readingausten

[readingausten]

Thoughts on Mansfield Park

Part 3: My favourite adaptation

Yes, I’ve already started Northanger Abbey, but I realized I forgot to make my last posts of thoughts about Mansfield, so here we go!

I wasn’t very keen on the film adaptation of Mansfield Park, but I’d like to draw some attention to a lesser-known adaptation: Kate Watson’s Seeking Mansfield. This book is contemporary YA retelling in the vein of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (except in book form, not webseries. And with less humour, as some of the subject matter is darker.) Much like LBD, Seeking Mansfield updates the classic characters to a modern-day setting and adds some much-needed diversity. The Fanny Price character - now called Finley - is a biracial Latina. Instead of being the cousin of the Bertrams, she is now the goddaughter of Mr. Bertram. The Bertram children are now Tate, Oliver, and Juliette (poor Maria and Julia got mashed together into one character.) Their father was the roommate of Finley’s father at college and the two man were life-long friends until Mr. Price, an actor, dies and the Bertrams take Finley in after her mother loses custody of her. Instead of living with the Bertrams from a young age, Finley has only been living with them for two years.

Mild spoilers for Seeking Mansfield follow:

Keep reading

[readingausten]

Thoughts on Northanger Abbey

Part 1: Short and sweet, but still my favourite

I’ve had an unexpected experience reading Northanger Abbey this time around. For some reason, I forgot that this book is kind of short? It’s weird, because it didn’t feel short the first, second, or third time I read it. Maybe because those early readings were for school and we spent 2 weeks discussing it from every angle. Or maybe it just feels short because I’m reading it after Emma and Mansfield Park. I’ve always been a fast reader, so maybe my perceptions are just messed up. But it was so easy to sit down with the intent of reading a few chapters only to find myself halfway into the first volume before I could blink. (Side note: I love the opening chapter and its discourse on what makes a heroine, which I plan on doing a separate post about.) 

Don’t get me wrong, I still adore this book. I just have to force myself to slow down and savour it, not devour it like one of Catherine’s gothic novels.

[readingausten]

Cap ‘n Quote: Northanger Abbey 

(requested by pendragonness)

He felt himself bound as much in honour as in affection to Miss Morland, and believing his heart to be his own which he had been directed to gain, no unworthy retraction of a tacit consent, no reversing decree of unjustifiable anger, could shake his fidelity, or influence the resolutions it prompted

[readingausten]

Northanger Abbey is probably the book I was most looking forward to in this year-long group. I’ve only read it once before, but I adored it.

I think it’s Austen’s most underrated book and I also think it’s her funniest. Cathy Morland is a great protagonist who you sometimes want to, as my grandmother said once, “grab and shake the sense into her” (this is a quality I love in a protagonist).

[readingausten]

Last notes on Mansfield Park

Every re reading I feel more pity for Henry and see less and less whatever Fanny sees in Edmund. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Fanny should have chosen differently. It is just that we are told Edmund is this great man… just because he used to be kinder to Fanny than the others? Because he taught her principles? Well, yes, I won’t deny that’s something, but it doesn’t make him such a great man as he is supposed to be. 

Look, on the other end of the spectrum, Mr. Knightley. Mr. Knightley isn’t only a good preacher of principles: he is a man that lives those principles in a clever way, and worries and is kind not only to Emma, but to pretty much everyone else he sees he can be of use to. When do we see Edmund, besides his treatment of Fanny, actually think of others farther than his duty to his father and siblings?

If the root of all sin is pride and vanity, then Henry is that much worse than Edmund only because of the social consequences of his actions (which I don’t think are to be downplayed, of course), and not because of virtue Edmund acquired by himself.

En fin. Fanny has suffered enough and I will let her have what she wanted all along.

I think Mansfield Park is the closest a Jane Austen novel is to a Cinderella story: a girl in poverty, always looked down by her richer relations, triumphs in the end through her courage and kindness.

