Jane Austen: Mansfield Park

• ISBN-13: 9781593081546
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Publication date: 11/1/2004
• Pages: 464

From its sharply satiric opening sentence, Mansfield Park dealas with money and marriage, and how strongly they affect each other. Shy, fragile Fanny Price is the consummate "poor relation." Sent to live with her wealthy uncle Thomas, she clashes with his spoiled, selfish daughters and falls in love with his son. Their lives are further complicated by the arrival of a pair of witty, sophisticated Londoners, whose flair for flirtation collides with the quiet, conservative country ways of Mansfield Park.

Written several years after the early manuscripts that eventually became Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park retains Austen’s familiar compassion and humor but offers a far more complex exploration of moral choices and their emotional consequences.

 Oh Jane Austen, how I love thee. Anybody who doesn't agree clearly does not understand good literature.
 Mansfield Park is one of Austen's least read novels, although it has been said that it is probably her deepest novel, and the one that marks her entrance into a more mature style. I don't know about all that, but it definitely lacks some of the hallmarks of the beloved Pride and Prejudice. It is altogether less lighthearted, but there are definite moments of levity that might be easily missed. For example, when Fanny is invited to the Grants for dinner, her spiteful Aunt Norris tells her not to expect the carriage, that she should walk (as her status does not give her the right to the carriage - that is to be reserved for the oh-so-classy daughters of House Bertram). Suddenly, in pops Sir Thomas with the question, "When would Fanny like the carriage?" Oh, Austen perfect timing. Aunt Norris' sputtering is humorous enough, but it Austen's skill with underhanded humor that marks the scene for me.
 Another complaint I've heard is that Fanny is a boring narrator. I don't think so at all. In the third part of the book, whereas in the first two parts we rarely hear Fanny's thoughts or motivations, the whole novel is told from her point of view, and we see that she not only has thoughts and emotions, but that they are just like everyone else's - she just has more moral fiber and correctness to quench certain ill tendencies. The others do not, not even the love-blinded Edmund. Fanny is the only female in the story that one can at all feel for.
 The love story portion is less important, I think, that it is in other Austen novels, but you know that every character gets their just deserts at the end. As Austen herself says, "Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody, not greatly in fault themselves, to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest." As one of my professors has said, "If you don't know who's going to end up with who within the first ten chapters, why are you reading Jane Austen?" She's not subtle in her plot, but the point is not her level of predictability. It's how she weaves the character's together and creates living breathing people and lives. Everyone knows an Aunt Norris or a Lady Bertram, a Mary Crawford or a Tom - that's the beauty of Mansfield Park. You get all the stress of hating certain characters without the stressful brand of suspense that is created when you're not sure if the world will be righted in the end. Austen is the Shakespeare of 19th century British literature.
 Overall: A
 Not my favorite Austen, but still Austen, and still wonderful.

Not updating

  I haven't been doing much on the update-y front, but that's not my fault, I promise. I didn't post anything earlier because it's not really pertinent to the purpose of this blog, but I have relocated to Seoul, South Korea for the semester. Naturally, adjusting to a new country and establishing a new routine has left me little time to read, aside from the natural slowing down that being in school causes. I was flying through books for the last two months because I didn't have a job or school to worry about. I was doing my own thing all day, every day. Now I have obligations, both social and educational.
  However, I shall persevere! As a matter of fact, I am currently working my way through Uncle Tom's Cabin, so that will be the next review up. I brought a couple of fairly thick books, that will probably being boring in parts, hoping that what with school work, they will take me the four months that I'm here (have to think about luggage weight, you know). But, if I should finish those, I also have my Nook. Oh yes, and a couple of books that I have to read for a lit class will have upcoming reviews, so I guess I'm wrong when I say that Uncle Tom's Cabin is next.
  Last piece of business: I'm going to add another page for miscellaneous books that I pick up here and there but that don't actually form part of my collection, so that will probably have a large amount of random, organized by title. As always, the authors can be found in the tags.