Persuasion by Jane Austen

Title: Persuasion

Author: Jane Austen (English, 1775-1817)
Originally published: 1817
Page count: 157

Dates read: 2/17/22-2/28/22

2022 book goal progress: 4 out of 20

Back to the Classics category: 

Classic by a female author

Author Challenge: 

Tamora Pierce / Mercedes Lackey

Mindful Readers' Family Bookclub genre: 

February - Romance

Read my other book reviews for my 2022 goals HERE.

Description on back of book:

Persuasion is the last novel fully completed by Jane Austen. It was published at the end of 1817, six months after her death. The story concerns Anne Elliot, a young Englishwoman of twenty-seven years, whose family moves to lower their expenses and reduce their debt by renting their home to an Admiral and his wife. The wife's brother, Navy Captain Frederick Wentworth, was engaged to Anne in 1806, but the engagement was broken when Anne was "persuaded" by her friends and family to end their relationship. Anne and Captain Wentworth, both single and unattached, meet again after a seven-year separation, setting the scene for many humorous encounters as well as a second, well-considered chance at love and marriage for Anne in her second "bloom."

First sentence:
"Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest parents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed."

Favorite quote:
"A submissive spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of herself, which was from nature alone."

CAWPILE Rating: Overall - 4.4/10 - ⭐⭐/5
Characters      - 5
Atmosphere   - 4
Writing Style - 5
Plot                - 5
Intrigue          - 4
Logic             - 4
Enjoyment     - 4
What is a CAWPILE Rating?

Review:

This story was slow-moving and predictable. I wanted witty banter between the 2 main characters in order to win the other back. Instead, they just avoided each other, one writes a letter, and then the solution happens. The description said it was humorous, but I didn't find it comedic at all. Though I've read classics, I found this one difficult to get through and decipher - and I just read through all of the Bronte books. Overall, it's a particularly interesting story.

Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let Jane Austen have the last words:

" [man] 'I could bring you fifty quotations in my moment on the side of my argument and I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.'

[woman] 'Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much a higher degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.' "