[HN Gopher] Jane Austen's Boldest Novel Is Also Her Least Unders...
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Jane Austen's Boldest Novel Is Also Her Least Understood
Author : lermontov
Score : 88 points
Date : 2025-06-27 23:54 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| ggm-at-algebras wrote:
| Aha! Mansfield Park has been my favourite, since the 1980s. Most
| Austen fans seem to dislike it, and see the central character as
| weak and insipid. But, I see it as about code switching and
| timidity, she's clearly an introvert being bullied by the family.
|
| The intrusion of Caribbean wealth is slavery. Edmond should be
| more overtly concerned about his families wealth, although to be
| fair it was mainly dissenters who did this, not the recipients of
| a family living.
|
| She's on the money for naval preferment. Without help, commoner
| middies didn't make the crucial step up towards post captain. And
| for preferment, sexual favours by a sister would be common.
| masswerk wrote:
| It may be important to note that all of Austen's novels are set
| up and kept going by an essential flaw in the hero characters.
| And Fanny Price is the ultimate anti-hero: indeed, she is
| hardly a heroine, she doesn't act, at all, she has no arc, she
| just clings to the first thing she encounters. While the world
| is moving and swirling around her, she doesn't move at all, not
| for lack of opportunity, but as a character trait (and, at
| times, by sheer luck, as in the theatre episode, thus earning
| her uncle's regard). And, in the end, it's all for nothing:
| while she got everything, she may have wanted to embrace, and
| even more, she is untouched by it and (quite literally) still
| where she started. It's quite literally about first
| attachments, not just in the domain of romance (like in Sense
| and Sensibility), but to about everything. Or, rather, first
| possessions, as in the first room, she may call her own, the
| first person, she talks to, etc.
|
| How Austen constructs a plausible environment for such a
| character and what she does with this world and its characters
| is quite astounding - and hilarious. And, as you said, there
| are actually serious topics discussed.
|
| Even more astounding is maybe how modern adaptations try to
| render this as "how our quick and cunning girl stirs up that
| lame family and wins everything."
| ggm-at-algebras wrote:
| Mrs Norris is also superbly well personified. She knows the
| worth of a roll of green baize. Her life and livelihood
| depends on it.
| masswerk wrote:
| It's probably the best thing after the well-meaning social
| execution of Jane Fairfax, Emma's foil, by Emma's father
| for the exceptionally dangerous luck of having wet socks.
| masswerk wrote:
| PS: As a literary stunt and challenge, the question, _how can
| we do an entertaining and involving novel with an entirely
| inert heroine and protagonist?_ , isn't that dissimilar from
| Umberto Eco's chosen challenge, _how can we do a who-done-it
| where the book is the murderer?_ (as seen in the Name of the
| Rose.) And Jane Austen masters the seemingly impossible quite
| impressively.
|
| It's quite remarkable how postmodern Jane Austen's novels
| already are. See also Northanger Abbey, where she regularly
| breaks the 4th wall for a meta-discourse on literature and
| genres, just to involve the reader again and again, as if she
| had never ripped the veil - which isn't necessarily black,
| BTW.
|
| (In this context, it may be also notable how Fanny Price's
| apparently keen social observations are really a mirror of
| the rigorous views and forms conveyed in moral books as
| characterized by Austen and put up as a foil and antipode to
| the genre of novels in this meta-discourse, and laughed at in
| other novels, like in the characters of Mr. Collins and Mary
| Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. If not for other reasons,
| Fanny Price is an anti-heroine, just for her anti-novel-
| ness.)
| shever73 wrote:
| https://archive.is/4f3AY
| gwd wrote:
| A book that helped me understand what's going on in Austen the
| best was titled "Jane Austen and the Fiction of Her Time". Jane
| Austen loved novels, but was also dissatisfied with what she saw
| as the flaws of a lot of the novels around her -- both in the
| plots (unrealistic situations or unrealistic characters), and
| with the message they were trying to present. So many of the
| situations are direct allusions to other novels, and many of the
| main messages are subtle and subversive.
|
| One of the things pointed out about Mansfield Park is that
| although all ends well for the main characters, it's basically by
| accident. If Henry Crawford had just gone back to check on his
| steward, as he knew he should have, he never would have been
| snubbed by Julia; would never have been tempted by wounded vanity
| to win her back; would never have run off with her, putting
| himself completely out of Fanny's reach; and would, in the
| author's estimation, have won her over eventually. And if Henry
| hadn't run off with Julia, Mary would never have exposed her lack
| of principles to Edmund, and they would have been married shortly
| too.
