I agree with the praise of Anne’s character and the romance between Wentworth and Anne, but there were a few points in Persuasion where I was unsettled. I liked the Musgrove sisters, though I think I’m meant to dislike them, or disapprove of their high spirits and liberal education. I felt so much for Anne, but I liked Louisa and I found it hard to begrudge her and Wentworth happiness when it seemed like they might be love (in the scene where they walk to the Hayter’s and Anne overhears Louisa and Wentworth conversing). So it almost made Captain Benwick’s appearance and Louisa’s fall seem too convenient, and their subsequent falling in love almost inappropriate. I sympathized with the Harvilles on Fanny’s behalf, and I lamented the replacement of Louisa’s energy and vivaciousness with a sort of melancholic love.

It reminded me a little of Sense and Sensibility where Marianne comes out of her illness more subdued and ready at last to appreciate and marry Colonel Brandon. But Colonel Brandon deserved that appreciation and love, after all, while Benwick seems just a little bit foolish.

So I suppose Persuasion had a romance I loved, but also a background romance I felt uncomfortable with. I found my copy of Karen Joy Fowler’s The Jane Austen Book Club and reread the chapter on Persuasion and was surprised to find the same opinion, otherwise I would just think I was being ridiculous and not bring it up. But does anyone else have thoughts on Louisa and Benwick?

I love the passion and tension between Wentworth and Anne. I love that Anne is a real musician, but not a showoff; I love the book’s celebration of second chances; I love that Anne is shy and quiet and intelligent and has rock-solid integrity, yet never comes across as a goody two-shoes. As a middle child myself, I love the depiction of the three sisters with Anne in the middle, the way she’s learned over the years to steer a course between Elizabeth’s demands and Mary’s so as to spare herself and everyone else the worst excesses of both — and even more, I love that she quietly triumphs over both of them at the end of the book, because she deserves it. Anne and Wentworth deserve each other, in the best way. And OMG the Crofts, the charming adorable Crofts! (I like the Harvilles, too.)

And, of course, I enjoy laughing at Sir Walter et al.

I hadn’t thought of it as satirizing The Big Mis, but I think that’s a really good point. The only bit of the story that I have a bit of difficulty with is Mrs Smith’s withholding of the crucial information about Mr Elliot: I really like Mrs Smith and I want to see her as a good person, so it … irks me, I guess, that she is prepared to let Anne marry a man she knows to be a bounder and a cad and perhaps worse, on the totally unsupported theory that maybe being in love with Anne has reformed him. But it all turns out okay, so …

(Oh, and also at the beginning of the book I always have to firmly put aside my disbelief that a woman as awesome as the late Lady Elliot is supposed by all the characters to have been would ever be such a doofus as to marry Sir Walter.)

Austen’s portraits of marriages are one of the most interesting things about her work for me. There are happy and unhappy marriages in all the books (I think: I haven’t read NA in a very long time), but they’re all different from each other. Each book is full of different kinds of marriages to which the heroine’s choices might possibly lead her … it’s fascinating

With regard to Mrs Clay, I’m never quite sure just how impecunious she is. Isn’t her father Sir Walter’s solicitor? If so, presumably her father can look out for her to some extent (unless Sir W is economising on his legal bills). Depends, I suppose on how many brothers and sisters she has. Also, I suppose the social circle she gets to move in with the Elliots would be beyond her means as a solicitor’s widowed daughter, but since that society is principally Sir W and Anne, I’m not convinced that’s an actual advantage.

I am very glad to live in the 21st Century and be able to make my own way in the world and not have to wait for some man.

Oh, and I think I’ve met plenty of Mr Collins:)

And part of that, of course, is in how we see ourselves. Does our fear that we are a bit of Sir Walter or a Mr Collins make us more likely to judge them? Or less likely?

Jonathan: I used to think that but a re-read of NA left me more amused that I had previously been. As I said in this previous post the romance does not work for me at all but there are many other pleasures.

On the other hand, it may well be my least favourite but I’d have to reread S&S and MP to know for sure. At one time MP was my least favourite.

I guess what I’m saying is that there’s something to like in all Austen’s book.

I read PERSUASION, right after I read PRIDE & PREJUDICE and just remembered how dark the story was compared to the light airiness of P&P. Upon several readings, I really appreciated Lady Russell. Sir Walter was ridiculousness personified.

Again, I never meant any rudeness. I was just trying to state that there of course, are many different perceptions of each and every Austen character. We can also do that with Bronte, Forster, and Dickens.

PS: Emma is my least favorite Austen. Funny, eh?

That said, I would be very surprised if Austen, who was precise, meant Mrs. Clay’s freckles to be syphilis sordes. The fact that the freckles are just as visible as ever to Anne, inspite of Sir Walter’s assurance that they have been “done away with” by the creams he advised (which I think hints that he uses them), seems fairly obvious an example of more of the Elliott self-delusion. If the sordes had vanished (as apparentlyly they do in second stage syph) then Anne would not have seen the freckles looking the same as ever, would she?

The situation of Mrs. Clay can be read as yet another of Austen’s examples of how choices lead to an end. Lydia Bennett breaks the rules, and ends up a penniless Mrs. Wickham with a worthless husband–chosen at age fifteen. We don’t get the already trite death by consumption for having sinned. Mrs. Clay, widow, with no money, makes somewhat the same choices that Charlotte does: she’ll be dogsbody to two highly unpleasant people in hopes of gaining a respectable place. But she in turn lets herself be seduced by an even cagier adventurer, Mr. Elliott . . . and Austen doesn’t tell us which of them will end up with the upper hand. Their reward is having to live with one another.

Besides which why does a woman using what talents she has make her necessarily vile? I’m sure you recognised that the “kindness of strangers” quote comes from A Street Car Named Desire about another woman who used her charms to get by.

I’m sure you don’t mean to come across as hectoring but comments like

“I was a member of pemberley.com which has exhaustively studied each and every Austen book and juvenilia. Type in Mrs Clay and you’ll get different reactions from different people, but most people will agree with me. She is vile.”

do not read well.

Many of the people commenting on Austen here are well versed in JA’s work. You are not a lone expert. Nor are your views the final word. But even if you were the only expert it would be immaterial. This little community is interested in a variety of views even from people coming across Jane Austen (or whatever we happen to be discussing) for the very first time. If you wish to continue commenting here please modify your tone.

Mrs Clay is not dependent on the kindness of strangers, she is most likely having an ‘affair’ with Sir Walter and is probably shtooping Mr Elliot as well. She is a vile woman. During one JASNA session the discussion was on the spots on Mrs Clay face. (the spots on Mrs Clay face perhaps did not mean what we take as pimples, but of syphilis.) This is a woman whose reputation is not very good. Especially one so young, who is a widow.

I was a member of pemberley.com which has exhaustively studied each and every Austen book and juvenilia. Type in Mrs Clay and you’ll get different reactions from different people, but most people will agree with me. She is vile.

I can’t be so hard on Mrs Clay. She’s yet another poor woman dependent on the kindness of strangers.

PS: I am an Austen evangelist. I could debate her books til the cows came home:)

At the time, Wentworth was not of the same station as Anne. At the time that is very important in marriage acts. No one knew that he would become a war hero, and therefore become quite wealthy. Anne adores Lady Russell. Her direction may not have been correct, but she did it because she loved Anne.

Anne’s sisters, father, cousin and Mrs Clay, now they are vile.