| Nov. 30th, 2008 @ 10:18 am Book review: Sense and Sensibility |
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That Jane Austen, whadda bitch eh? I did say after Lost in Austen aired that it'd made me want to go back and read some of her books again, so here we are. The fact that Austen is a supremely bitchy writer (her stories are, when it comes down to it, a string of gossip) is no big surprise, although Sense and Sensibility, her first published novel, took me aback slightly in how blatant that is. Apart from the main characters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, everyone is subject to the author's barbs about their social gaffes, big or small. Not that I didn't enjoy the book hugely, but I think she became a bit more subtle about slagging people off in her later novels. Another aspect that is slightly less developed than later is the plotting - there's a few too many instances of last-minute information coming in that helps secure a happy ending.
The other thing that struck me was the sympathetic portrayal of some of the more (apparently) caddish men in the book. As social commentary goes, the book has a lot to say about the social niceties sometimes trapping men in unhappy marriages because of a rash promise made in their youth - one of the suitors ends up in such a situation, another narrowly avoids it. Great fun and offering a lot more social insight than just escapism, even if it's not one of Austen's more accomplished novels all in all. |
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