Though this time around I found some flaws in Fanny I had not seen before. For example, she sees ill intention and competition in Mary Crawford, when in reality Mary wishes her good. Mary has no way of knowing Fanny was in love with Edmund, and any suspicion of the kind wouldn’t have been a good thing coming of her. Her feelings for Edmund were real, even if her temper and ways weren’t the best, and her selfish consideration of his actions as only relating to her were unjust. Fanny even kind of blames Mary for Edmund’s stupidity and that’s… She also had a very unrealistic idea of what she would find at Portsmouth.

Even this somber novel has some peak comedy moments, like sir Thomas thinking he’s getting rid of Mr. Yates for good, the butler picturing Mrs. Norris being addressed marriage proposals by Henry Crawford and her not getting his meaning at all, Edmund and sir Thomas preventing Mrs. Norris from spoiling William an Fanny’s meeting, or the irony of Fanny getting to open a Mansfield ball with Henry (getting everything her cousins wanted but that she didn’t want at all).

Another thing I noticed is that characters as opposite as Fanny and Emma get to express out loud the same feeling: who said women must accept a proposal just because it is offered to them?

I love William and Susan Price… a lot. Like, these two deserve their own novels. William’s story at sea, and then his sweet relationship with Fanny (planning on saving to buy a cottage to live together in their old age!); and then Susan with all her common sense and choleric temper and thirst for learning and doing and being useful… She deserves her own romance. (I may or may have not begun written one for her, crossover with PotC sorry for those who read the first chapter I swear I’ll go back and write more sorry). These Price siblings deserve more love.

[readingausten]

Northanger Abbey (2007)

[readingausten]

Thoughts on Mansfield Park

Part 2: Slim Pickings for Suitors

Okay so… I don’t care for Henry Crawford.

Sometimes I get the impression that this is an unpopular opinion. Edmund is boring, people say. He’s her cousin! (Yeah, that’s valid. I know people married their cousins in the time period this novel takes place, but NOPE.) He spends too much time talking about Mary Crawford! (Also valid. Why are you so obsessed with her, Ed?) The truth is, poor Fanny Price got the short end of the stick when it comes to potential husbands. She doesn’t get a Knightley, or a Darcy, or even a Henry Tilney (he’s the superior Henry in Austen-canon, fight me.) Instead, she gets these two jokers.

The problem is when everyone around Fanny starts talking about how great Henry is, and Fanny is just… not interested. She made note of his actions toward Maria and Julia and didn’t like what she saw. There’s one point where the nicest thought she has is that he’s a good actor (the scene where he reads aloud to the group.) Like… if that’s the only thing the guy has going for him, I can’t root for him. For me it’s enough that Fanny herself doesn’t like him. And the way everyone tries to push him on her is so shitty. Trying to make her feel obligated because he got her brother a commission. Mr. Darcy would never! That is not how you make a grand selfless gesture, sir! I’m still proud of her for not wavering. Mr. Crawford shows his true colours in the end. I just think some some readers are a bit too soft on Henry Crawford. He’s not as bad as a Willoughby or a Wickham, but I just can’t get on board. I can see why some might think him a problematic fave, but if I have a problematic fave in Austen-canon, I’d go for Frank Churchill myself. I blame Ewan McGregor for that.

I’m happy Fanny ended up with the guy she wanted, but I found Edmund so much more annoying this time around. He really can’t shut up about Mary! But at least he actually valued Fanny as a person and cared about her opinions. The guy has some redeemable qualities. But the cousin thing… *Karen Smith voice* but he’s my first cousin!

Yeah, overall I wish Fanny had been given some better options.

[readingausten]

Warning, this post is anti-Mansfield Park, but not anti-Fanny.

Mansfield Park is proving to be quite a struggle for me. I’m still only 2/3 of the way through, so my feelings may change some.

Fanny gets blamed for this book being the least-loved Jane Austen novel and while she doesn’t number among my favorite Austen heroines, I don’t see her as the problem.

The problem is nothing happens.

We get a few pages of thinking Fanny’s going to live with Aunt Norris and then she…doesn’t.

We get chapters upon chapters of planning and rehearsing for a play that…doesn’t happen.

Chapters that our protagonist is by and large absent from. Fanny gets ignored by her cousins, her aunts, her uncle, and often, the narrative. Mansfield Park doesn’t feel like Fanny’s book to me because Mansfield Park doesn’t seem very interested in Fanny.

I think that’s a shame.

[readingausten]

Reading Mansfield Park

I have seen some amazing posts about this novel already, so I feel like my direct approach to “the flesh of the text” as a professor liked to say is a poor thing, but here it goes, anyways.

Mansfield Park seems to be a long commentary on the Latin adaggio “Quod natura not dat, Salamanctica non praestat” (what nature doesn’t give, the University of Salamanca cannot provide). Each character embodies a case of study for the nature vs. nurture debate.

Henry and Mary are seen as creatures of education, but of their early education, and one that once fixed, cannot be corrected. Henry’s inconstancy is learned, as is Mary’s calculating and playful approach to life, and these things are the ones to ruin their chances at love with Fanny and Edmund. Both may be naturally warm and even kind (they genuinely care more for Fanny than all her Mansfield relatives except Edmund), but their upbringings harmed irrevocably their prospects of real happiness.

Then you have Mr. Rushworth, rich, adored by his mother, but who lacks any natural talents: He has no memory, no social awareness, and barely any intelligence. If he had noticed what everybody else except Edmund noticed about Maria and him, he would have probably avoided his disastrous marriage.

None of the Ward sisters seem to have inherited or acquired any common sense: Mrs Bertram is beautiful, and nothing more. Mrs. Norris thought Maria and Mr. Rushworth could make a good couple, and didn’t see nothing wrong with the theater. As long as she can imagine herself important and useful, at little to none expense, then everything is perfect to her. Mrs. Price marriage and management of her home and her relationship with her family show poor judgement too.

The miss Bertrams were taught every appearance of virtue, but not to live virtuously. The brothers, educated the same way, go in opposite directions: Tom not only lacks the principles that would make of him a good, useful member of society, but rejects even the appearance of it. Edmund, on the other hand, cares for virtue and for the appearance of virtue, but his vanity is his downfall.

Even Dr. Grant exemplifies an education that made of him an unwise erudite, versed in the dangers and sinfulness of gluttony and wrath, and seemingly unaware of the manifestation of those vices in his own life.

Paradoxically, the characters that are shown as models in some way are the ones whose education was most neglected: Fanny and Susan. 

Fanny is in many ways Edmund’s creature. More than the basic things she could get from Maria and Julia’s governess, her education was provided by him, and his influence was great because he was the one that actually treated her with kindness and consideration. In the end, however, Fanny’s judgement is better than Edmund’s, precisely because she has present to her the notion that she may be wrong about things. Edmund is persuaded of his own moral and intellectual superiority, and this persuasion blinds him. Fanny, in turn, is used to observe the behavior of others and be aware of her own feelings and impressions, and use this information to continually update her judgments about people and the world. 

Lt. and Mrs. Price have an unconcealed preference for their sons over their daughters, and Betsey being the youngest girl and the one most like her mother, Susan finds herself in the last place of her family (this girl deserves a novel all about herself, I insist). She’s intelligent, though, and she can see how things are being done the wrong way and fights to make things better. Fanny admires Susan because below her “coarse” exterior there’s a strong sense of justice, an affectionate heart and an earnest desire for improvement.

I think Mansfield Park is a gloomy psychological novel, not only because of the abuse Fanny endures, or how she hardly ever can do or does anything to move things forward, but because of a dark observation about the power of education. If nature didn’t give you intelligence and/or memory, you will most probably end up at the mercy of others (Mr. Rushworth, Mrs. Bertram). If you have been well endowed by nature in that respect, a bad education can ruin your chances at happiness anyways (Henry, Mary), the same way a good education may fail to teach you the things that are actually important –be good, not just appear as good– (Maria, Julia), or fool you into thinking you are always right (Edmund) or fail to teach you anything at all (Tom).

in the end, what seems to be the only hope, is a sincere desire to improve oneself, paired with some heavy struggles early on in your life, as shown in Fanny and Susan.

[readingausten]

Is Mansfield Park even Fanny’s book?

[readingausten]

Mansfield Park

This is not going to be a coherent, well-thought-out essay, because I don’t have time for that but I do have Thoughts, especially about the ending.

Keep reading

[readingausten]

The Prison of Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park is a novel about place, specifically the sense of place and being out of place. More than any other completed work by Austen, we get a sense of the world outside the novel, both in time and space.

The novel starts with events thirty years earlier and in a much different location than the titular one. Miss Maria Ward and her two sisters come from Huntingdon, probably the most backwater location in Austen’s work. Now part of Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire at the time had a population under 50,000, having never really recovered from the Black Death. Huntingdon’s claim to fame was as the birthplace of Oliver Cromwell. In a novel full of pretenders, the “pretender to the throne” seems an apt reference.

Its other mark of notoriety revolved around a tragedy known as the Witches of Warboys. Warboys was a town a few miles from Huntingdon, where in 1593, Alice Samuels and her husband and daughter were executed for witchcraft after the injury of the rich Throckmorton family’s child. The family then made an endowment for an Oxford fellow to come to Huntingdon once a year to preach a sermon on the sin of witchcraft. The practice continued until 1812, though by then the Oxford fellows had long since stopped preaching on witchcraft (to the dismay of the Throckmortons). One sermon in the late 1790s instead painted the Samuels family as victims of bigotry rather than practitioners of witchcraft.

It was an embarrassing legacy for Huntingdon, and one which Austen, with her Oxford-educated brothers, doubtless knew of. So this is the background in which the Ward sisters are brought up. All three escape Huntingdon but none really belong in their new homes. The heroine’s mother, Mrs. Price, doesn’t have the mental resources for the life she now leads, with ten children and an alcoholic husband on half-pay, at the very bottom of gentility. Mrs. Norris married a clergyman but couldn’t be worse as an example of Christian charity. Neither is she a proper member of her social sphere: we hear of her offering a charm to a servant for a child’s ailment (a sign of supernatural thinking, far removed from church orthodoxy or scientific reason), rearranging a fire (a servant’s menial task), and comically deferring to her nieces and nephew rather than standing as a figure of respect and authority with them.

Lady Bertram is perhaps the most intriguing of the three. Everyone in the novel knows that the world has to be arranged around her, because she won’t lift a finger to trouble herself. Not until the climax, when her eldest son is gravely and her daughter has exposed them all to scandal, does anything phase her. The young Lady Bertram, née Maria Ward, probably was overwhelmed by Mansfield Park when she first arrived. We know she didn’t like London, and it’s easy to imagine her feeling unequal to the society into which she married. Rather than risk taking a wrong step and revealing her low origins, she retreats into herself. She mimics an indolent lady of the highest circles and eventually becomes one.

Lady Bertram serves as a possible foreshadowing of her niece Fanny. Fanny Price comes to Mansfield young and unprepared (though unlike her aunt, she comes against her will). Throughout the novel she struggles with her feelings of insecurity. She knows she does not belong; everything and everyone there serves to remind her of that. If she cannot make herself loved, she tries to make herself indispensable. Indeed, she is the daughter of a gentleman, but most of her family in Mansfield transform her into virtually a servant.

Mansfield serves as a prison for many of its inhabitants. Tom, the eldest son and heir, spends most of his time far away from the seat of his father’s authority. Lady Bertram rarely stirs from home, and Mrs. Norris finds excuses to spend more of her time (and less of her money) at the park. The Bertram girls are chafing for freedom. In a scene full of metaphor and subtext, Maria quotes a famous abolitionist text as a reference to her own bid for freedom. When Maria runs off with Mr. Crawford, Julia, who has already striven to delay her return home, elopes with one of Tom’s friends.

Fanny (Austen’s true “great reader”) travels the world inside her little white attic by reading biographies and history—and of course, through the letters of her beloved brother William, who is in the navy. When she returns to her hometown of Portsmouth, she’s delighted by the possibilities, but discovers that Mansfield has made her unfit for the chaos and poverty of her birthplace. It’s a horrifying discovery, that she belongs nowhere. No doubt Lady Bertram would have felt the same way if she returned to Huntingdon.

