Persuasion, Jane Austen

 

A beautiful clip about Persuasion

"You were single" Captain Wentworth said to Anne Elliot, the heroine of Persuasion, a modern novel published in year 1818. Persuasion is written by a middle aged Austen, prior to her death, published posthumously with one of her first works Northanger Abbey.

The story is about two lovers who are divided by the torrents of life. Anne is persuaded to give up her lover Wentworth, he sets out to sea and they are apart for seven years. The big question that persists through the novel is: Who is being persuaded and how? 

At first evidently Anne is persuaded to terminate the engagement but her heart is ever engaged to Wentworth. The story begins with a woman who has loved and lost evolving then into a novel about adult love. They've both been hurt and withdrawn in their own ways, Wentworth into his hurt and pride, and Anne into the oblivion of acting a wallflower in her sister's home at Uppercross and the events that take place in Bath and Lyme. She goes places and mingles with people but yet, she is not fully herself, she's hollowed and void of his love. 

In Austen's novels the bad guys are usually named with a W name Willoughby, in Sense and Sensibility and Wickham in Pride and Prejudice but in Persuasion the good guy, the solid guy is Wentworth who admits his wrongs, he is most human of them all, good and bad. Perhaps Jane Austen in real life knew a "Captain Wentworth" and had hopes of her own. I really enjoyed this novel because there where two parallel stories the first, and lesser one, was how public and private space is regulated for a woman who has passed her best before date, she is not the initiator but must wait, perhaps in vain and perhaps for nothing because of her own mistake in allowing Lady Harriet's opinion out rule the conviction of her heart. 

When Wentworth returns to connection with her family he has risen in rank and is now a captain expected to be looking to marry (someone younger than Anne of course). 

I think it to be of importance that he is a captain, there are a different set of rules out at sea, the seas do not have boarders but the waves move to an fro' like the subtle re-negotiation of Annes and Wentworth's social contract. In the beginning Wentworth says that Anne, at 27 is "altered beyond recognition" meaning that she's an old hag. He plays out his hurt feelings in similar tacky ways hurting her feelings, slighting her. Jane Austen shows me that the perfect romantic hero doesn't exist, and there is a villain in every man, even the best of them. However Anne does justice to the opposite sex, as she realizes and says to Wentworth's navy friend "I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachment and constancy were known only by woman" At last Captain Wentworth reveals his heart once more, and says that he has always loved only and constantly just her. 

Throughout the book I am reminded of the late Princess Diana, who was always graceful and helping others, appearing always with great tact and kindness, not trying to draw attention to herself, these are also the ways of Anne Elliot. She's adorned herself with a quiet and gentle spirit (1 Peter 3:4, Bible). Like the Mother of God, always painted with a small mouth on icons, signifying the manner of holy women, so Anne too, shows in her being good will and kindness and longsuffering without saying a word. That's a real lesson for a lady, a lesson that I've been failing hard to take, but something that I genuinely wish to cultivate. 

The other plot of the novel is how Anne and Wentworth find each other again, the ending is so beautiful, so many little hearts drawn in the margins of my paperback Everyman's. I listened to the book on Audible as I read. I had forgotten my book at home so for my lunchbreak at work i printed a few chapters out of the Gutenberg project. As I show you in the first picture, to get reading done, dear imaginary reader of this blog, I will have to struggle fairly hard.

I feel that my short rambling here doesn't do justice to the book now, I love this book, genuinely love it. It's so much to digest that I simply can't write it all here. 

What I will say as a side note is that I think the audio narration of Mary's (Annes sisters) character didn't give her justice, Mary appeared on the leaf of the book just as a tired mom who was looking to have a fun time. But it's peculiar how the reader is persuaded to judge her. I think Jane plays a trick on the reader there. 

The last chapter (chapter 24) is by far the wittiest and funniest text I've read in a very long time. 

I also watched the movie this past weekend, and boy! Is Wentworth hot! The Netflix film adaptation has received a lot of critique, I think this is because it's not a usual costume drama, but perhaps this is why I like it quite a lot. The film doesn't do justice to the book but it's an entertaining watch at least far as Wentworth goes.

I finish this hasty review in the heart wrenching quote from Captain Wentworth to Anne "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever"