Persuasion: Jane Austen (Penguin Classics)

Being a huge Jane Austen fan, this is another of her wonderful books. Love story, where the couple have been separated for eight years. Insight into regency life, society, seaside and Bath,

Genuinely a wild ride. Would be 200 pages shorter if people actually communicated to eachother, but then what would I read?

This is only the second Jane Austen book I have read, having read Pride and Prejudice some time ago. It took me a little while to get into it. The early chapters feel like they get bogged down in bringing us up to date with the back story. However it's worth persevering as the book gets much easier to read as it develops. Jane Austen's observations on society of that time and the way that she captures the feelings of the protagonists feel so fresh and modern that at times it is hard to believe that the book was written almost 200 years ago. The heroine is Anne Elliott, the middle daughter of Sir Walter Elliott: a vain and snobbish man who has been living beyond his means for some time. For financial reasons he decides to rent out his family home, Kellynch Hall, and moves to Bath with his oldest daughter who shares his obsession with status and appearances. Anne goes to stay for a time with her younger sister, Mary, who is married and lives nearby. Anne is easily the most likeable of the three girls, but is still single at the age of 27. Several years ago she met the love of her life, Captain Wentworth, but she was "persuaded" by her friends and family that he was not an appropriate match for her. She has never forgotten him. As it happens, Captain Wentworth comes back into her life, as it is his sister who has hired Kellynch Hall. However he appears to no longer have any interest in Anne and spends his time with the daughters of Mary's husband's family. In the meantime a new suitor has come into Anne's life, being her father's probable heir. He is pleasant and polite and certainly a good catch - but she finds it hard to let her feelings for Captain Wentworth go. When she finally realises who she is meant to be with, the book feels as alive and the romance as intense as any chicklit novel you might read today.

This is my favourite Austen. Anne is my favourite heroine and Captain Wentworth is my favourite hero, achingly melancholy apart and utterly perfect together. I have read this book many, many times and I don't think I have ever got through it dry-eyed. I think the strength of Austen's female characters is that they are slightly apart, a little ostracised in social situations because of their uniqueness. They have spirit and opinions that most people don't understand and therefore derise as weaknesses. They are lonely, and that is a feeling that I think most women from any century are able to identify with. What endears me especially to Anne is that this loneliness and alienation is concentrated in her, more pronounced that in Emma Woodhouse or Elizabeth Bennett. Anne is good and mild and sweet, introspective and private. She is slowly losing her bloom but still managing to avoid bitterness. And rather than compromising her personality to fit in with her father and sisters, to seek some of the companionship and affection she is so starved of, she has the strength to stick to her beliefs and not change her values. And in the end it is clear that Captain Wentworth finds no equal to Anne anywhere - He loves her so constantly not in spite of her differences, but because of them. This is what I believe is the key to Austen's timeless success. We all want to believe that is how we find love and belonging- Not despite our perceived weirdnesses and quirks, but because of them. Believing that removes all pressure to change - And what a liberating feeling that is!

Great

The book was purchased as a present,not for me.

Her best book

Theres always something so satistfying about finishing a Jane Austen novel. Whether it be due to the characteristically happy endings, the light - hearted manner with which Austen always rounds off her story, or the fact the girl ALWAYS gets the handsome, rich, intelligent guy she's fallen in love with, you cannot help but put the book down with a small smile and a sigh of relief, proud to have had the endurance to have reached the end, all previous complaints about how long and boring the novel is forgotten, you may even find yourself sporting the notion of picking the novel up and starting again immeiateley. If one thing is to be said about Jane Austen, it must be that she probably understood human beings better than anyone else who has ever walked the earth. Human emotion, intention, motive, desire, pain, sadness and happiness - people's behaviour in every day society, the nature of self- reflection, Auten sees all this around her and mimicis it to perfection in her novels. Her characters, written almost 200 years ago in a society very different from our own (supposedly) are often far more identifiable and relateable to us now than those from novels written but 10 years ago. Excepting the caricatures, Austen's characters are 'real' - you will learn to understand the character of Anne Elliot better than people you may have known for years, and you will also learn to see your own feeling and motives in a different light, and notice that you and Anne are not as different as you may initially seem. Persuaion follows the same formula as all Austen novels (one of the biggest weakneses of her writing I believe - for the reader always knows what will happen at the end). Girl meets boy, girl cannot be with boy for some particular reason, girl is tempted by another boy who turns out to have bad intentions, girl finally marries the first boy. Reading the blurb at the back of the novel will provide potential readers with the names and details required to fill in the blanks, so I will not write more here, though I will say that this is not my favourite Austen novel. I have studied both Pride and Prejudice and Emma recently and believe the latter to be a better constructed novel (it has often been described as her most perfect novel) though my preference towards it may be due to my being so familiar with the story and techniques used in that novel. One of the key issues with Austen is that, a lot of the time her novels are just not very entertaining. The amount of internal action far outweighs the external action of the novels, and often the parts of the story that the reader is most interested in seems to be what Austen is most reluctant to give us - ie contact time between Anne Ellliot and Captain Wentworth. However, for the reader who is willing to invest time and energy into the novel, you will find that almost every sentence is worth reading - Austen doesn't write purely to fill up space, each lines holds some form of insight or insult into society and people - you just have to be willing to read between the lines to spot it. I've written far too many essays on Jane Austen novels over the years to bare the thought of writing another so I'll cut my review short here - theres nothing like finding out and forming opions on a novel like reading it yourself, which I would advise anyone who is a fan of Austen literature to do with this novel. Her books are not for everybody, and dont be fooled into thinking them simple love stories as they are often portrayed as on tv/film adaptations. It's been said that the best writers write about what they know, and Austen is no exception - so is it any surprise her novels aren't filled with pretty parks, unconditional love and perfect families? Austen lived in her real world, and she sure as hell wasn't afraid to write about it.

I picked this up as part of my journey back into classics, and I'm so glad I did. Austen's writing in this one feels more mature and reflective than her earlier novels. The story moves at a steady pace, and the characters feel genuine - especially Anne, who's easy to root for. It's a quieter romance compared to modern books, but that's exactly what I needed. If you're trying to get away from lighter reads and want something with more substance, this is a solid choice. The Penguin Classics edition is well-made too, which is always a bonus.

penguin kalitesi ve muhtesem bir kitap

Loved the book... It's great! Jane Austen is great. Those who love classics need no reviews about the book's content.

Meu livro preferido da Jane Austen.

An excellent presentation with copious notes as one might expect from Penguin Classics.