Read again: Oct 10, 2022

3/31/22

I'm surprised whenever I hear that this is someone's favorite Austen novel. It's a difficult read -- dark and bleak. There's not one happy moment or event that doesn't hinge directly on unhappiness or outright misery. There isn't much humor, and when there is, it's rather over-broad.

Of course, it's still Austen. So it's still brilliant. We can all be grateful that she had the time and strength to rewrite the "proposal" scene into the magnificent passage it is. It gives me the shivers at a time. I have to slow my reading speed to a walk. (If hearing that there's a proposal in an Austen novel counts as a "spoiler," you need to stay inside more. With a good book.)

As in all the "Annotated" editions, David Shapard is meticulous and generous. Even a reader new to Austen will have no difficulty navigating her way with Shapard to help. And he always gives fair warning about spoilers. ( )

This is an excellent edition for the reader coming to Persuasion for the second time, especially one who wants a greater familiarity with the physical reality of the setting and some insight on a literary level into the writing.

I'm very fond of annotated versions of novels, especially novels written before the 20th century. Words change meaning and implication over time. Social mores change, styles of living change, even what it means to be rich and poor change. In the case of this, Jane Austen's last complete novel, someone who does not have a certain amount of familiarity with late 18th/early 19th century English society and culture will lose much of the nuance of the story -- the obstacles appear absurd and contrived, the situations dull, the various difficulties faced by the characters ridiculous without that knowledge. This annotated version gives all that information in a fairly unobtrusive but convenient way, by placing notes on each facing page of the text.

It includes maps of areas, references to Austen's letters as source material, interesting facts, definitions of words as used at the time, and much more detail, trivia, and observation by the editors which add to the novel without interfering with it. I enjoyed the Annotated Pride & Prejudice I read a few years ago, and I'm looking forward to starting the Annotated Sense & Sensibility by the same editors. ( )

If as an adult, you are going to read Jane Austen, and I have only read Austen as an adult, you should do yourself a favor and read Austen with the aid of the Annotated versions edited by David Shapard.

Here in Persuasion we have a great amount of detail to add to this rather short tale. It makes the reading that much more enjoyable having at hand what otherwise would have required a full 100+ volume library to understand much of what Austen took or granted when writing this 200 years ago.

The story, is perhaps one of my favorites, for here we have love placed on hold and when our protagonists meet, can they act like adults and remember that they have got on with their lives. Or is there still some fire left in them for each other.

A true love story of course has the latter, but the journey is handled with a deft hand and with depth. We do not see the Hero's thoughts until the end, and that may have made the journey much more rounded. Still, with that we see through the annotated version, we get a full look at these thoughts and reflections. We also see how Jane finally gets the war that was prevailing into the tales. She had her brothers away as Naval officers and she honors them with this tale.

A worthy read and reread. ( )