Love Jane Austen. I lived in Winchester where she sadly died. It’s still incredible to me that her gravestone did not note her writing prowess, only that she was a spinster. ‘Quelle horreur’ Jane would have enjoyed the irony. Eventually her popularity as an author persuaded the city to celebrate her. Her gravestone is now inside the cathedral and she has a brass plaque I believe. Jane would have liked that.
An excellent article. I can see how my favourite Austen novel changed, as my life experience grew - from Pride and Prejudice in romantic youth, to Persuasion in more world-weary years. To love when all hope has gone, what an insight into the female soul our Jane had. I am also very grateful for the dramatists who have given us brilliant Austen adaptations, especially Persuasion, as classic tv series (I recommend the 1995 Ciaran Hinds/Amanda Root production for maximum emotional impact). I think Miss Austen would have been delighted to see her works on film.
Oh wow! I didn’t realise my dear Fanny is everyone’s least favourite!? I have two more chapters left and already so sad to leave Fanny and her musings! I’ve been loving it so much and I’ve only read P&P before so it is great to know that I have so much to look forward to with the other ones. Thanks for this :)
Maybe in today's world of excessive narcissism and noise, more people might come to appreciate quieter characters who nevertheless have a steel core of goodness.
Brilliant, as ever! I’m very much looking forward to reading Mansfield Park in your company later in the year, as I want to get more out of it. I’m a Persuasion/Emma joint top girl, and have also reread Persuasion the most. It really is something special 💕
I like MP because it's the most political of JA's novels, there's a critique of slavery and conspicious consumption done on the quiet. I think we forget how careful Austen had to be, policed not just by the State, but by her family.
It didn't do to get on the wrong side of The Brother With Money - Edward, whom she also loved. It makes for muddy family dynamics when you are completely financially dependent on your siblings in a world where poor women's opinions did not count.
I see a lot of Austen's own circumstances in Fanny. Her own family didn't much care for MP - I wonder if they suspected that like Lady Middleton in S&S they were being slyly mocked.
I think Mansfield Park is my favourite for so many reasons many of which you mention. She's not the sort of heroine that is fashionable today and I think that makes her disliked by lots of readers. I'm stunned that people prefer Mary Crawford!
I’ve been thinking a bit more about this and I hope you don’t mind if I share a few thoughts with you.
MP is such a coded text, the name gestures to the Mansfield case against slavery, but Austen also smuggles in little needles against slavery in Fanny’s enquiry to her uncle about the slave trade (which went unanswered).
The whole household is effectively living off the back of enslaved labour in the Carribbean, the patriarch who is going back and forth to his plantations would have been walking out onto fields there where human beings were being treated like cattle. No wonder he couldn’t answer. Because it happens so far away, it’s easy to pretend that it has no effects on the family who are benefiting from it.
But his oldest son has no moral compass, and his daughters are shallow materialistic women. It’s interesting that Mrs Norris bears the same name as a notorious Liverpool family of slave traders (the Norrises Speke Hall). And in her treatment of the servants and Fanny, Mrs Norris may be a pale imitation of what Sir John is doing in the Carribbean, treating people with little respect and exploiting the vulnerable. I can’t help thinking that Austen is semaphoring here what is really going one under all the posh frocks and gardens. As I’ve written about myself previously, slavery has effects on both sides, and the moral contagion seeps into societies which permit it. (We’re no better, our slaves are on the other side of the planet in sweat shops)
Fanny is imo, a bit like Austen herself, caged in by what she can and can’t say. She is reliant on these people, and can’t afford to preach lest she gets sent back where she came from (and this does happen). But she holds out for what is right, quietly and against all the odds. And I think Austen herself, in a world where women had to put up and shut up, knew very well the limits of what she could say publiclly. But she very cleverly in MP imo smuggled pointed critiques of the power imbalances in her society in ways which bypassed the censors. But it is telling that MP was the least popular of her novels with her family. They might have struggled to articulate it, but they probably guessed that the surface of the novel had a lot of hidden depths (a more apt metaphor than the play could not be found). That clever Aunt Jane saw a good deal more than was entirely comfortable.
You make some very interesting points. Jane Austen was always on the side of the underdog despite her novels being about making a good marriage - which frankly, ought not to be treated with derision or scorne since making a bad marriage is full of misery. It is so hard to know what she was and wasn't aware of but she certainly knew how to get across her point even if she had to fly under the radar. Fanny is a great character and so often maligned for being a goody-goody. She's very misunderstood.
I didn’t read Mansfield Park for years because I remembered my friend at school reading it and taking the piss out of what a fanny Fanny Price was. But I was pleasantly surprised when I read it, even if I would secretly quite like to be friends with Mary Crawford.
Fanny gets a hard time from modern readers. They don’t understand her. She’s incredibly brave because she stands up to all the fashionable, manipulating narcissicists in the novel.
I wouldn’t want to be friends with Mary Crawford who manipulative though she does achieve a certain amount of self knowlede at the end.
Love Jane Austen. I lived in Winchester where she sadly died. It’s still incredible to me that her gravestone did not note her writing prowess, only that she was a spinster. ‘Quelle horreur’ Jane would have enjoyed the irony. Eventually her popularity as an author persuaded the city to celebrate her. Her gravestone is now inside the cathedral and she has a brass plaque I believe. Jane would have liked that.
