The Seasonal Reading Challenge discussion

This is the discussion thread for the Spring 2023 Group Read Persuasion in the category Gutenberg Classic. Please post your comments here. This thread is not restricted to those choosing this book for task 20.10, feel free to join in the discussion. Warning- spoilers ahead!

The requirement for task 20.10: You must participate in the book's discussion thread below with at least one post about the contents of the book or your reaction to the book after you have read the book.

It is always a pleasure to revisit Jane Austen. Persuasion is not my favorite and it has been 11 years since I read it last (thank you, Goodreads, for keeping track of this for me, otherwise I would have no idea…). I have not found the characters in Persuasion as memorable, nor the story line as strong, as in my more favorites, Pride & Prejudice and Emma, so beyond Anne Elliott and Wentworth, I really would not have remembered much about it since my last read. No memorable quotes to look forward to in this one for me. But a pleasant enough read, if one has the patience for a pretty thin story with much excited gossip and speculation about every insignificant thing and the predictable happy ending for our well-deserving heroine. Essentially typical Jane fare that does not disappoint, if one likes this sort of thing, which I very much do.

While I enjoyed Persuasion, I found it a little dull compared to other Austen works. It was rather uneventful and focused more on the ordinary. I felt like an interloper eavesdropping on people's thoughts and conversations. Overall, it was a pleasant but not exceptional read.

Just started the audiobook today and quite enjoying it so far.
I'm not the greatest Austen's fan to be honest but it's been a while since I last read anything by her so I truly hope this book will confirm my current expectations until the very end!

I've recently finished Persuasion and it was a very pleasant read for me. I agree with Lois above saying that it has not a strong story line and besides excited gossip and speculation there wasn't much to look forward to, but I enjoyed following Anne's and captain Wentworth's evolving relationship enough to remain entertained and curious to follow the narration, which by the way was very engaging so it helped a lot as well. Reading this new to me novel really made me want to re-read some other Austen's in the fear nature too and rekindle my relationship with this author which I've neglected for quite a bit! So in the end, a very nice and satisfying read which deserved 4 stars!

This seems to be the month for my re-reading Jane Austen's works as I read "Sense and Sensibility" earlier.

While "Pride & Prejudice" is a wonderfully entertaining and amusing book, and the confident and outspoken Lizzie Bennett is my favorite Austen heroine, the actual story in "Persuasion" has always appealed to me the most.

The drama and angst of the second chances romance between the more mature, quiet and subdued Anne Elliot and the broody and resentful Wentworth is touching. The message conveyed through their relationship of love lost and found again is sweet and enduring and is best expressed in Anne's words about women in love: “The one claim I shall make for my own sex is that we love longest, when all hope is gone.”.

With regard to some of the comments here about the gossipy tone, I agree, but it is also a hallmark of Austen's writing and a not so subtle critique of people's preoccupation with social standing and judging others.

I have recently finished persuasion. I am a lover of the classics but it has been a while since i last visited Jane Austen's books. I recently bought myself the set of Austen's Chiltern classics. I might agrree that this is the most uneventful of Austen's works but I feel that the work is not solely about events but about how we see people. The sides they choose to show to the reader and the purposes they choose to follow. This book has a lot to say about character and outcome.

Having read a few other Jane Austen novels many years ago, I was a little worried about launching in to another one. I found the other novels hard to read and was not very interested in the story. I have grown in my reading, and I was delighted to discover how much I enjoyed Persuasion! It does require more thought than some other books, but that is a good thing! It forced me to slow down and really absorb what I was reading. I love Anne's character: her gentleness, her compassion and care for others, her accommodating spirit, not complaining when others are rude or unkind to her, even her own family.

I am excited to return to some of Jane Austen's novels now that my reading has matured and I am better able to slow down and take the time to enjoy her works.

My first read of Persuasion, which makes five of the big six Austen books that I've read now (although I've watched TV or film versions of all six); I'm only missing Emma.

I felt this was a companion piece with Mansfield Park - Anne being another introvert heroine, but thankfully less insipid. Although maybe Fanny Price, if she hadn't been so dependent on her relatives' goodwill, would have grown a little bit of backbone? Anne, although ignored by her family, had no worries about losing her position - financial or social - if she didn't please her family enough.

I did wince at the mention of Mrs Smith's late husband's property in the West Indies. At this period, that almost certainly must have been to do with slavery.