In the end, Maria escapes Mansfield physically, taking with her Mrs. Norris, but they remain financially dependent on the estate. Julia is drawn back, and Tom accepts Mansfield as his place. Fanny finds a place where she belongs in a country parsonage, but never far from Mansfield, as ultimately none can truly break from its orbit.

[readingausten]

Thoughts on Mansfield Park

Part 1: leave Fanny Price alone

I get the impression that Mansfield Park isn’t as well loved in fandom as it is in academia. I studied Mansfield Park as an undergrad and as a grad student and let me tell you: academics love teaching Mansfield (and Northanger, but we’ll get into that later.)

I was about 20 when I first read Mansfield and I instantly related to Fanny Price. I didn’t have Elizabeth Bennet’s wit, Emma’s charm, or Elinor’s restrained emotion. I was a shy baby who gets tired easily and has a hard time standing up for myself - just like Fanny. But also like Fanny, I learned that I could stand up for myself when it something really important was at stake. And I’ve gotten a lot better at it over the years. Fanny is also kind of judge-y of everyone around her, but so am I. 

Reading it again, I just wanted to swoop in and protect this poor girl from all the awful people around her. Mrs. Norris is the absolute worst - maybe even the worst in all of Austen canon. It occurred to me that she takes such delight in attacking Fanny and reminding her that she doesn’t belong, is because she also feels that she doesn’t belong at Mansfield and is projecting her own insecurities on Fanny because she’s an easier target. I’ve never had a Mrs. Norris figure in my life, but as a biracial girl who is lighter skinned but not white-passing, there have been times where I’ve been made to feel as if I didn’t belong. But unlike Fanny, I would have jumped at the chance to be in a play.

It kind of makes me sad that Fanny gets overlooked - both by the other characters in the novel and in the face of some of Austen’s more outgoing heroines. We also studied the 90′s film adaptation in a few of my classes and, while there’s a lot that this version gets right, it annoyed me to no end that they completely changed Fanny’s characterization and made her more outgoing. There’s a great line another Austen-adjacent film, The Jane Austen Book Club, where one character says of the 1999 adaptation: “Well, it’s not Mansfield Park - it’s more of an interpretation.” This is the truest thing I have ever heard. (This is also how I feel about the Kelvin timeline Star Trek movies - I enjoyed them, but they are also “more of an interpretation”.) I even got into a row with a classmate who said they saw little difference between movie!Fanny and book!Fanny. HE WAS VERY WRONG. But if I didn’t stand up for Fanny, who would?

Long story short: Fanny Price is fine exactly the way she is and every time I read about her staying true to herself, defying her uncle, and refusing Henry Crawford’s proposal, I am so proud of her. Stay tuned for Part 2, where I discuss my unpopular opinions about Fanny’s love interests.

[readingausten]

Thoughts on Mansfield Park

Part 1: leave Fanny Price alone

I get the impression that Mansfield Park isn’t as well loved in fandom as it is in academia. I studied Mansfield Park as an undergrad and as a grad student and let me tell you: academics love teaching Mansfield (and Northanger, but we’ll get into that later.)

I was about 20 when I first read Mansfield and I instantly related to Fanny Price. I didn’t have Elizabeth Bennet’s wit, Emma’s charm, or Elinor’s restrained emotion. I was a shy baby who gets tired easily and has a hard time standing up for myself - just like Fanny. But also like Fanny, I learned that I could stand up for myself when it something really important was at stake. And I’ve gotten a lot better at it over the years. Fanny is also kind of judge-y of everyone around her, but so am I. 

Reading it again, I just wanted to swoop in and protect this poor girl from all the awful people around her. Mrs. Norris is the absolute worst - maybe even the worst in all of Austen canon. It occurred to me that she takes such delight in attacking Fanny and reminding her that she doesn’t belong, is because she also feels that she doesn’t belong at Mansfield and is projecting her own insecurities on Fanny because she’s an easier target. I’ve never had a Mrs. Norris figure in my life, but as a biracial girl who is lighter skinned but not white-passing, there have been times where I’ve been made to feel as if I didn’t belong. But unlike Fanny, I would have jumped at the chance to be in a play.