Such a shame it took so long for Jane to be appreciated but she’s really gone the distance now after 250 years!
An excellent article. I can see how my favourite Austen novel changed, as my life experience grew - from Pride and Prejudice in romantic youth, to Persuasion in more world-weary years. To love when all hope has gone, what an insight into the female soul our Jane had. I am also very grateful for the dramatists who have given us brilliant Austen adaptations, especially Persuasion, as classic tv series (I recommend the 1995 Ciaran Hinds/Amanda Root production for maximum emotional impact). I think Miss Austen would have been delighted to see her works on film.
I remember that production of Persuasion & recently bought the DVD which I'm looking forward to watching. It was really well done.
Oh wow! I didn’t realise my dear Fanny is everyone’s least favourite!? I have two more chapters left and already so sad to leave Fanny and her musings! I’ve been loving it so much and I’ve only read P&P before so it is great to know that I have so much to look forward to with the other ones. Thanks for this :)
I'm so glad I'm not alone in liking Fanny Price.
Maybe in today's world of excessive narcissism and noise, more people might come to appreciate quieter characters who nevertheless have a steel core of goodness.
I am starting Persuasion for the first time this evening and very much looking forward to it.
Brilliant, as ever! I’m very much looking forward to reading Mansfield Park in your company later in the year, as I want to get more out of it. I’m a Persuasion/Emma joint top girl, and have also reread Persuasion the most. It really is something special 💕
I just splashed out on a very posh hardback Persuasion.
I’m looking forward to that re-read so much.
I have to agree with P&P being the novel to begin an Austenian journey. Where would you put Lady Susan?
I have never read Lady Susan though am hoping to squeeze it in sometime this year.
I like MP because it's the most political of JA's novels, there's a critique of slavery and conspicious consumption done on the quiet. I think we forget how careful Austen had to be, policed not just by the State, but by her family.
It didn't do to get on the wrong side of The Brother With Money - Edward, whom she also loved. It makes for muddy family dynamics when you are completely financially dependent on your siblings in a world where poor women's opinions did not count.
I see a lot of Austen's own circumstances in Fanny. Her own family didn't much care for MP - I wonder if they suspected that like Lady Middleton in S&S they were being slyly mocked.
I think Mansfield Park is my favourite for so many reasons many of which you mention. She's not the sort of heroine that is fashionable today and I think that makes her disliked by lots of readers. I'm stunned that people prefer Mary Crawford!
I’ve been thinking a bit more about this and I hope you don’t mind if I share a few thoughts with you.
MP is such a coded text, the name gestures to the Mansfield case against slavery, but Austen also smuggles in little needles against slavery in Fanny’s enquiry to her uncle about the slave trade (which went unanswered).
The whole household is effectively living off the back of enslaved labour in the Carribbean, the patriarch who is going back and forth to his plantations would have been walking out onto fields there where human beings were being treated like cattle. No wonder he couldn’t answer. Because it happens so far away, it’s easy to pretend that it has no effects on the family who are benefiting from it.
But his oldest son has no moral compass, and his daughters are shallow materialistic women. It’s interesting that Mrs Norris bears the same name as a notorious Liverpool family of slave traders (the Norrises Speke Hall). And in her treatment of the servants and Fanny, Mrs Norris may be a pale imitation of what Sir John is doing in the Carribbean, treating people with little respect and exploiting the vulnerable. I can’t help thinking that Austen is semaphoring here what is really going one under all the posh frocks and gardens. As I’ve written about myself previously, slavery has effects on both sides, and the moral contagion seeps into societies which permit it. (We’re no better, our slaves are on the other side of the planet in sweat shops)
Fanny is imo, a bit like Austen herself, caged in by what she can and can’t say. She is reliant on these people, and can’t afford to preach lest she gets sent back where she came from (and this does happen). But she holds out for what is right, quietly and against all the odds. And I think Austen herself, in a world where women had to put up and shut up, knew very well the limits of what she could say publiclly. But she very cleverly in MP imo smuggled pointed critiques of the power imbalances in her society in ways which bypassed the censors. But it is telling that MP was the least popular of her novels with her family. They might have struggled to articulate it, but they probably guessed that the surface of the novel had a lot of hidden depths (a more apt metaphor than the play could not be found). That clever Aunt Jane saw a good deal more than was entirely comfortable.
You make some very interesting points. Jane Austen was always on the side of the underdog despite her novels being about making a good marriage - which frankly, ought not to be treated with derision or scorne since making a bad marriage is full of misery. It is so hard to know what she was and wasn't aware of but she certainly knew how to get across her point even if she had to fly under the radar. Fanny is a great character and so often maligned for being a goody-goody. She's very misunderstood.
I didn’t read Mansfield Park for years because I remembered my friend at school reading it and taking the piss out of what a fanny Fanny Price was. But I was pleasantly surprised when I read it, even if I would secretly quite like to be friends with Mary Crawford.
Fanny gets a hard time from modern readers. They don’t understand her. She’s incredibly brave because she stands up to all the fashionable, manipulating narcissicists in the novel.
I wouldn’t want to be friends with Mary Crawford who manipulative though she does achieve a certain amount of self knowlede at the end.
Fanny is the ultimate outsider.