The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.
Rating: 2.5/5
Spoiler Alert! If you haven’t read the book, this review will contain spoilers so it’s up to you if you continue…
Somehow I’ve managed to read almost all of Austen’s great novels despite proclaiming I had no desire to do so. Whilst I always believed that they told the same story with the same characters, it has become evident that whilst the same themes are present throughout Austen’s writing, her characters are original, her writing witty, and he observations of the world subtle criticisms of the hypocrisy and materialism she witnessed.
Sense and Sensibility is a critique of the ideas of ‘sensibility’ that were so prevalent in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Essentially, sensibility is the idea that could be so sensitive to the world, so emotionally receptive, that everything would had the power to affect them, to arrest their feelings and cause them to faint, to cry, to swoon. The kind of exaggerated stuff you get from adaptations of Austen’s work a woman swoons in response to merest suggestion of something upsetting. All down to this trend of sensibility, which even at the time had mixed responses. Austen’s writing of Marianne and her mother, Mrs Dashwood, is her response to these ideas. I would say Austen was caricaturing sensibility, but I’m not entirely sure that would be accurate; sensibility was about over the top emotions and Marianne in particular displays a great excess of emotion.
That being said, I think Marianne could be a divisive figure amongst readers. In some ways she is naive and innocent - I, for one, was inclined to forgive her emotional overindulgence because she was so happy with Willoughby to begin with. Of course, she was foolish, but she’s also 17 (I think) so I felt like she was allowed to fall in love so rapidly. I do believe many would see her naivety as something less easy to forgive, however. She was frequently blind to what was proper, and unwilling to talk to many of the other characters because she did not like them, rudely disappearing from rooms when they arrived, or declining invitations. Nothing wrong with doing that, obviously you don’t have to spend time with people you don’t like, but it was evidence of a greater lack of understanding for behavioural codes and manners.
Elinor, on the other hand, had a much greater understanding of codes of conduct - in fact, she seems to be the only one in the entire book who does so. All the surrounding characters have strange foibles which show…perhaps a lack of “good breeding” is the term Austen would use. Eccentricities which make them fun characters to read about, but perhaps odd people to know.
The examination of the titular qualities - sense and sensibility - really was an interesting look at societal expectations/trends of the time, but as for the romance which is inevitably used to examine these qualities…well it’s not quite Pride and Prejudice. I’m proud of Marianne’s improvement after her sickness, but I see no reason to forgive or pity Willoughby as Elinor, Marianne and their mother seem to. He chose the ability to live an expensive lifestyle and pay off his debts over his love for Marianne. I don’t really understand why Elinor, with all her sense, would pity him for it.
The final two chapters just felt a little rushed to me. I know that most Austen novels wrap themselves up neatly with a summary of how things end, but this felt especially rushed, pushing together Marianne and Colonel Brandon simply because he had admired her for so long (I liked him as a character, but he deserved more than her…he deserved Elinor to tell the truth). And as for Elinor and Edward? Well, they’re a good match but it was all rather convenient wasn’t it. Lucy turned out to be a worse person than I imagined, Robert was about as bad as I thought, and Edward regretted his young engagement…honestly I just kind of wanted Elinor to find out that Edward and Lucy truly loved each other, and then for her to marry the Colonel but what do I know? One marriage would be far too few for Austen to end on.
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