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x_losThings I've read/listened to since trip beginning:
...
4. BFA 50 Zagreus
5. Emma
6. Tale of Two Cities
7. Persuasion
8. Letters of Two Brides
9. The Scarlet Pimpernel
10. The Time Traveller's Wife
11. BFA 16 Storm Warning
12. BFA 17 Sword of Orion
13. BFA 18 The Stones of Venice
14. BFA 19 Minuet in Hell
15. BFA 28 Invaders from Mars
16. BFA 29 The Chimes of Midnight
17. BFA 30 Seasons of Fear
18. BFA 31 Embrace the Darkness
19. BFA 32 The Time of the Daleks
20. BFA 33 Neverland
21. BFA 50 Zagreus (Multi-Doc story 5/6/7/8 )(AGAIN)
22. BFA 52 Scherzo
23. BFA 53 The Creed of the Kronan
24. BFA 54 The Natural History of Fear
25. BFA 55 The Twilight Kingdom
26. BFA 61 Faith Stealer
27. BFA 62 The Last
28. BFA 63 Caerdroia
29. BFA 64 The Next Life
30. BFA 72 Terror Firma
31. BFA 75 Scaredy Cat
32. BFA 77 Other Lives
33. BFA 80 Time Works
34. BFA 83 Something Inside
35. BFA 88 Memory Lane
36. BFA 101 Absolution
37. BFA 103 The Girl Who Never Was
38. BFA 1-01 Blood of the Daleks - Part 1
39. BFA 1-02 Blood of the Daleks - Part 2
40. BFA 1-03 The Horror of Glam Rock
41. BFA 1-04 Immortal Beloved
42. BFA 1-05 Phobos
43. BFA 1-06 No More Lies
44. BFA 1-07 Human Resources - Part 1
45. BFA 1-08 Human Resources - Part 2
46. BFA 2-01 Dead London
47. BFA 06 The Marian Conspiracy
48. BFA 09 The Spectre of Lanyon Moor
49. The Nameless City
50. The Call of Cthulhu
51. BFA 43 Doctor Who and the Pirates: Or The Lass Who Lost A Sailor
Currently Unfinished: aaaaalmost done with Hardy's The Madding Crowd, still haven't polished Shadowland off, or those last twenty pages of Passage to India.
Persuasion
Upon learning that Persuasion is Austen’s last novel it seems obviously true. There’s a maturity to it: a neat story, as Austen is usually tidy, without a great sprawl of detail that meanders off into uncollected deltas. An ungiddy, crafted book, which seems to set out to examine its titular premise through narrative like a thought experiment. There’s always that strange balance in Austen between an almost Socratic impulse to dissect an issue or a dichotomy (i.e. sense vs. sensibility) and a desire to tell an organic story, apparently unrestricted by any such imperative.
I came to REALLY like Persuasion before I finished it: the second half is muchmuch more energetic and fun than the first. Anne Elliot occupies a middle terrain between the dour, weak severity of the less than loveable Fanny Price and the buoyancy of Emma. She’s quietly dear, and her Captain Wentworth is a good compliment to her.
I like Anne sticking to her guns at the end and saying that she was actually right in listening to her confidant/godmother Lady Russell in breaking off their initial engagement, as she was young enough to want guidance at the time. While only arguably true, it’s a firm conviction for her to take up, and shows more determination than Louisa Musgrove’s flamboyant, somewhat immature/insubstantial means of displaying the same. Laying the crux of the fault on the subsumed non-incident of Wentworth not coming back in the intervening years as she aged and his position improved seems more accurate, and has more interesting verisimilitude than the usual ‘one misunderstanding which has parted us, woe’ shtick.
Anne's Elliot’s family in Persuasion sucks hard. Her appearance and rank-obsessed father and the narrow, self-fixated Elizabeth, both of whom sideline Anne with a vengeance, pretty much deserve Mr. William Elliot: only by the grace of narrative/Mrs. Clay are they saved from him. Does Mr. Elliot run off with Mrs. Clay at the end? Is that what 'established in London under his protection' means? Is she his mistress now, or is he just her patron who she might well eventually marry? I was just trying to figure out if Austen was being REALLY delicate about it or what. Mr. Elliot’s treatment of the Smiths is of course vile, and for a book that privileges an earnest valuation of rank in a way I find somewhat alienating as a reader given the difference in periods, I feel I understand why Mr. Elliot’s fluctuating respect for the title he’ll inherit is skeezy and insulting without having to respect the title in question myself.
The supporting cast in this one is all especially solid. I like the Musgroves (even the amusing but not bad-natured Mary Musgrove nee Elliot, and especially the rustic old couple that toootally don’t care about the Charles Hayter marriage other than as it makes their daughter happy). Lady Russell obviously loves and esteems Anne, so much that it’s hard to begrudge Lady Russell her earlier concern about the marriage. She gets schooled over Mr. Elliot with grace, her reconciliation to and with Captain Wentworth made me really happy, and she puts up with Anne’s incredibly irritating family for her dead best friend’s sake with admirable aplomb.