Overall, another enjoyable Austen; but I'm glad to be a woman in the 21st century and not the 19th.

The major complaint against Persuasion appears to be that Anne does not do very much. I think that observing is quite a challenge, especially to a woman in her position as a daughter in a well-to-do but struggling family. That she would be attracted to a naval officer, Cptn Wentworth, lends itself to lots of satire within the family as they at first wince, then sort-of get over it. But then he leaves and the family finds itself in worse than ever situations. And the opportunist William Eliot shows up. All of these situations lend themselves to the satire which, I think, makes its coupling appropriate with Austen's first novel Northanger Abbey in their first edition (posthumous), a true satire using gothic elements.

As a 21st-century male reader of Austen, I find myself in the position of the male member of Karen Joy Fowler's Jane Austen Book Club. When asked which book he is most interested in, he says, "Isn't there one with an abbey?" If Northanger Abbey is a satire on the young women who read gothic novels at the time and their opportunistic older patriarchs, then Persuasion is a satire on the society women who view the romance of the seas (symbolized in the Naval captains) with disdain, only to realise the opportunism of the class of men who look down on the naval life.

The thing that knocks the satire off its pedestal for Anne is the letter from Wentworth near the end. He shows that his position os a Naval Officer shows all too well the reality of romance and the ridiculous nature of class structures that try to interpret that reality in their own spheres of what is proper. I think this letter is probably the "Persuasion" of the title, with its, "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope," coming across as something real in the middle of all the fake-business of class consciousness that is related in the pages prior.

In my opinion this book wasn’t nearly as good as Pride and Prejudice. I’m not sure if my brain is to blame for this, but I couldn’t keep track of who was who and what relation they were to eachother, which made for very confusing reading. I feel like this story could have been told in just a few pages.
On the upside, this book was amazing at helping me sleep. Just a few pages and I feel drowsy.

—-

And I’ve taken out three quotes, with why these stood out to me;

Anne saw nothing, thought nothing of the brilliancy of the room. Her happiness was from within. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks glowed; but she knew nothing about it.

** Just a lovely quote, I think. **

Anne had reason to believe that she had moments only of languor and depression, to hours of occupation and enjoyment. How could it be? She watched, observed, reflected and finally determined that this was not a case of fortitude or of resignation only. A submissive spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of herself, which was from nature alone.

** A paragraph that felt very relatable. For me, setting myself to some work helps a lot, mentally. It is kind of fun to read how that might have been true for Jane Austen as well. **

“I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman’s inconsistency. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman’s fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.”
“Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.”

** Perhaps the best sentences in the book, I feel. First of all, I like how Anne doesn’t mindlessly agree with the man she is in conversation with. She disagrees and makes her point clearly.
I wonder if Austen knew how important it was for her to write, and finally adding a woman’s voice for once. It makes you think… It hasn’t been that long ago that education and writing (reporting the news, as well as writing books), has been mainly in male hands. And perhaps still is today. And what influence this has in the cultural perception of women and non-binary people vs men. There is still a long way to go in that regard. **

Maria Jo wrote: "Having read a few other Jane Austen novels many years ago, I was a little worried about launching in to another one. I found the other novels hard to read and was not very interested in the story. ..."
I really like how you've noticed the difference in your reading! I can relate to this, I think.
It feels special to me that the act of reading something can have such a different effect in different "phases" of our reading life. Even if we ever ran out of books to read, we would always have new things to discover, don't you think?

This was my first time reading Persuasion even though I devoured nearly all of Austen years (decades) ago. As a teen and 20-something, I enjoyed all the social status-based wrangling and the more ridiculous characters at least as much as anything else, but apparently I have no patience left for any of that, haha. I'm glad Sir Elliot and Elizabeth traipsed off to Bath almost immediately, or I doubt I would have finished the book.

It also isn't the most thrilling of the big Austen novels, plotwise, but it certainly felt more critical of the gentry/aristocracy than what I remember from the Austen I read previously. I have to agree with Hannah that it was also nice to see an acknowledgement that women's relative lack of voice in literature likely lead to the consistently negative and demeaning depiction of the gender as a whole (which, in turn, could only have furthered popular perception of women's fallibility/inconsistency/fickleness/etc).

Overall I ended up enjoying this little novel, but it's not one I'll be re-reading any time soon

Just as Bridget Jones' Diary was based on Pride & Prejudice, the sequel Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason was based on Persuasion. It's not as obvious but it's definitely there.