![]() I love Sense and Sensibility because it has, along with NA, such a whiff of the crazy, rambunctious 18th century, of Fielding and Burney and Goldsmith. The more often I read this one, the better I like Fanny and appreciate her stubborn silences, her innate sense of what is right and her acute awareness of the world around her. More than any other of Austen’s works it involves a heroine who crosses a social divide, from the chaotic, slovenly world of her Portsmouth home to the order and splendor of Mansfield Park, and briefly back. This is also true of Mansfield Park, sometimes considered the least likable, but to me also full of heart. I enjoy the landscapes, the social observations about sea captions, Bath, Lyme Regis, Uppercross, the Crofts’ marriage… More than many of the other books, you are acutely aware of the world outside the frame of the novel. How can you not love Anne Elliot, bravely despairing, full of integrity, ready to be give up on life and be a spinster at 27? Austen packs so much emotion into this short novel, so much suspense, that however many times you read it the pleasure can never be any less. It’s the most accessible of all the novels, the easiest to like, but no less remarkable for that. It has Elizabeth Bennet, certainly the Austen heroine whom it would be most amusing to have as a friend. ![]() The wit and the irony grab the reader by the throat at the first sentence and never let up. Pride and Prejudice is the funniest, and thus might be considered the purest expression of Austen. It is so subtle that it is hard to at first to appreciate just how brilliant it is, how much the author has accomplished with such seemingly simple materials. that is perfectly plotted, with not a thread out of place, and with that extremely clever interplay between narrator and Emma. Emma is the cleverest it’s Austen at the top of her game.
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