Mansfield Park

I love Austen and her genius. The story itself is just not my favorite.

Finally finished! Don't get me wrong, a Jane Austen's book will always be wonderfully written but it's also a very slow read and the story is very slow passed (This one in particullar). However, the always enexpected plot twist how makes everything alright again leading to the expected ending saves the book. Not Jane Austen's best work, but always worth a read if you are a fan of classics.

-Spoiler Alert-

Fanny Price is not the brave, determined heroine as Pride and Prejudice Lizzy. She is a timid wallflower girl in love with her cousin since forever how she ends up marring in the last pages of the book because he didn't find any other girl to marry. Fanny did nothing the entire book except to refuse a mariage proposal from a man how afterwords run away with her married cousin. There was a rehearsal of a play how never seen the light of the day, a very needy aunt, tue brother and sister love and that's basicly the book.

It was an enjoyable read, but not my favourite Austen. Recently I found a few reviews in which people defend Fanny Price because she does not seem to be the most liked Austen heroine. I don't mind that she is not a very feisty person. But she lacks humour, which many of the others do have.

And the story is a bit weirdly paced. Some parts take exceedingly long, but the ending feels rushed.

Glad I read it, but Pride and Prejudice remains my favourite.

It was an enjoyable read, but not my favourite Austen. Recently I found a few reviews in which people defend Fanny Price because she does not seem to be the most liked Austen heroine. I don't mind that she is not a very feisty person. But she lacks humour, which many of the others do have.

And the story is a bit weirdly paced. Some parts take exceedingly long, but the ending feels rushed.

Glad I read it, but Pride and Prejudice remains my favourite.

Possibly Jane Austen’s most dour and moralising book. It loses a lot of her trademark humour for that, but I admired Fanny’s conviction.

This book was very back-and-forth for me. Overall, I liked it about as well as I like the others from Jane Austen.

In the beginning, I just could not focus on the book and could only pay attention to vague details about what she was trying to say. Once the scandal of the play started to pick up, it became much easier to focus and I liked the book pretty well after that. The struggle of feeling compelled - or desiring, as the case may be - to do something one feels is improper or sinful is an unending struggle of youth in all generations.

I enjoyed the book, that is, until Fanny went back home for a time. Austen could not have picked a better way to make me despise her opinions unless she had outright stated despisable opinions! I will attempt to describe why and make my opinions clear, although I will fail.

I agree with the morals of Fanny Price in her propriety and self-sacrifice for the needs of others. However, when she comes home, she is repelled by her family's style of living, which I cannot condone. Half of her complaints come from the fact that they aren't rich and don't have a big enough parlor, or can't afford enough servants to show the proper hospitality and greetings. Austen justifies this disgust by giving most of her family bad character traits like drinking, belittling the maids, or disobeying parents. Those things are wrong, I agree. But the substance of her complaints is that her family isn't "proper" and is "too loud" and runs around playing in the house. In other words, 80% of the complaints (except the bad character traits Austin threw in to make it justifiable) are that her family does not act in the "well-managed," serene, proper, wealthy way she believes all respectable people should.

I strongly disagree, and this has been one of my main battles all through life. Many people believe that (especially of concern in children) people should not act "improperly," by which they mean that they shouldn't be loud, or run and play, or have an imagination, or break things. They need to always be clean, and always keep their house clean, and never do anything that could cause "trouble." Many of those things

can be bad, but they are not bad by default. I specifically believe people

should be those things. They then should care about the morals that actually matter, like loving your neighbor, justice, empathy, and hard work. It can be a fine line, because you should be mindful of other people's possessions, yet you should be allowed to experiment and be creative, even if it might break something. You should be allowed to be loud and play inside, but you should be mindful of the time and not keep others up when they need to sleep. This can go on and on.

This difference finally explains why I like the morals of L. M. Montgomery so much better than those of Jane Austen. Austen's morals revolve around people being "proper." Montgomery specifically fights against the idea that people need be "proper." "Proper" truly is the best term I can find for the distinction. Most of Montgomery's heroes and heroines in the Anne series are those that society looks down on because they are strange, or childish, or too energetic. They all love life too much to be "proper." They instead are loving, empathetic, joyful, vivacious, and caring. If they were placed into an Austen novel they would immediately be dismissed by the heroine as having low breeding and horrible impropriety. Both authors argue for most of the same morals, but the way they mean those morals to be carried out differs drastically. I would argue Alcott is somewhere in the middle, but much closer to the side of "having good morals" than "being proper."

