Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

If it hadn’t been such a blow to my reading ego to admit defeat by Jane Austen, I might have put Mansfield Park down and never picked it up again. I remembered this novel being disappointing-the story and characters, not necessarily the setting, construction, or writing – but this time it was almost unbearable.

 

You see, I like Jane Austen’s novels. Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma are some of my favorite books. I’ve been looking forward to re-reading them in this Year of Books I’ve Read Before, but I decided to give Mansfield Park a go first, largely because I wanted to figure out why my memories of it are less favorable. Now I know.

Fanny Price is a tough heroine for me to follow. She’s meek and prudish and seems to be almost totally against amusement and those who partake in it. I guess we’re supposed to see the shallowness of the privileged elite and their constant strive for entertainment (that is, most of the rest of the young characters in the novel and their pursuits) as foolish and impractical while Fanny’s goodness is to be admired and ultimately rewarded. Okay, fine. I just wish she had some of Elizabeth Bennet’s wit and pluck, or Elinor Dashwood’s pragmatism. Or even had learned a valuable lesson in the course of the story and grew and changed for the better, like Emma Woodhouse. Nope. Fanny is the same puritanical stick in the mud from beginning to end. The only change she seems to make is from a frail and not particularly attractive child to a pretty woman.

Mansfield Park is long, and I think Austen could have made her points without quite so many pages. The extended period in which the young people at Mansfield plan and rehearse the play Lover’s Vows took me almost as long to read as it could have taken place in real time. In retrospect, I should have skipped it, already knowing what would happen at the end of it all. The more scandalous and exciting parts of the story seem to breeze by in comparison, and I found those more enjoyable.

Of course this novel is written with the unique use of language characteristic of Austen, which I really do like to read. I mostly read her books for that language, sometimes marveling at its brilliance. It’s hard to really get enthralled by a book’s words alone, however, and I wish I’d been less bored and irritated by so many parts of this story, or that I could have felt compelled to cheer on Fanny Price as I have Austen’s other heroines.

 

Coming soon: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien

 

 

A Year of Books I’ve Read Before