If the British Navy needed an advertisement, this book is ready and waiting: everyone involved is great, in a sort of plucky ‘don’t judge the lower classes/armed forces, plz’ way that doesn’t make me roll my eyes at the ‘plucky underdog’ trope because Austen is, after all, a better writer than to lay on the cliché with a trowel. The domestic felicity of the naval couples is seen through Anne’s eyes, and she’s a biased narrator. The Crofts (for their quiet, backgrounded ‘we are an awesome couple, composed of two thoroughly cool individuals’ dynamic), and the more modest Harvilles are both excellent pairs that serve very well to needle Anne for having lost Captain Wentworth and a chance at the same participation in a marriage and a social circle in which she’s loved and respected according to her merits.
Louisa Musgrove’s ‘naval fever!!’ is pretty funny. Unlike her creepy transformation into a forever-altered gentle doe of a girl post brain-injury, which seems not so much like learning from experience and maturing as weird coma-related PTSD. She and Captain Benwick’s engagement, given that Benwick is similarly recovering from life-changing tragedy, is somewhat awkward. I understand Captain Harville’s annoyance on his dead sister/captain Benwick’s dead fiancé’s behalf over Benwick’s sudden recovery from emoest grief and plunge into engagement with Louisa. Harville shines in this scene, incidentally—and Anne’s right enough in pointing out that Still Moar EmoGrief wouldn’t really benefit anyone, and certainly is unhealthy for Benwick.
The ensuing conversation about attachment, and Wentworth’s impassioned note, probably compose my favorite scene in the whole novel, with the awkward love triangle at the concert with Wentworth huffing off, the dinner party, and the scene in the shop during the rain where Wentworth first confronts her in Bath coming close behind. The meta bit about women and men's control over language and writing is startling and good and didn't throw me out of the scene at hand. I can't sufficiently emphasize how much fun this bit of the book is. I love the other women talking about how really they don’t get all the guys being in lurve with Elizabeth when really, Anne’s just better, isn’t she? It sounds silly out of context, but in the book it’s a perfect reflection of every time you’ve hesitantly ventured an opinion vastly contrary to popular male judgment on another woman’s attractiveness, only to find your bewilderment understood and shared by other girls, because really, is X not an ugly ho, vastly the inferior of Y? Of course she is.
Eventually I need to read Northanger Abbey as well, to complete by mature!Austen lit/'Major Works' collection (I've not done anything with the juvenilia, really).
...
4. BFA 50 Zagreus
5. Emma
6. Tale of Two Cities
7. Persuasion
8. Letters of Two Brides
9. The Scarlet Pimpernel
10. The Time Traveller's Wife
11. BFA 16 Storm Warning
12. BFA 17 Sword of Orion
13. BFA 18 The Stones of Venice
14. BFA 19 Minuet in Hell
15. BFA 28 Invaders from Mars
16. BFA 29 The Chimes of Midnight
17. BFA 30 Seasons of Fear
18. BFA 31 Embrace the Darkness
19. BFA 32 The Time of the Daleks
20. BFA 33 Neverland
21. BFA 50 Zagreus (Multi-Doc story 5/6/7/8 )(AGAIN)
22. BFA 52 Scherzo
23. BFA 53 The Creed of the Kronan
24. BFA 54 The Natural History of Fear
25. BFA 55 The Twilight Kingdom
26. BFA 61 Faith Stealer
27. BFA 62 The Last
28. BFA 63 Caerdroia
29. BFA 64 The Next Life
30. BFA 72 Terror Firma
31. BFA 75 Scaredy Cat
32. BFA 77 Other Lives
33. BFA 80 Time Works
34. BFA 83 Something Inside
35. BFA 88 Memory Lane
36. BFA 101 Absolution
37. BFA 103 The Girl Who Never Was
38. BFA 1-01 Blood of the Daleks - Part 1
39. BFA 1-02 Blood of the Daleks - Part 2
40. BFA 1-03 The Horror of Glam Rock
41. BFA 1-04 Immortal Beloved
42. BFA 1-05 Phobos
43. BFA 1-06 No More Lies
44. BFA 1-07 Human Resources - Part 1
45. BFA 1-08 Human Resources - Part 2
46. BFA 2-01 Dead London
47. BFA 06 The Marian Conspiracy
48. BFA 09 The Spectre of Lanyon Moor
49. The Nameless City
50. The Call of Cthulhu
51. BFA 43 Doctor Who and the Pirates: Or The Lass Who Lost A Sailor
Currently Unfinished: aaaaalmost done with Hardy's The Madding Crowd, still haven't polished Shadowland off, or those last twenty pages of Passage to India.
Persuasion
Upon learning that Persuasion is Austen’s last novel it seems obviously true. There’s a maturity to it: a neat story, as Austen is usually tidy, without a great sprawl of detail that meanders off into uncollected deltas. An ungiddy, crafted book, which seems to set out to examine its titular premise through narrative like a thought experiment. There’s always that strange balance in Austen between an almost Socratic impulse to dissect an issue or a dichotomy (i.e. sense vs. sensibility) and a desire to tell an organic story, apparently unrestricted by any such imperative.
