some matter that now seems utterly trivial.) In short, she is a teenage girl and reads like one even though no teenagers I know wear bonnets or expect to be married at seventeen any more. Oh! And I love that towards the end of the book she grows calmer and starts to talk about having a set routine for her days, and getting up at six in the morning, and devoting at least six hours a day to reading new books and generally bettering herself through a calm, ordered life. And of course that falls flat in the space of a week (I inferred, it's never actually mentioned how long she carries on with it in the book) - and I did that when I was seventeen! I still do that! I always plan exercise regimes when trying to go to sleep at night.
So I also identified a lot with Marianne.
And the snark! Elinor's snark! I imagine that she developed it to survive her mother and sisters being so emotional and dramatic at all times, and she says it so sincerely, so dead-pannedly that they often don't notice. Let me quote:
'Oh!' cried Marianne, 'with what transporting sensations have I formerly seen them fall! How I have delighted, as I walked, to see them driven in showers about me by the wind! What feelings have they, the season, the air together inspired! Now there is no one to regard them. They are seen only as a nuisance, swept hastily off, and driven as much as possible from the sight.'
'It is not every one,' said Elinor, 'who has your passion for dead leaves.'
'No; my feelings are not often shared, not often understood. But sometimes they are.'
And I just - OH ELINOR. DEAD LEAVES. CAN WE BE FRIENDS FOREVER?
And now, to veer into a part of the book I did not like - Willoughby. Is. An. Ass. A douche. A complete blackguard scrub. As I read the last part of the book I kept going 'no, no, you don't have to forgive him! He's a douche! He was going to seduce and ruin your sister! You didn't let other people get away with dissing her, beat him around the head with your books! Stop making excuses for his behaviour!'
And I get that it would be acceptable, within the period of the time, for them to think more kindly of him once he explained why he let Marianne think they were practically engaged, but it really rankles in the modern day. Willoughby has already seduced one woman, who is in fact Colonel Brandon's sister's daughter. She is a bastard, and he goes and seduces her and leaves her pregnant, and takes off without leaving her any address to write to him, and then puts the blame on her for not getting in touch because she could have found out his address herself? When she was a pregnant, unmarried woman in Regency England and had no money or support of her own, and had no certainty that any letter she passed to him through his aunt would reach him?
Willoughby, you ass.
And then he goes and pays such attention to Marianne and lets her think they're practically engaged, and then goes off to London without directly breaking it off? So she's left unsure of what he really means? (I guess he could argue that if they had no formal engagement there was nothing to be broken off - and I say, Willoughby, you ass. So what if it wasn't formal. Her feelings were real enough.) And he heads off to London and hopes never to see her again so he doesn't have to tell her the direct truth?
And then gets formally engaged to another young woman for her fortune, and pretends not to notice Marianne when they happen to meet at a ball?
And then, when she sees him and calls him out on not answering her letters and acting as though he barely knows her and Elinor at the ball? (Look, okay, that would have been awkward if his official fiance was there to see it, but that could have been avoided if he'd broken it off with Marianne when he left Barton for London.)
And then, when Marianne writes him a letter full of teenaged fury and demands all her letters and tokens back, and never to see him again, he sends them back with a letter that is full of fake confusion about why she treats him so and genuine self-pity? When he probably knows perfectly well how upset she is? And later, to Elinor, claims that his fiancee made him write down every word and none of it was his? How convenient. How very convenient to have such a shrewish fiancee, who gets so emotional and clingy at the idea of him being engaged to another girl when he's set to marry her.
I really feel for his fiancee, although we never see her in person.
And that sends Marianne into a deep depression, and makes her unhappy for months afterwards, to the point where she goes walking in bad weather because she doesn't care for herself any more, and she gets a chill and nearly dies? Because he played her emotions like a puppet?
And then, to come hastening from London to Cleveland in a day and burst in on Elinor, and explain his actions in a way that puts him in the best light and makes him the victim of circumstances, his own weakness, his too-soft heart, and his apparently evil fiancee?
He was too attached to Marianne to break off his not-engagement with her when he knew he was going to marry someone else?
He liked Marianne, but not enough to encourage her feelings for him, knowing that he couldn't give her the same?
He liked Marianne, but not enough to not consider the idea of seducing her while he had a fiancee, and ruining her the way he ruined another innocent girl?
Willoughby, you ass.
You fucking, fucking ass.
So there are my thoughts about Willoughby, and how skeevy they seem from a modern viewpoint. Especially when Elinor and Marianne later forgive him a lot of the things he did, and generally think better of him than they should. The last chapter or so even mentions that he keeps enjoying hunting and even occasionally enjoys domestic happiness with his wife. I prefer my version, where Eliza (Colonel Brampton's niece, the girl who he first grieved) beats him black and blue with her slipper until he confesses everything to a large number of witnesses, and then Willoughby gets dead drunk and wanders into a pond on the way home and drowns, and his widow and Eliza take his fortune and go to the Caribbean to become pirates, and keep his stuffed head mounted in their cabin and use it for darts.