It kind of makes me sad that Fanny gets overlooked - both by the other characters in the novel and in the face of some of Austen’s more outgoing heroines. We also studied the 90′s film adaptation in a few of my classes and, while there’s a lot that this version gets right, it annoyed me to no end that they completely changed Fanny’s characterization and made her more outgoing. There’s a great line another Austen-adjacent film, The Jane Austen Book Club, where one character says of the 1999 adaptation: “Well, it’s not Mansfield Park - it’s more of an interpretation.” This is the truest thing I have ever heard. (This is also how I feel about the Kelvin timeline Star Trek movies - I enjoyed them, but they are also “more of an interpretation”.) I even got into a row with a classmate who said they saw little difference between movie!Fanny and book!Fanny. HE WAS VERY WRONG. But if I didn’t stand up for Fanny, who would?

Long story short: Fanny Price is fine exactly the way she is and every time I read about her staying true to herself, defying her uncle, and refusing Henry Crawford’s proposal, I am so proud of her. Stay tuned for Part 2, where I discuss my unpopular opinions about Fanny’s love interests.

[readingausten]

Today (slightly late), we start Mansfield Park.

Mansfield is maybe the most challenging of Austen’s novels. Its heroine is more often reactive than active. The foils for the hero and heroine are the most charming and likable of all the novels. Its conclusion is dissatisfying to a lot of people on several levels.

It is perhaps Austen’s most ambitious work, barring the unfinished Sanditon. After the success of Pride and Prejudice, she told someone via letter that her next novel would be about ordination. Whether she was joking—she rather famously critiqued her final version of P&P as “too light, bright, and sparkling”—or not, ordination does form a major part of the first half of the book. Edmund Bertram, second son, intends to take orders, and the woman he’s infatuated with refuses to see the church as a viable occupation for a gentleman she’s interested in.

But take ordination and order in a broader sense. Sir Thomas Bertram represents order in Mansfield Park. He removes Fanny Price, our heroine, from the chaos of her Portsmouth home and brings her to Mansfield to be raised and educated in the park’s wealth and order. Tom Bertram, the eldest son, spends much of his time elsewhere away from his father’s control. Maria and Julia, the daughters of Sir Thomas, chafe at his control but comply outwardly with his expectations.

Tom’s extravagant spending brings about the plot: Sir Thomas must travel to Antigua, where his plantations are struggling. He hopes to correct the trouble there and correct his son in the bargain by taking him along. But when the business in Antigua takes longer than expected, he sends Tom back to England, where Tom can bring his idleness and profligacy home.

The other effect of Tom’s overspending is that Sir Thomas must sell the advowson of Mansfield parish—the right to name the next parson, a lifetime appointment—rather than save it for his younger son. The new parson, Dr. Grant, brings his wife, who invites her younger half-siblings. Henry and Mary Crawford are fresh from London, fashionable and hinting at scandal. Mary makes sexual innuendo at the dinner table and subtly mocks piety; Henry thinks of the church only as a way to become a famous orator, and he flirts with both Bertram sisters for his own amusement. They bring doubt and disorder to Mansfield.

And where is Fanny Price in all of this? Fanny is at Mansfield, where she is treated as little better than a servant by her two aunts, Lady Bertram and Mrs. Norris. Fanny thrives on order, and the chaos that ensues upon Tom’s return and the Crawfords’ arrival shocks and dismays her. Many critics have argued that Fanny is hardly a factor in her own book or that she’s boring or insipid. But she plays a phenomenally important role in the book. At two critical points in the novel, Fanny stands her ground, despite her timidity and despite her constant sense of owing the people of Mansfield for her very presence there.

Inescapable within Mansfield Park is the undercurrent of slavery. The Bertram family wealth is built on the backs of enslaved Africans. Any contemporary reader would have seen the title and thought of Lord Mansfield, the judge who ruled that chattel slavery was not supported by common law in England. Cruel and demanding Mrs. Norris shares her surname with a notorious slave trader. Fanny’s favorite poet is William Cowper, famous for his abolitionist verses; Maria flippantly quotes an abolitionist text by Laurence Stern. When married, Maria moves into the house formerly occupied by Lady Lascelles. The real Lascelles family fortune was, like the fictional Bertrams’, based on slavery in the West Indies.