Thus reads my poorly-said opinion and I sincerely hope that I can never be induced to change it, even as I become more and more grown up, and more and more people want me to. I believe the best, most moral life is that of Anne or Green Gables, not that of Fanny or Elisabeth.

Thus, I could have liked Mansfield Park well enough, but because of the egregious disparagement of the "improper poor," I am almost inclined to rate it even lower. However, more people would do well to heed the lesson of care when marrying a man with a concerning past who may appear for a moment to be reformed. This is still a good book with great writing and good morals. But I am poor, and do not want to be rich, even if I have money. Austen wants us all to be proper and at least act rich, even if we are not. I want to be improper and act poor even if I am not. So, we will likely never get along.

My initial reaction is that Fanny deserved so much better. I know that's not the point of the story. The point of the story is to show one average woman's life from that period, a glimpse into her realm of society and culture. It didn't feel like a romance, like the others of Austen's works; and it didn't have such a strong undercurrent of humor and sarcasm that some of her stories have. Of course it still

works as a story and did what Austen set out for it to do; and there's Austen's signature wit all through it as ever.

But I was still a bit miffed.

This is one of the last works I've got of Jane Austen left to read, and I'm glad Mansfield Park was one of the. Even though this has the destinkt feel of Jane Austen novels but it's also quite different feel too as I found very interesting to read. It would have been interesting to see where her novels would have gone if she had lived and written for a longer time. I love Jane Austen works, think Pride and prejudice will always be the very favorite work from her even if I love many others by her as well

‘I can never be important to any one.’ ‘What is to prevent you?’ ‘Everything. My situation—my foolishness and awkwardness.’

Actual rating is probably 3.5 stars, but since it's an Austen novel I rounded up (meaning, I really didn't like the only other Austen novel I've read recently—

Persuasion—so this was definitely an improvement).

The main reason I enjoyed this was because of Fanny, who I really liked despite her reputation among readers to the contrary. Yes, she's anxious and quiet, reserved and very proper, often uncertain and insecure, afraid of causing anyone trouble or of attracting too much notice, but I found those to be relatable, refreshing qualities: I felt I understood her and was able to empathize with her in a way that I often don't with more outgoing or "strong" characters.

I also thought the plot was generally entertaining as quite a bit happened. Opening with the drama surrounding the play was a nice way to get to know the characters, and was much more interesting than just having them talk in drawing rooms or at dinner or while walking around the gardens. The Mansfield ball was also a very nice part of the story that kept things moving. And this must include the most shocking moment in an Austen novel with

the revelation of Maria's adulterous affair with Henry

.

Finally, I thought the interpersonal drama was fascinating (as it should be, it's what Austen is known for), with very interesting, well-developed characters. As mentioned above, I loved Fanny. Edmund was kind of boring, true, but I still found him likeable, and his relationship with

Mary

was intriguing. Honestly, I felt a little bad for her:

I get that she’s supposed to be one of the antagonists, but she seemed merely relatably flawed instead of being intentionally cruel or immoral. Going easy on her brother isn't admirable and demonstrates some serious character flaws, but it's also understandable. In my eyes, her relationship with Edmund is ultimately tragic: it is after all, the story of two people who want to be together, but whose lifestyles and values are

just different enough that it would never, ever work. Ouch.

Henry, on the other hand,

can go **** himself. What a villain! He got a taste of his own medicine and I found it immensely satisfying

. The supporting case was equally well-rounded, though Aunt Norris was beginning to cross the line from being humorous to unbearably obnoxious.

However, I have my complaints:

- Austen's writing style is still not my favorite. I find it difficult, not particularly beautiful (odd sentence structures and excessive punctuation abound), and often distant and cold. She never does much to try and build a sense of setting or atmosphere, so I never really feel completely engrossed in the story as I do with, say, a Brontë novel. And, as always, some parts tend to drag and feel like a chore. I suppose I'm just not as interested in exploring the same things Austen is.

- Fanny is almost entirely absent from the page for the first full 1/3 (or so) of the novel, though she is physically present in almost all of the scenes. It isn't until Julia and Maria leave Mansfield Park that she really begins to appear. I understand that she's a shy character, and I don't have a problem with her being largely silent, but it's a shame that Austen doesn't take this opportunity to delve into her thoughts and inner life.

