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Sense and Sensibility” ~ After a death in the family, the once wealthy Dashwoods are reduced in their monetary means and are compelled by their change in circumstances to move to a humble cottage on the estate of a distant relative. Can the Dashwood sisters weather the trials of meagre living and find true love among the eligible men from the higher echelons of society now that they must suffer their reduced circumstances? The biggest flaw to me is the absence of table of content for the chapters of each novel in this book which makes it rather difficult to navigate. There might come a time when one runs out of Post-It notes in the middle of a winter night.
I had a hard time making a positive connection with the characters in this story. I found myself more annoyed by many of them especially Miss Bingley. There were times I was confused as to who was speaking and thought that the conversations dwindled on and on. Most of the plot moved along so slowly that I had a hard time keeping any interest in it. This was especially true during the dialogues between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. I had to force myself to continue reading, in hopes that it would get more interesting. It wasn’t until nearly half way through the story that I began to connect with Elizabeth. Although Mr. Darcy did somewhat redeem himself in the end, I didn’t find him to be as amazing as he is portrayed to be in popular culture, which was a let down. I had hoped that he would be the type of character that I would remember and fall for, so to speak. All in all I was very disappointed in Pride and Prejudice. Another theme, probably the most apparent of them all in this particular book, is love. The driving base and plot line of this entire story is the romance between Elizabeth Bennet, a girl of relatively low social standing in a class based society, and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, the wealthy and highly regarded master of Pemberley. At first, the love of Elizabeth and Mr.Darcy is slow and cautious in the beginning, almost as if they were trying to convince themselves not to fall for one another, due to certain circumstances. As in all great love stories, however, love conquers in the end, and Elizabeth and Mr.Darcy overcome their struggles and obstacles to be together. The ladies here probably exchanged looks which meant, "Men never know when things are dirty or not;" and the gentlemen perhaps thought each to himself, "Women will have their little nonsenses and needless cares." The tone of P&P is one of wit, sardonic humour and sly social observation. There is little of this in Mansfield Park. It is replaced with a preachy moralising. It always amazes me how these novels still resonate today. For a female novelist of her time, Jane Austen was an incredibly smart, witty, and sarcastic personality. Her dry humor and observational skills are incredible.Austen writes candidly about - whether consciously aware, and deliberately writing, or simply taking them as facts of life - arranged marriage and caste systems of England in particular, Europe in general; things that since have been, falsely, identified exclusively with India, in line with Macaulay policy to break spirit of India.
Die 6 Bände sind allesamt sehr lesenswert, sowohl die bekannteren als auch die unbekannteren. Der Inhalt spiegelt die damalige Epoche wider und erzählt in einem unaufgeregten Stil romantische Geschichten von starken Frauen. I love these books for their relatablity. Their sense of hope, and their quoteability. I, personally, will be adopting the following for the coming year "It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at 29 than she was 10 years before." It seems like a romance and at some level it is but only after normal intelligent and prudent women - young and old - use decorum and wise counsel added to commonsense. This like other books by the author is about how to live well and safe and be good and decent, sensible and honourable, prudent and not blinded by illusions, and find love and romance and marriage as well.That is because while this is assumed to be a romance it is really a very astute picture of society that transcends time and geography and social boundaries and cultures, and applies universally to any place where there are young women at an age ripe to marry without dowries to bring out grooms out of the woods swarming. This is all the more so when the young women in question are not about to while away time with pretense of careers and attempts at education while the men they school and party with are getting ready, or any other subterfuges of societies they belong to. My first introduction to Austen’s famous romances was “Pride and Prejudice”. Like Mark Twain, her writing style grated on my nerves so much I could not finish the book. While I believe in respecting the rest of the departed, I too was ready to get a shovel, disturb the author’s grave and brutally pummel into dust what Mark Twain may have missed. Disappointed, I abandoned “Pride and Prejudice” and eventually made a second attempt years later. By that time, I had hoped the chronological lapse would alter my prejudice against her style, forgive the pun, but it still had the same effect on my nerves, but at least I finished the book. A fluency with Jane Austen is a practical necessity for dating smart girls, and hey! she's hilarious to boot. Admittedly, once you've read Pride and Prejudice you've pretty much read them all, except Mansfield Park which is just godawful and ought have been expurgated. Be prepared for a lot of lines like this, which are laugh-out-loud funny upon first reading, but become progressively less funny each time you encounter them:
Emma" habe ich zuletzt gelesen und ich muss sagen, dass mir der Roman im Vergleich zu den anderen am wenigsten zugesagt hat. Im Nachwort heißt es, dies sei der Roman, bei dem Jane Austen "reifer" gewesen sei. Vielleicht hängt es damit zusammen. Hier hatte ich das Gefühl, es wurde sich zu stark auf Kleinigkeiten, auf das Drumherum, fokussiert. Die ganze Sache mit der Kuppelei war nichts für mich, glaube ich. 🤷 Jane Austen has completed seven novels during her lifetime. I read her six big novels from November 2016 to June 2017, so it's been a hot minute (and I'm not opposed to rereading them), but I thought it'd be fun to rank them all, now that I've read Lady Susan as well: Her novels introduce us to a variety of characters, from the strong willed (Elizabeth Bennet) to the weakling (Fanny Price)women to the men we want to be with (Mr. Darcy, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Darcy) to the ones we could do without (Willoughby, anyone?). And you can't forget the comic foils, most often seen in the matron role of the book. We all know who we want to be, who we're cheering for, who we despise,and who we feel sorry for. There's a character for every person. When I saw this beautiful edition in a bargain section in a bookstore, I just couldn't control myself so I bought it.If one never knew anyone of this sort, one would think the character is entirely invented. At that it is not that uncommon to come across men who deal with their own children, especially daughters, this cruelly or worse, but they are excused or even pressured to be this cruel and admired for it in various cultures (not excepting west or US for that matter) while women are usually this cruel with children of other women, say a lover's wife or a sister in law. But the character therefore is entirely possible, especially in an era when a woman could only obtain wealth and consequence by marriages her own and her relatives'; and the only area she could use her mind however sharp was in fields related to intrigues of social sort, marriages, love affaires, and so on, especially gossip and vile gossip about other women. This unfortunately is what far too many women and even men use their minds for, even now, for sport and not for want of subjects that could use the sharp minds. Sometimes it is the heart of such a gossiper and mud thrower that is at fault seriously in that destroying another person is the pleasure, and use of mind and other facilities is merely a means. Later, it's the young Sir Edward Denham, handsome, and flattering in his attentions to the visitor Miss Charlotte Haywood, who is subject of the author's scrutiny. Each one of the novels by Jane Austen are a masterpiece. Not only is the quality of the writing splendid and amazing, but the stories are sensational, and each character comes alive through vibrant descriptions and makes one become really invested with the book! Sir Thomas was so strange. Mr Price turned out to be a pervert in the movies. He was ignorant, extremely vain and useless person, husband, father. But never a pervert in the book! What I enjoyed even more was to find that Jane Austen wrote many of her characters in a similar way. Most of her main female characters are strong willed and sure of themselves, which was quite different from the stereotypical female of that time period. Therefore, not only are Austen's novels entertaining and lovely, they are also innovative.
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