There is also a curious choice of word in Mansfield Park: the word chain appears fourteen times, far more than the rest of Austen’s novels combined. It is mostly in reference to a necklace given to Fanny in the middle of the book, one on which she wears a cross. The pairing of the symbol of the church with the symbol of slavery is perhaps pointing to a shameful state of affairs in the Church of England at the time: the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the church’s missionary arm, had been bequeathed two Barbados plantations, along with their slaves. The slaves were not emancipated until the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.

Some read Fanny Price’s situation as a metaphor for slavery: she is taken from her home against her will; she is turned into little better than a servant in her new, opulent home and made to sleep in an attic; most of the people who have known her for years are shocked to discover she is a person with a will of her own. Others see in her a story of breaking the cycle of abuse: Fanny never retaliates against her abusers and is ultimately vindicated in her principles. Still others see a story focused on the wrong characters. Whatever your interpretation, it is an intriguing and challenging novel.

[readingausten]

Finishing Emma!

The Crown ball. I didn’t remember the beginning of the event, with all that people coming early to inspect and then standing and chatting around a fire. It gives the scene a familiar touch (even if Emma thinks it as too much familiarity).

Emma’s description of Mr. Knightley during the ball is a thing of beauty. 

Slimmy Mr. Elton! It is the first time we hear him talk since his wedding. A little man made even more little by his wife indeed! I am just trying to imagine the scene from George’s point of view: him seeing Mr. Elton humiliate Harriet, the exchange of glances between the Eltons, the clergyman trying to talk to him… I can imagine how angry he was at such levels of bad treatment of an innocent girl. I’d just love to see him cutting Mr. Elton off and his face, ohhhh

“Brother and sister! No, indeed.” is kinda cute in the book, but a bad choice for an adaptation, indeed.

Mr. Knightley’s pov! I didn’t remember this! Man is clever. However, I don’t think he wouldn’t have noticed the understanding between Jane and Frank if he were not so jealous for Emma.

Emma and Mr. Knightley are the only ones actually interested in playing with the alphabet thing. NERDS. My poor man. He’s so concerned that she doesn’t get hurt by Frank. And then the transition from the fire at Hartfield to the coolness of Donwell… my heart.

“Cabbage beds would have been enough to tempt the lady” XD

It is a thing of beauty, the way in which Box Hill and the strawberry party are entwined (and how they showcase the idle life of the people in Highbury). The whole conversation between Mrs. Elton and Mr. Knightley is glorious, because she thinks she understands, but she doesn’t.

I realized I am getting old because for the first time I cringe at Mr. Weston’s inability to read social clues. Not that I am the queen of the social game, but… really, I can feel the cringe now. The description of Donwell and Abbey-Mill farm is… You can all keep Pemberley for yourselves XD

Oh, Box Hill. I don’t know how Austen manages to do it, but you can perfectly feel the heaviness of the scene. Also, the vicious fight between Jane and Frank. Seriously. Mr. Knightley calls her out only about the part that was her fault, her treatment of miss Bates. He didn’t blame what was Frank’s fault on her. And she cried all the way back home because she knew he was right. Also that “while I can” hurts. so. much.

I know a lot of people cannot forgive this novel for being conformist with class concerns; but I don’t think the concern for using one’s privilege to help others is a lesson to be dismissed. Selfishness cannot be the rule of our behavior. In whichever thing we are rich, we have a responsibility of giving. I think that’s important as well. Penance is like tears, it’s salty but feels good. Her resolution to be more attentive to the Bateses, even in thought, and her visit next morning depict this very well.

Mr. Knightley’s departure and the detailed description of his almost kissing her hand. My heart. They understand each other so well when they are intentionally communicating. So cute.

Jane returning the arrowroot was too harsh. I did not remember that. I mean, yes, Emma had neglected her in the past, but at least she had not smothered her like Mrs. Elton did, and most of the fault fell upon her fiance. Emma had been decided to leave her alone and to feel compassion for her even before Frank’s arrival. I can understand not wanting to see Emma, but accepting some arrowroot? Really?

