Sense and Sensibility, Part 2

I thought of Marianne when I saw this tree. She loved imperfect trees!

As I observed when reading about Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s novels are relatable because the situations she writes about are timeless. The same is true with Sense and Sensibility. There’s the age-old “he likes her, but she likes someone else” scenario that we see with Colonel Brandon/Marianne/Willoughby. Haven’t we all liked someone who liked someone else? Also, Marianne’s heartbreak is universal—haven’t we all been crushed by someone we believed we were meant to be with? This evokes a feeling of empathy within the reader. When Marianne has her heart broken by Willoughby, you want to come visit her, armed with some cheesy DVDs and a bottle of wine to comfort her. And then proceed to egg Willoughby’s house, Combe Magna. Elinor’s situation is also relatable. After she discovers that Edward is secretly engaged, she must try to appear objective in front of both the calculating Lucy and Edward. She has to try to keep her feelings private when others try to tease them out of her, like Mrs. Jennings, who is a universal representation of the middle-aged lady who is always in everyone’s business.

Now, a word about the men that the Dashwood sisters end up with. I think I prefer Edward Ferrars. At first, he seems like he’s kind of dull. But he has that nerdy allure that I would no doubt be drawn to. And he has good taste in women—Elinor’s pretty cool. However, I’ve never completely warmed to Colonel Brandon. He seems…ever so slightly creepy in his attentions to Marianne. I think it’s the age difference between him and Marianne (when they meet, he’s thirty-five, and she’s barely seventeen). He’s always underfoot. But he’s stable and quietly devoted, and Marianne needs someone like that.

While rereading Sense and Sensibility, I had forgotten that Willoughby visits Elinor, when he thinks Marianne is dying. His conversation with Elinor humanizes him a little. But I still think he’s awful. My opinion of Lucy Steele remains the same as well. I’m tickled by the fact that Mrs. Jennings calls her a “worthless hussy” when everyone learns that Lucy has eloped with Robert Ferrars. Lucy’s elopement is pretty much a deus ex machina, but at least Edward, dear simple Edward, wasn’t tied down to such a horrid woman.

Great passage (Elinor is talking to Marianne about Willoughby, and in typical Elinor fashion, tells the absolute truth about his character): “The whole of his behaviour,” replied Elinor, “from the beginning to the end of the affair has been grounded on selfishness. It was selfishness which first made him sport with your affections; which afterwards, when his own were engaged, made him delay the confession of it, and which finally carried him from Barton. His own enjoyment, or his own case, was in every particular his ruling principle.”

 Up next: Madame de Treymes (by my beloved Edith Wharton)

Sense and Sensibility, Part 1

I am tickled pink by the cover of this edition!

Author: Jane Austen

Category: I first read this about two and a half years ago, when I was unemployed. I enjoyed it because it was actually funny, but it also had a sense of melancholy that I could relate to at the time.

My thoughts: I think that between the two Jane Austen novels I’ve read, I will always prefer Pride and Prejudice. However, Sense and Sensibility has its own charms, and I like it more than I did when I read it for the first time. I feel as if Jane Austen goes deeper here than in Pride and Prejudice on the subject of unrequited love and its emotional effects. As any preteen girl can tell you, crushes are hard! I’m not finished reading the book yet (I’ve got about 100 pages to go), and I’d like to write about the characters first, as I did with Pride and Prejudice.

I think when I was younger, I was like Marianne Dashwood in terms of personality. I felt passionately about my opinions, staunchly defended them, and freely spoke my mind. Then I got older, and discovered tact. Marianne doesn’t worry about the politeness that dominates this society and its conversations. If she doesn’t want to do something, she doesn’t make polite excuse. She just says that she’s not interested. Of course, this leaves her sister Elinor to smooth over any ruffled feathers. The fact that Marianne feels things very deeply is manifests itself in her swift infatuation with Willoughby and her shattered reaction to his cold treatment of her later. Marianne’s heartbreak is incredibly palpable. I suppose that the moment when you realize you are very wrong about ideas that you thought were unshakeable is always heartbreaking. However, Marianne brings my favorite moment in the novel, as seen in the Great Passages at the end of the post.

Now, Elinor. She is a rock, a steady presence in a novel full of mean girls (Mrs. Ferrars and Fanny Dashwood) and silly people (Mrs. Jennings, Sir John, and Mrs. Palmer). Elinor knows how to take care of business. She withholds her emotions, and keeps the secrets of herself and others, even though it causes inner turmoil. She reminds me a bit of Victoria Leonard from one of my favorite novels, Summer Sisters. Elinor can read people in a way that her mother and sister can’t. She’s suspicious, rightly, of Willoughby’s intentions. In discussing Elinor, her rival and foil, Lucy Steele must be mentioned. What a vile creature! She is cunning (and not in a good way) and calculating. There were passages when I frankly admired Elinor for not getting up and smacking Lucy Steele in the face. Elinor, instead of playing games like Lucy, is determined to be a grown-up about the love triangle between Elinor, Lucy, and Edward.

