Reading: Persuasion

[white_hart]

I can't remember when I first read Persuasion, but as I don't appear to own a standalone copy of it I suspect it must have been before I moved away from my parents' house, and I don't think I'd read it more than once before. Generally, I haven't re-read Austen nearly as much as I should have done, which is a shame, because whenever I do I find something new.

This time round, what I found was much greater sympathy for Anne and Wentworth than I had when I was nearer their ages at their first meeting rather than their second; a surprisingly modern-feeling depiction of the relationships between the party at Uppercross; and a description of "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 struck me very powerfully as being, basically, the best summing-up of the concept which is now known as "resilience" and which appears to be a pop-psychology flavour of the month I've ever read. In your face, pop psychology; Jane Austen got there two centuries before you.

Comments

[kaberett]

Jane Austen is really very good at all of that, yes. (I am currently reading North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, pressed upon me by P, and greatly enjoying it similarly.)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

because whenever I do I find something new.

I always find this when reading Austen. I did Emma for A-level and have read it several times since, and yet when I read it again last year I still found myself taking a different focus.