Appearance
Persuasion
What more can I say than that it was free? Really, there isn't anything else to be said, except that it was, and the contents of the classic are what I expected.
Persuasion
It is possible to read, put down and pick up again without losing thought processes. Have read it prior and seen the movie. Like that era as well.
Persuasion
I am in the process of reading it now and I am enjoying it very much. I have seen the movie version.
Persuasion
If you are not ready to wrap you mind around some old time literature don't pick this up. Hard read
Persuasion
Published a few years after the acclaimed PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, this novel paints an intimate portrait of country gentry inearly 19th century England. Describing the social milieus with which she was so familiar, Austen alternates the plot development between modest estates and the seaside resorts of Lyme and Bath. Travel aand communication proved serious obstacles, so letters and notes were the more prized and preserved. Austen weaves a tapestry of strict social customs,explaining the value of keeping up appearances, of keeping one's place--which was clearly deliniated by time-honored class snobbery and ritual. Other themes which are quietly included:be wary of schemers, evaluate the counsel of interfering extended famly, and do not trust superficial impressions.Narrated in the usual third person, ths intense story revolves around Anne Elliot, the middle daughter of vain but impoverished Sir Walter. The author might well have chosen to make this a first person novel, since we always know what the modestprotagonist is doing, feeling and thinking. Austen gently ridicules the struggle between vanity and financial reality, as the family's streightened circumstances obliged them to rent out their beloved Kellynch Hall and take rooms in Bath. But where to find suitable tenants for the ancestral home? Their circle includes the neighboring Musgroves, whose son married the youngest Elliot daughter. Fortunately for the marriageablegirls, their limited horizons are expandaded by the arrival of three young naval captains--one of whom Anne was forced to renounce 7 years before. She represents the first victim ofof the art of familial persuasion. Yet her heart still beats fast at the mention of his name...Austen presents many themes and events which also appear in her signature novel; she deftly reveals a woman's intimate understanding of her heroine's private torment. The social ritual between country gentry is almost ridiculous in their extreme scruples regarding proper behavior--even to their own relatives and in-laws. Austen exposes the time-honored web of duty an public behavior, even on vacation. One wonders if the women of Austen's day were taught--direclty or indirectly--to value their own "nothingness," as Anne puts it. Is a teachable heart (one that can be persuaded to reason, even in violation of its natural instincts, to be admired in that society? Or in our own time? Were Austen's women true Victorian ladies or more rational creatures thanmale authors of the time generally portrayed them? Anne pounced upon the eternal argument which provoked the denouement: which of the genders is more (or less) "inconstant." These and many other soul-searching issues are elucidated in this short novel (225 pages) which should be evaluated by the standards of a by-gone era. Thoughtful readers must discern for themselves which truths are valid for all times; if they prove universal, then the work is a true classic. An insightful novel which will appeal to most caring women.
Persuasion
This wasn't my favorite Jane Austen, but I liked the main character better than some of the others I've read, like Emma. The main character, Anne, was sympathetic, and you felt bad for her through much of the book when she was putting up with the other insufferable characters. Jane Austen's books always manage to make me very glad that I didn't live in the Victorian Era. It would have been terrible to not be able to escape the very awful relations always described in her books. The expectations of poor relations seem nearly unbearable. I wouldn't have been able to bear the types of jabs Mary aimed at Anne regularly. It makes me very glad to live in a time when a woman earning her own living is not seen as a disreputable person.