At first glance, Willoughby and Wickham seem almost interchangeable as Austen villains. But the undercurrent of danger is stronger with Willoughby. Wickham is a jerk, but Willoughby downright dangerous. He is seducer and ruiner of women. His attentions to Marianne and her family are almost bipolar: he’s familiar enough with the Dashwood family to practically order Mrs. Dashwood not to make any alterations to their cottage (at that point, he got on my nerves—who is he to tell a grown woman what she should or shouldn’t do to her own house?). But then, when he sees Marianne at a party, he is so so cold to her.

Earlier, I mentioned the novel’s mean girls, Mrs. Ferrars and Fanny Dashwood. Like mother, like daughter (they would probably get along well with Caroline Bingley from Pride and Prejudice). They are nice to Lucy Steele only because they don’t like Elinor. However, Marianne puts them in their place, as seen in the moment below, when the two ladies are praising Miss Morton, who they hope will marry Edward Ferrars, at the expense of our beloved Elinor.

Great passage: Marianne could not bear this. She was already greatly displeased with Mrs. Ferrars; and such ill-timed praise of another at Elinor’s expense, though she had not any notion of what was principally meant by it, provoked her immediately to say with warmth: “This is admiration of a very particular kind! What is Miss Morton to us? Who knows, or who cares, for her? It is Elinor of whom we think and speak.”

My Kind of Town!

Last week, I went to Chicago, home of Maud Martha and landing station to many Great Migrators, to visit my friend Alex. We had a blast! We visited the Art Institute, and stayed there for hours. We learned that your ticket is good until the museum closes, so we went to the museum in the morning, left to have lunch, and came back to see more art. It is a stupendous museum. We also went on a Chicago architecture tour. I loved seeing the old Montgomery Ward buildings (my family used to be big fans of the Montgomery Ward catalog; I have a Montgomery Ward blanket that’s probably older than me, and is in great condition!). We also stopped by the Chicago Children’s Museum, where I took the picture above, a replica of Willis Tower (that’s its proper name, but it will always be Sears Tower to me).

P.S. I decided to read Sense and Sensibility.

Fall is Here!

“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!” wrote Keats in “Ode to Autumn.” In my opinion, if any season deserves an ode (written by an incredibly talented poet, no less), it’s autumn. I love love love the fall! It’s my favorite season. It makes me think of going back to school, the beginning of football season, fall carnivals, harvest, and the arrival of glorious weather. And pretty leaves.

Pride and Prejudice, Part 2

The elephant bookmark strikes again!

My thoughts: Ok, I finished rereading Pride and Prejudice. I should mention that I’ve only read two Jane Austen novels—this one, and Sense and Sensibility. I was supposed to read Northanger Abbey in a college Romanticism class, and didn’t finish it. I was also supposed to read Emma in another class, and, guess what? Didn’t finish. I used to be pretty bad about that.

I like Pride and Prejudice because it portrays how complex courtship and infatuation can be. “The course of true love never did run smooth,” wrote Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And that’s evident here. Jane and Bingley are kept apart because of the machinations of others, but also because of Bingley’s inability to stand up to Mr. Darcy and sisters (really, he needs to get a backbone). Elizabeth and Darcy are kept apart because, well, they both need to grow up a bit and get over themselves. However, reading the last half of the book, it’s easy to see why people (well, women) idolize Mr. Darcy. He behaves like a grown-up in situations when many people would act like children. He is really nice and accommodating to Elizabeth and her aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, when they bump into him during their tour of his home, Pemberley. This is after Lizzy coldly rejected his proposal. Most people would not behave with such maturity toward someone who turned them down (and some would, no doubt, have had Elizabeth and the Gardiners escorted off the property). Darcy had trouble expressing his love for Lizzy verbally, but he proves his loyalty to her by saving Lydia and the whole Bennet family from ruin following her tryst with Wickham—proving that actions really do speak louder than words.

My loathing of Mrs. Bennet and Lydia are pretty constant during the length of the book. I never lose the desire to climb into the pages and slap them down. Speaking of Lydia, I think it’s realistic that she does not change her undisciplined ways after said rescue from Darcy. She does not even realize that she is being rescued or why she needs to be. As I observed while reading Bonjour Tristesse, people usually don’t change their behavior when they should—this can be said of Lydia. Come to think of it, Cecile from Bonjour Tristesse is a lot like our Lydia Bennet—both act like they are adults, but are not ready to grow up.

In the final chapters is my favorite moment of the book—Elizabeth’s verbal smackdown of Lady Catherine de Bourgh when the latter practically marches into the Bennet home and tells Lizzy that she, Lady Catherine, forbids Lizzy from marrying Mr. Darcy—before they were even engaged. Lizzy tells her off in such a well-worded yet respectful way—would that all of us could be as eloquent as her when confronting someone who wants to tear us down. Elizabeth stands up for herself, basically tells Lady Catherine to mind her own business, and does not cower before Lady Catherine as many others (like Mr. Collins) do. Perhaps this is why Elizabeth Bennet is such an admired character. Their confrontation is one of my favorite moments in literature ever.