...and to go back to the more general review of the book, I enjoyed it. It was pleasant to read an Austen book and not know what would happen in advance. But that said, I can see why it is not as well-known in pop culture as Pride and Prejudice - because P&P has sparks flying and Lizzy and Darcy are two compelling leads, and there are plenty of amusing characters and escapades. P&P is funnier and more dramatic, but it is also sharper - I find it hard to believe that Lizzy could be so close to her younger sisters as Elinor is to Marianne; I suspect she would soon get impatient with them and go off on her own. But Sense and Sensibilty is a gentler, quieter story, and seen primarily through Elinor's eyes - I was a bit put off by the writing style, which seems a lot more detached than P&P, and also most of the humour comes from Elinor snarking out loud and in her own thoughts, which happens less. P&P has a snarky protagonist and a snarky narrator, which makes it funnier.
And I suppose I should touch on the romance between Elinor and Edward - but I don't have much to say about it. It's so low key, and understated. Elinor does such a good job of hiding her feelings from herself that she hid them from me pretty well too - and it was nice, of course, to see them get together, but I wasn't desperately flipping pages to see if they did - I almost wondered if they would get together at all, because it was so quietly done. When they did I found it a little surprising, like at the end of Mansfield Park where the cousins marry and this is apparently a happy ending? But the books were written in different times, of course.
So, Sense and Sensibility. It's not going to knock P&P out of its place as my favourite Austen, but I'm glad I read it - it's soothing, and a gentle read if you need something with a happy ending. And it introduced me to Elinor, and I am very happy for that.
I found that I liked it! It is the second Austen novel I have ever read, after Pride and Prejudice, although I remember stumbling through most of one adaptation of Mansfield Park and Persuasion. I remember a film of Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet and Alan Rickman and, I think, Hugh Grant? in it. but I never saw it and it's not so widely known as P&P, so I didn't know the plot. And it was a pleasant enough ride, because I was sure that everything would turn out all right in the end.
I love Elinor! She is so sensible, and if I have not made my love of sensible heroines and female characters in general clear then I have done this lj a disservice. I suspect that she is sensible because Marianne and Mrs Dashwood are very not-sensible and tend to the emotional side of things, so she has to be the sensible one by default. (I remember a throwaway line about Margaret being emotional too, but she's mostly a cardboard character and she's not much concerned with the story). I love how she tries to be sensible and reasonable and measured about her life, even her romantic life, and she gets flustered and emotional about it in spite of herself. I want to say something about her relationship with her sister - namely, that they are like sisters! Not a mother-daughter relationship! They look out for each other in different ways and talk about things that they could not talk about with their mother, and keep each other's secrets! One day I will make a long and rambling post about older sisters in fiction and how I am not impressed by a lot of them, but for now I will say that I love Elinor as an older sister. And how each of them - Elinor and Marianne - will tolerate multiple snubs and insults to themselves but say something against their sister and it is on. Because I recognise that in myself.
So I identified a lot, with Elinor.
And I identified a lot with Marianne, as well, but in the sense of looking back on your teenage years and groaning as you recognise yourself in her. Because times have moved on and we no longer wear bonnets and women are no longer dependent on marriage to support them - thank heavens! Or whoever - or rather, sometimes they still depend on being married for financial support, but it is recognised as a bad thing - but anyway, times have moved on, but teenagers have not changed an atom since Jane Austen was writing, and Marianne is utterly a teenage girl. She falls in love and has her heart dashed! She is heartbroken and inconsolable and wallows in her misery! She behaves in a way that would be very tiresome if not seen through the eyes of her sister! (Corollary - the tiresomeness bleeds through, but of course we were all once convinced that our lives were going to end because of some matter that now seems utterly trivial.) In short, she is a teenage girl and reads like one even though no teenagers I know wear bonnets or expect to be married at seventeen any more. Oh! And I love that towards the end of the book she grows calmer and starts to talk about having a set routine for her days, and getting up at six in the morning, and devoting at least six hours a day to reading new books and generally bettering herself through a calm, ordered life. And of course that falls flat in the space of a week (I inferred, it's never actually mentioned how long she carries on with it in the book) - and I did that when I was seventeen! I still do that! I always plan exercise regimes when trying to go to sleep at night.
So I also identified a lot with Marianne.
And the snark! Elinor's snark! I imagine that she developed it to survive her mother and sisters being so emotional and dramatic at all times, and she says it so sincerely, so dead-pannedly that they often don't notice. Let me quote:
'Oh!' cried Marianne, 'with what transporting sensations have I formerly seen them fall! How I have delighted, as I walked, to see them driven in showers about me by the wind! What feelings have they, the season, the air together inspired! Now there is no one to regard them. They are seen only as a nuisance, swept hastily off, and driven as much as possible from the sight.'
'It is not every one,' said Elinor, 'who has your passion for dead leaves.'
'No; my feelings are not often shared, not often understood. But sometimes they are.'
And I just - OH ELINOR. DEAD LEAVES. CAN WE BE FRIENDS FOREVER?
