Mansfield Park (Penguin Classics)

This is still great because it's Jane Austen. The writing is excellent. The characters, though, are all mostly insufferable, and the story is just so long.

My last Jane Austen novel. Like so many other young girls, my first was Pride and Prejudice, spurred on by visions of the dashing Colin Firth. I finished the other four in college, in between re-readings of P&P (gets better with age, if you ask me). For some reason, I could never get to Mansfield Park. It didn't help that in Jane Austen Book Club they always totally pan it. What I will say about this book is: it wasn't my favorite, but it wasn't my least favorite. That title is reserved for Persuasion. Just couldn't get into that one. At least with this one there was some juicy scandal at the end. But seriously, it was right at the end. Until then, it was rather dull. I have been reading this one since the summer, mostly on my phone, which is not super great, but it's much nicer to have something to read than nothing. In the past week or so I decided to nut up and just finish it, but it still took quite a while to get to the good stuff.

This is kind of a tough read. Fanny has nothing to recommend her to a modern audience like Lizzy, with her sparkling wit and self-deprecation, or Emma, with her foibles and follies. Fanny is, in short, boring. She is so good and quiet and well-behaved that even when people aren't behaving that badly around her, it seems like they are. But people start behaving pretty badly after a while, so that's at least enough to keep some interest. Fanny can't even speak most of the time because she's so painfully hindered by her own sensitivities and decorousness. It's enough to make you want to slap her. Or maybe that's just because I'm kind of more of a Mary Crawford, for better or for worse. There are people out there who are so completely inhibited by their fears and emotions, and Fanny Price is the embodiment of them. The rest of the cast of characters are not too awesome. Edmund's annoyingly somber and self-righteous (not in the nice teasing way of Mr. Knightley or the meant-to-be-pricked way of Mr. Darcy). Maria, Julia, Mrs. Norris, Lady Bertram, Henry Crawford, and Mary Crawford are all petty, flawed, self-absorbed characters meant to be the moral foils of Fanny and Edmund, who don't so much shine by comparison as make everything seem too much like a morality play. Which it is, I just don't enjoy it.

There is some wildly juicy scandal in the last fifty pages (I was actually so shocked I gasped aloud!) which made some of the dullness of the rest of the novel not so bad. But still not the best of her novels.

However, I am thrilled to finally have read them all. Woo. Now go read P&P.

It's a lovely classic and a lovely story, as every Jane Austen's. In my opinion, it's a bit darker than the others (the story is more dramatic), but it's delightful anyway.

I'd give this 3.5 stars if I could. This book seemed long and dragged on and on. However, I liked certain ones of the characters. You loved to hate them. However, I did not like the main character. She let people walk all over her all the time. She truly bored me. This wasn't my favorite Austen novel.

I really like the tired anxiety of Fanny Price going through everyone else's bullshit. Austen is always feminist and right about the world around her as a well off woman.