Persuasion

I read the majority of Persuasion the day after a ball. Despite the lack of ballroom action in this particular novel in comparison to Austen’s other works, to read this Regency tale with last night’s merriment in mind seemed oddly fitting. Alright, there was a distinct lack of handsome Byronic heroes, and not a country reel to be heard, but there was plenty of wine and spirited conversation, (ranging from small-talk to salacious gossip), not to mention elegant dresses and a sharp dinner jacket or two. Slightly less Austen-esque were the unlimited candyfloss and shisha tent entertainments, but nevertheless, a ball is a ball, and, whether thrown now or two hundred years ago, excellent for awakening the imagination.

I always see Persuasion as Austen’s saddest novel. Some critics harp on about how it was her last novel and we can see her regret and woes showing through, but actually, it wasn’t at all – she’d begun writing another novel before she died, one that is quite lighthearted. However, that is not to undermine the poignant themes of regret and loss coursing through the story. It’s probably the old-fashioned sentimentalist lurking inside my soul, but I like to think that Austen looked at her own lifetime and missed opportunities, and wrote about the highly unlikely but overwhelming change that a second chance might bring about – perhaps sadly, perhaps wistfully, but always with the utmost grace and eloquence.

Persuasion is less about the thrill of a new love, as her other novels often are, but about the reminiscences and nostalgia surrounding the old. Most people will know the plot, but I will outline it anyway. Anne Elliot, at nineteen years old, meets a Frederick Wentworth. They are perfectly matched, entirely in love, and intend to marry. Indeed, they would have, had it not have been for the interference of Lady Russell, Anne’s godmother, a distinguished woman who is rather too pragmatic for her own good. Lady Russell sees his inferior rank and Anne’s young age as a poor recipe for happiness, and so persuades Anne to break off the engagement. He goes away to sea and makes his fortune; Anne is left behind. Eight years pass, and Anne has never fully recovered; her feelings remain the same, but she has become faded and sad. Circumstances arise (concerning her amusingly vain father and elder sister’s extravagant spending of money on trivialities) which lead to Wentworth’s (now a rich Captain, of course) sister and her husband renting Anne’s family house. Their paths cross, and Anne is in agony as she watches Wentworth, who is still angry with her, initiate flirtations with others. She, in turn receives attention from suitors, and the reader has to watch two soulmates, for want of a better word, drift even further apart. What makes it so heartrending for the reader is that we know that had they married eight years previously, they would have lived in perfect happiness. Even in the face of the inevitable Austen happy ending (I swore I would never spoil an ending for a reader, but, it being a Jane novel, it is fairly obvious that they end up together), it seems like a horrible waste. Eight years apart, which leads to little but his acquisition of money, without which they would have been perfectly happy, anyway.

A word or two must be said about her language. Less a playful social satire than her other works, her turn of phrase for conveying humour or that famous irony is nevertheless utterly exquisite. Yet what I truly adore is the way that the reader is let wholeheartedly into Anne’s mind through what is called ‘free indirect discourse’ – a style of narration that admits all the intimacy of a first-person narrative, without the egoistical ‘I’. We see Anne’s every blush, witness her deepest thoughts and sense her quickening heartbeat, as well as feel her sorrows, all the while maintaining a distance so we can judge characters for ourselves. Austen cleverly gives us as close a sense of Anne’s experience as possible, without straying into the first person. One moment that is extremely effective is when Anne sees Captain Wentworth for the first time in eight years. We see it through Anne’s eyes, briefly, as “her eye half met Captain Wentworth’s,” then as she hastily looks down, we hear his progress around the room as opposed to see it. In this ingenious way, Austen makes their meeting as awkwardly anticlimactic as it might be in real life, and pinpoints to perfection Anne’s confusion and distress.

Ah, I love Jane Austen. I love this novel; I won’t hear a word against it. Yes, I am one of those mad people who see Jane as a kind of friend and guiding influence. Her writing (not just her novels, her letters, too) make me wish I was as subtly and sharply witty as her, and not only do I identify with more than one of her heroines, but I also blame her for my extremely high standards in men… My love for Jane is blind and absolute, and therefore, do not expect a word of criticism from me. I am afraid you will have to read Persuasion yourself, then tell me of your misgivings, so I can argue against them, with as much wit and charm as I can muster.