I came to REALLY like Persuasion before I finished it: the second half is muchmuch more energetic and fun than the first. Anne Elliot occupies a middle terrain between the dour, weak severity of the less than loveable Fanny Price and the buoyancy of Emma. She’s quietly dear, and her Captain Wentworth is a good compliment to her.
I like Anne sticking to her guns at the end and saying that she was actually right in listening to her confidant/godmother Lady Russell in breaking off their initial engagement, as she was young enough to want guidance at the time. While only arguably true, it’s a firm conviction for her to take up, and shows more determination than Louisa Musgrove’s flamboyant, somewhat immature/insubstantial means of displaying the same. Laying the crux of the fault on the subsumed non-incident of Wentworth not coming back in the intervening years as she aged and his position improved seems more accurate, and has more interesting verisimilitude than the usual ‘one misunderstanding which has parted us, woe’ shtick.
Anne's Elliot’s family in Persuasion sucks hard. Her appearance and rank-obsessed father and the narrow, self-fixated Elizabeth, both of whom sideline Anne with a vengeance, pretty much deserve Mr. William Elliot: only by the grace of narrative/Mrs. Clay are they saved from him. Does Mr. Elliot run off with Mrs. Clay at the end? Is that what 'established in London under his protection' means? Is she his mistress now, or is he just her patron who she might well eventually marry? I was just trying to figure out if Austen was being REALLY delicate about it or what. Mr. Elliot’s treatment of the Smiths is of course vile, and for a book that privileges an earnest valuation of rank in a way I find somewhat alienating as a reader given the difference in periods, I feel I understand why Mr. Elliot’s fluctuating respect for the title he’ll inherit is skeezy and insulting without having to respect the title in question myself.
The supporting cast in this one is all especially solid. I like the Musgroves (even the amusing but not bad-natured Mary Musgrove nee Elliot, and especially the rustic old couple that toootally don’t care about the Charles Hayter marriage other than as it makes their daughter happy). Lady Russell obviously loves and esteems Anne, so much that it’s hard to begrudge Lady Russell her earlier concern about the marriage. She gets schooled over Mr. Elliot with grace, her reconciliation to and with Captain Wentworth made me really happy, and she puts up with Anne’s incredibly irritating family for her dead best friend’s sake with admirable aplomb.
If the British Navy needed an advertisement, this book is ready and waiting: everyone involved is great, in a sort of plucky ‘don’t judge the lower classes/armed forces, plz’ way that doesn’t make me roll my eyes at the ‘plucky underdog’ trope because Austen is, after all, a better writer than to lay on the cliché with a trowel. The domestic felicity of the naval couples is seen through Anne’s eyes, and she’s a biased narrator. The Crofts (for their quiet, backgrounded ‘we are an awesome couple, composed of two thoroughly cool individuals’ dynamic), and the more modest Harvilles are both excellent pairs that serve very well to needle Anne for having lost Captain Wentworth and a chance at the same participation in a marriage and a social circle in which she’s loved and respected according to her merits.
Louisa Musgrove’s ‘naval fever!!’ is pretty funny. Unlike her creepy transformation into a forever-altered gentle doe of a girl post brain-injury, which seems not so much like learning from experience and maturing as weird coma-related PTSD. She and Captain Benwick’s engagement, given that Benwick is similarly recovering from life-changing tragedy, is somewhat awkward. I understand Captain Harville’s annoyance on his dead sister/captain Benwick’s dead fiancé’s behalf over Benwick’s sudden recovery from emoest grief and plunge into engagement with Louisa. Harville shines in this scene, incidentally—and Anne’s right enough in pointing out that Still Moar EmoGrief wouldn’t really benefit anyone, and certainly is unhealthy for Benwick.
The ensuing conversation about attachment, and Wentworth’s impassioned note, probably compose my favorite scene in the whole novel, with the awkward love triangle at the concert with Wentworth huffing off, the dinner party, and the scene in the shop during the rain where Wentworth first confronts her in Bath coming close behind. The meta bit about women and men's control over language and writing is startling and good and didn't throw me out of the scene at hand. I can't sufficiently emphasize how much fun this bit of the book is. I love the other women talking about how really they don’t get all the guys being in lurve with Elizabeth when really, Anne’s just better, isn’t she? It sounds silly out of context, but in the book it’s a perfect reflection of every time you’ve hesitantly ventured an opinion vastly contrary to popular male judgment on another woman’s attractiveness, only to find your bewilderment understood and shared by other girls, because really, is X not an ugly ho, vastly the inferior of Y? Of course she is.
Eventually I need to read Northanger Abbey as well, to complete by mature!Austen lit/'Major Works' collection (I've not done anything with the juvenilia, really).
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-08 01:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-08 01:42 pm (UTC)