And now, to veer into a part of the book I did not like - Willoughby. Is. An. Ass. A douche. A complete blackguard scrub. As I read the last part of the book I kept going 'no, no, you don't have to forgive him! He's a douche! He was going to seduce and ruin your sister! You didn't let other people get away with dissing her, beat him around the head with your books! Stop making excuses for his behaviour!'
And I get that it would be acceptable, within the period of the time, for them to think more kindly of him once he explained why he let Marianne think they were practically engaged, but it really rankles in the modern day. Willoughby has already seduced one woman, who is in fact Colonel Brandon's sister's daughter. She is a bastard, and he goes and seduces her and leaves her pregnant, and takes off without leaving her any address to write to him, and then puts the blame on her for not getting in touch because she could have found out his address herself? When she was a pregnant, unmarried woman in Regency England and had no money or support of her own, and had no certainty that any letter she passed to him through his aunt would reach him?
Willoughby, you ass.
And then he goes and pays such attention to Marianne and lets her think they're practically engaged, and then goes off to London without directly breaking it off? So she's left unsure of what he really means? (I guess he could argue that if they had no formal engagement there was nothing to be broken off - and I say, Willoughby, you ass. So what if it wasn't formal. Her feelings were real enough.) And he heads off to London and hopes never to see her again so he doesn't have to tell her the direct truth?
And then gets formally engaged to another young woman for her fortune, and pretends not to notice Marianne when they happen to meet at a ball?
And then, when she sees him and calls him out on not answering her letters and acting as though he barely knows her and Elinor at the ball? (Look, okay, that would have been awkward if his official fiance was there to see it, but that could have been avoided if he'd broken it off with Marianne when he left Barton for London.)
And then, when Marianne writes him a letter full of teenaged fury and demands all her letters and tokens back, and never to see him again, he sends them back with a letter that is full of fake confusion about why she treats him so and genuine self-pity? When he probably knows perfectly well how upset she is? And later, to Elinor, claims that his fiancee made him write down every word and none of it was his? How convenient. How very convenient to have such a shrewish fiancee, who gets so emotional and clingy at the idea of him being engaged to another girl when he's set to marry her.
I really feel for his fiancee, although we never see her in person.
And that sends Marianne into a deep depression, and makes her unhappy for months afterwards, to the point where she goes walking in bad weather because she doesn't care for herself any more, and she gets a chill and nearly dies? Because he played her emotions like a puppet?
And then, to come hastening from London to Cleveland in a day and burst in on Elinor, and explain his actions in a way that puts him in the best light and makes him the victim of circumstances, his own weakness, his too-soft heart, and his apparently evil fiancee?
He was too attached to Marianne to break off his not-engagement with her when he knew he was going to marry someone else?
He liked Marianne, but not enough to encourage her feelings for him, knowing that he couldn't give her the same?
He liked Marianne, but not enough to not consider the idea of seducing her while he had a fiancee, and ruining her the way he ruined another innocent girl?
Willoughby, you ass.
You fucking, fucking ass.
So there are my thoughts about Willoughby, and how skeevy they seem from a modern viewpoint. Especially when Elinor and Marianne later forgive him a lot of the things he did, and generally think better of him than they should. The last chapter or so even mentions that he keeps enjoying hunting and even occasionally enjoys domestic happiness with his wife. I prefer my version, where Eliza (Colonel Brampton's niece, the girl who he first grieved) beats him black and blue with her slipper until he confesses everything to a large number of witnesses, and then Willoughby gets dead drunk and wanders into a pond on the way home and drowns, and his widow and Eliza take his fortune and go to the Caribbean to become pirates, and keep his stuffed head mounted in their cabin and use it for darts.
...and to go back to the more general review of the book, I enjoyed it. It was pleasant to read an Austen book and not know what would happen in advance. But that said, I can see why it is not as well-known in pop culture as Pride and Prejudice - because P&P has sparks flying and Lizzy and Darcy are two compelling leads, and there are plenty of amusing characters and escapades. P&P is funnier and more dramatic, but it is also sharper - I find it hard to believe that Lizzy could be so close to her younger sisters as Elinor is to Marianne; I suspect she would soon get impatient with them and go off on her own. But Sense and Sensibilty is a gentler, quieter story, and seen primarily through Elinor's eyes - I was a bit put off by the writing style, which seems a lot more detached than P&P, and also most of the humour comes from Elinor snarking out loud and in her own thoughts, which happens less. P&P has a snarky protagonist and a snarky narrator, which makes it funnier.
And I suppose I should touch on the romance between Elinor and Edward - but I don't have much to say about it. It's so low key, and understated. Elinor does such a good job of hiding her feelings from herself that she hid them from me pretty well too - and it was nice, of course, to see them get together, but I wasn't desperately flipping pages to see if they did - I almost wondered if they would get together at all, because it was so quietly done. When they did I found it a little surprising, like at the end of Mansfield Park where the cousins marry and this is apparently a happy ending? But the books were written in different times, of course.
So, Sense and Sensibility. It's not going to knock P&P out of its place as my favourite Austen, but I'm glad I read it - it's soothing, and a gentle read if you need something with a happy ending. And it introduced me to Elinor, and I am very happy for that.
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