| gsf_emergency_2 wrote:
| the most complex of the Austen rakes, destined to be "the
| nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life", according to
| another regency quip, HC was
|
| https://www.commonreader.co.uk/p/jane-austens-rake-problem
| gwd wrote:
| I don't see that quip in that link? It seems to think that
| Mr. Elliot is the most dangerous of rakes, and I'm inclined
| to agree.
|
| But there's an unexamined assumption in that piece that good
| characters should be rewarded and bad characters punished by
| the author. That's exactly the sort of thing that Austen
| hated. She wanted things to be things like real life, where
| adultery and cheating and lying and defying the law can bring
| you hundreds of millions of loyal followers and a second
| presidency.
|
| Why was Henry not punished like Julia was? _Because he owned
| land and she didn 't_. That's the beginning and end of it.
| It's unfair because society is unfair.
|
| And it's not just men who get away with things. Lucy Steele
| lies and schemes and manipulates her way all the way through
| Sense and Sensibility, and is rewarded by being not only an
| heiress of a great fortune, but a favored daughter-in-law.
| The difference between Lucy and Julia aren't their morals --
| Lucy is far less moral than Julia. She's just a lot smarter
| and more disciplined.
| gsf_emergency_2 wrote:
| Ah.. realism you say? Elliott was not nearly as
| _attractive_ (=less of a danger, even in the mind of the
| author, I venture-- its not a coincidence he is related to
| Anne! )
|
| Otoh HC was (apparently) as reformable as a boy can get
| without actually being _good_ = seductive
|
| (Should have made clear that it's from Wellington, an
| admirer of Napoleon https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-
| meaning-of-Wellingtons-quo...)
| gsf_emergency_2 wrote:
| Update: Austen could have gone with _cool vs bad_ [0] but
| that wouldn't be drama would it (& she's been there: that
| business with Mr Darcy, quite cringe to modern readers
| no?)
|
| [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44423529
| ivape wrote:
| _Jane Austen loved novels, but was also dissatisfied with what
| she saw as the flaws of a lot of the novels around her_
|
| I always got the sense that she disliked the length and pacing
| of other books of her time. She has absolutely no qualms about
| moving the story from step to step with very little exposition
| in between. She's just really dope, treats the reader in a very
| accelerated way.
|
| Romance is corny stuff to write but she does it in such a cut
| throat, sharp and fast way that you don't really get a chance
| to not get invested. Before you even realize what you're
| reading, she already has you at the ball with the two
| characters dancing.
|
| To put it shortly, she tells entire love stories in pamphlet
| sized books. Masterclass in brevity.
| masswerk wrote:
| In _Northanger Abbey_ we get an explicit reference to one of
| those books, _The Mysteries of Udolpho_ by Ann Radcliffe,
| which started the entire Gothic novel craze. Comparing the
| two is quite informative: Where Radcliffe describes the basic
| character traits over a page or two, followed by another page
| how fortunately this added up with the specific situation in
| life, Austen gives us a one-sentence-or-less description of
| the social characteristics of a character, maybe followed by
| a short remark on how this character deviated from what was
| to be expected from this. And, where Radcliffe 's characters
| break into tears to assert their humanity, over and over
| again (something that can be still observed in Bram Stoker's
| _Dracula_ , but thankfully much rarer), Austen's characters
| just chase their follies, which are more often than not a
| class marker. (If you thought modern times were car-crazy,
| just look at those gigs!)
|
| In this sense, where characters are established by just
| dropping social position and economic status as sort of a
| blueprint, Jane Austen is a surprisingly materialist author.
| To paraphrase a well known quote, she turned Radcliffe from
| the head to the feet. ;-)
| gwd wrote:
| > She has absolutely no qualms about moving the story from
| step to step with very little exposition in between. She's
| just really dope, treats the reader in a very accelerated
| way.
|
| I dunno, the pacing I always think was really _weird_ , even
| though it clearly works. Most of the time, you don't even
| know who the main characters are until chapter 2 at a
| minimum. Read the opening lines of Persuasion, all about some
| arrogant fool of a baronet, and you're like, "Why is this so
| interesting?"
|
| And then, usually it seems loads of stuff happens in the
| beginning that sets up the basic tension of the story, then a
| long middle where almost nothing seems to happen (but for
| some reason you're not bored), and then suddenly everything
| resolves at the end.
| tosser0001 wrote:
| One of the minor subplot points in Whit Stillman's movie
| "Metropolitan" was a couple of the characters' debate over the
| merits of "Mansfield Park".
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