Now, a word about Mr. Wickham. Before, I mentioned that every woman has met someone like Mr. Collins. I wonder if the same can be said for Mr. Wickham. He’s like the popular high school jock that everyone believes to be good and no one can see is really a jerk until it’s too late. The “moral” of Pride and Prejudice is not to judge others until you really know them. This can be said of Darcy—who, though flawed, proves to have a better character than almost anyone else in the novel. But it can also be said of Wickham—no one who, when they first met him, would have believed that he was an incredible liar who preys on naïve young girls. Jane Austen tells us not to be taken in by a stranger’s dazzling smile and tale of woe. He may be hiding something…

Great passage (from the confrontation between Lady Catherine and Elizabeth—really, it’s a thing of beauty):
“Miss Bennet, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such language as this. I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world, and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns.”
“But you are not entitled to know mine; nor will such behavior as this, ever induce me to be explicit.”
“Let me be rightly understood. This match, to which you have the presumption to aspire, can never take place. No, never. Mr. Darcy is engaged to my daughter. Now what have you to say?”
“Only this; that if he is so, you can have no reason to suppose he will make an offer to me.”

Up next: I’m not sure, but I’m thinking of rereading Sense and Sensibility

Chicken & Dumplings!

I love my owl trivet.

Technically, this was a recipe for "chicken soup with herb dumplings," but let's not split hairs. It was delicious. Here's the recipe.

Pride and Prejudice, Part 1

Author: Jane Austen

Category: I’ve read this book twice before. Also, I really needed a break from The Guns of August. I looked over at my bookshelf, and Pride and Prejudice called to me.

My thoughts: It’s such fun to reread this book. It’s chock full of goodness. I forgot how funny Jane Austen is. She is hilarious when observing the oddities and quirks of human behavior. In this post, I’d like to mainly focus on the characters in Pride and Prejudice.

Both the primary and secondary characters are very well sketched. Sometimes I think of the characters in Pride and Prejudice as being a bit one-dimensional. In the back of my mind, I have this stereotype (prejudice, if you will) that Elizabeth Bennet is written to be a perfect heroine. Upon rereading the novel, I found that this is not true. Austen writes Lizzy as a sensible but imperfect heroine. She has a great deal of sense, but she is a know-it-all. She thinks she can perfectly surmise the character of others—and maybe she can with the simple Mr. Bingley, but she is wrong about the characters of both Darcy and Wickham. She also has a strong ability to hold a grudge, as she does against Darcy for his insult to her when they first meet (“She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me”). From this moment, Lizzy is bound and determined not to like Darcy, even though he makes friendly (in his own awkward way) overtures to her afterwards. But the fact that she is flawed makes her more likeable. Also, I usually think of Jane Bennet as being a milquetoast—and she mostly is. But she was the only one who, upon learning of Wickham’s accusations toward Darcy, thought there must be another side to the story. And so she was right. But of course, she was not one to gloat.

Now for the annoying/irritating characters. Jane Austen portrays them very well too. Mrs. Bennet, Lydia Bennet, Mr. Collins, Lady Catherine, and Caroline Bingley all fall into this category. Every time I read this book, I get the urge to climb into the pages and slap Lydia and Mrs. Bennet. I think Mrs. B would win the “Most Embarrassing Literary Mom” award. And Mr. Collins…haven’t we all met (or tried to avoid) guys like him? His clumsy proposal to Lizzy and his refusal to take no for an answer are hilarious. Mr. Collins is the guy at the bar who won’t leave you alone when you’ve made it clear that you are not interested. And everyone knows someone like Lady Catherine, who thinks she knows everything. Sample Lady Catherine statement: “There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.” Lady Catherine reminds us that, like Lizzy, Darcy has an embarrassing relative too. Finally, there’s dear Caroline Bingley, the book’s resident mean girl. Her bitchiness is fun to read, and the scenes where Austen describes Caroline’s futile attempts to flirt with Mr. Darcy, and his kind but terse responses, are classic.

One character that I completely forgot is even in the novel, but who is intriguing to me, is Colonel Fitzwilliam, Darcy’s cousin. I think he is a foil for Darcy—Colonel Fitzwilliam is easy to talk to and makes it clear that he enjoys Lizzy’s company (as opposed to Darcy, who also enjoys Lizzy’s company, but is so awkward around her).

I am thoroughly enjoying rereading this novel! I think what makes this book so great is that the feelings of the characters are universal. We have all been a bit (or very) awkward or said something silly around someone we like.

Great passage: More than once did Elizabeth in her ramble within the Park, unexpectedly meet Mr. Darcy.—She felt all the perverseness of the mischance that should bring him where no one else was brought; and to prevent its ever happening again, took care to inform him at first, that it was a favourite haunt of hers.—How it could occur a second time therefore was very odd!—Yet it did, and even a third. It seemed like willful ill-nature, or a voluntary penance, for on these occasions it was not merely a few formal enquiries and an awkward pause and then away, but he actually thought it necessary to turn back and walk with her.

P.S. Part 2 is coming soon!