- Fanny is

also almost entirely absent from the last chapter. This is an odd choice given everything that unfolds, and it means that the ending, which I'd been so looking forward to, really lacked emotional impact. Specifically:

There. Is. No. Proposal. Scene. Of all the decisions that Austen made in this novel, this baffles me the most. This is the climax of the novel, the emotional payoff we've all been waiting for, the moment where Edmund will confess his love and Fanny will tearfully accept…and it's summarized for us in an extremely distant narrative. In this final chapter, Edmund decides he's over Mary and in love with Fanny, they get married off-page, and settle down with the first few years of their lives summarized for us. We essentially get one line—one line!—telling us that Fanny is very happy, and that's it. No dialogue, no nothing.

In fact, the majority of the chapter is dedicated to Sir Thomas's feelings (while I like Sir Thomas, I really don't care that much) and explaining where all the other characters end up. What a disappointment.

Some favorite passages:

But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them.

[Aunt Norris:] ‘I only wish I could be more useful; but you see I do all in my power. I am not one of those that spare their own trouble;’

The suggestion was generally welcome. Everybody was growing weary of indecision, and the first idea with everybody was, that nothing had been proposed before so likely to suit them all.

Her plants, her books—of which she had been a collector, from the first hour of her commanding a shilling—her writing desk, and her works of charity and ingenuity, were all within her reach; or if indisposed for employment, if nothing but musing would do, she could scarcely see an object in that room which had not an interesting remembrance connected with it.

She alone was sad and insignificant; she had no share in anything; she might go or stay, she might be in the midst of their noise, or retreat from it to the solitude of the east room, without being seen or missed.

[Of

Mary

:] In all the important preparations of the mind she was complete; being prepared for matrimony by a hatred of home, restraint, and tranquillity; by the misery of disappointed affection, and contempt of the man she was to marry. The rest might wait.

[Fanny:] ‘How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!’ And following the latter train of thought, she soon afterwards added: ‘If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way—but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out.’

[

Henry:]

‘But I cannot be satisfied without Fanny Price, without making a small hole in Fanny Price’s heart. […]No, I will not do her any harm, dear little soul! I only want her to look kindly on me, to give me smiles as well as blushes, to keep a chair for me by herself wherever we are, and be all animation when I take it and talk to her; to think as I think, be interested in all my possessions and pleasures, try to keep me longer at Mansfield, and feel when I go away that she shall be never happy again. I want nothing more.’ ‘Moderation itself!’ said Mary.

Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power which no subsequent connections can supply; and it must be by a long and unnatural estrangement, by a divorce which no subsequent connection can justify, if such precious remains of the earliest attachments are ever entirely outlived.

[Of Henry:] He was in love, very much in love; and it was a love which, operating on an active, sanguine spirit, of more warmth than delicacy, made her affection appear of greater consequence because it was withheld, and determined him to have the glory, as well as the felicity, of forcing her to love him.

‘We are so totally unlike,’ said Fanny, avoiding a direct answer, ‘we are so very, very different in all our inclinations and ways, that I consider it as quite impossible we should ever be tolerably happy together, even if I could like him. There never were two people more dissimilar. We have not one taste in common. We should be miserable.’

…and I believe there is scarcely a young lady in the United Kingdoms who would not rather put up with the misfortune of being sought by a clever, agreeable man, than have him driven away by the vulgarity of her nearest relations.

So long divided, and so differently situated, the ties of blood were little more than nothing. An attachment, originally as tranquil as their tempers, was now become a mere name.

There was neither health nor gaiety in sunshine in a town. She sat in a blaze of oppressive heat, in a cloud of moving dust; and her eyes could only wander from the walls marked by her father’s head, to the table, cut and notched by her brothers, where stood the tea-board never thoroughly cleaned, the cups and saucers wiped in streaks, the milk a mixture of motes floating in thin blue, and the bread and butter growing every minute more greasy than even Rebecca’s hands had first produced it.

[So Austen can

create atmosphere! If only she did it more often.]

That punishment, the public punishment of disgrace, should in a just measure attend his share of the offence, is, we know, not one of the barriers which society gives to virtue. In this world the penalty is less equal than could be wished;

His happiness in knowing himself to have been so long the beloved of such a heart must have been great enough to warrant any strength of language in which he could clothe it to her or to himself; it must have been a delightful happiness. But there was happiness elsewhere which no description can reach. Let no one presume to give the feelings of a young woman on receiving the assurance of that affection of which she has scarcely allowed herself to entertain a hope.