The discovery of Jane and Frank’s engagement and the plot twist of Harriet fancying herself in love with Mr. Knightley, or as I mentally picture it, three trains going over Emma.

Me, trying to find words to talk about the proposal scene: “…���

The lovely sweet scene followed by Mr. Woodhouse’s unawareness of the “betrayal” is comedic gold.

Frank’s letter. Oh my. Can I point out Mr. Knightley reviewing the letter? Imagine the process of saying “I wonder what would Mr. Knightley say if he were to read this letter?” This part is so… fanfic-ey? and I love it. I think Austen actually had fun writing George. Can I point out how mind-blowing is that he offers to go live at Hartfield? Ask for William Larkins’ approval, indeed.

The last chapters are all delightful fluff. Emma not being able to call him anything but Mr. Knightley is… right, somehow. Though the recollections of her teenage years are not to my taste, really. “Mr. K.”. XD But the honesty and unreserve between them… #RelationshipGoals. Also, the calculations to guess how long would it take for the engagement to be known all over Highbury. I insist, Highbury is every little town ever.

I still feel Harriet’s late attachment to Robert Martin too sudden. But my sweet boy deserves happiness and Harriet was what he wanted. Also, Emma talks to herself when alone. I feel less alone.

Closing this book still feels like the fullness of having had enough of every favorite food. Man, I love it so much.

[readingausten]

I keep reading Emma...

Mr. Woodhouse wouldn’t think as ill of anyone as to imagine them wanting to marry. I can’t.

The Crown is one of the little things I love the most about this novel. The idea of old things that have fallen into oblivion being restored to their former glory always makes me go squeeeeeeeee.

One of the interesting things is, while Emma tends to err a lot when judging other people’s characters, there’s one character she always gets right: George Knightley. She can read him like a book. She can see the intention behind things he does (for example, when Frank goes to London and he makes a comment, she knows it is not for the sake of picking a fight, but to relieve his feelings), she can see that he wouldn’t think of Jane as a partner in a million years, etc.

Every re read, the more I see how much of an idiot Frank is. A week in Highbury and he has almost betrayed himself twice each day.

I still love Mr. Knightley a normal amount. Man thought about the Bateses and they needs and anticipated them offering his carriage. And he had no ulterior motives than the idea he has that he owes others things because of his position of privilege. UGH. Also, that moment in which everyone is at the Bateses, and Mr. Knightley refuses to enter, yields when he’s told that Emma and Harriet are there, then changes his mind when he’s told that Frank is there. Jealous much, ahem. Also, when he says he cannot love a woman who doesn’t have an open temper… *dreamy sigh* (let something for us extroverts, my dear introvert friends, please).

“The ladies here probably exchanged looks which meant, “men never know when things are dirty or not”“ I. Can’t. The world never changes.

“I would much rather have been merry than wise” Emma, I don’t like it when you quote me.

I didn’t remember Emma first conceiving an arrangement between Harriet and Frank upon his return to Enscombe.

“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart” can we change the quote of Northanger Abbey going around –to represent Hufflepuff–, which is said by a character that doesn’t mean it, for this one? Pretty please?

Also, Emma comparing Jane and Harriet, and yes, in a way one has everything the other lacks. For some reason, Harriet seems to win more by comparison than by standing by herself (for example, seeing Mrs. Elton, one gets to see that Harriet’s lack of understanding isn’t so deep as to not know that she isn’t the cleverest woman around).

John Knightley is back for the Eltons dinner, and I reaffirm that he is one of my favourite characters in this novel. He has the driest sense of humor and at the same time, can be very affectionate and kind, as his interest in and conversation with Jane Fairfax on that occasion shows.

The whole discussion of handwritting and George saying that Emma’s was strong, stronger than Isabella’s, and Frank’s little was priceless. Also, the non-conversation-double monologue of Mrs. Elton and Mr. Weston is priceless. Painful to get through, because, boy, that woman is tiresome, but also, funny.

“Mr. Knightley seemed to be trying not to smile, and succeeded without difficulty upon Mrs. Elton beginning to talk to him.” I mean. LOL.