Persuasion by Jane Austen

Just because I got back late (and I got a request for an update on my reading goals), today you get at Book Report. Stupid Things I've Done will be Friday thing this week. Look for it tomorrow . . .

Some of you may remember that I traveled over to Bristol and Bath a few months ago. On visiting Bath, I learned that the city was once Jane Austen's home and I even visited a Jane Austen Museum. The city was also frequently a setting for Ms. Austen's novels - specifically Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Though I had not read either of those two novels, I had read both Pride & Prejudice and Emma. So while I was at the museum, I thought I'd pick up one of the novels that was based in the city. Opting for the novel written later in her career, I bought a copy of Persuasion.

Reading the novel was a pleasant enough experience. Reading Austen, like reading Shakespeare, takes a little bit of time to get accustomed to. You need to read a few chapters before you get into the language of the era. One thing I can admit was that the book was alive to me. Having just visited the city of Bath, I could easily envision the atmosphere and could picture the places that Austen names in her book. The assembly halls were fresh in my memory and I remember walking The Circus and The Royal Crescent.

Persuasion is quite critical of the Bath aristocracy, painting them as duplicitous and untrustworthy. Simultaneously it idealized the simple values of the country folk. As with the other two novels of Austen's that I have read, the plot focuses on the misunderstanding and miscommunication that occurs between men and women. So it's no surprise that the plot is resolved when the two would-be lovers finally talk frankly to each other instead of relying on their own perceptions and the perceptions of others who might persuade them. Still, a fun read, though.

Since I find it hard to compare Austen to other fiction, I can only compare this work to her others that I've read. I found it more interesting than Emma, but less interesting than Pride and Prejudice.

As far as my 10,000 pages goal, I'm still behind schedule (I have 2 book reports yet to write for you all on other pieces I've completed) but I'm in the neighborhood of 6000 pages with 3 months to go. I better get busy reading!