Review of "Mansfield Park"

Mansfield Park

by Jane Austen

Yes!  I finally read this book, and now have only Northanger Abbey to go before I can officially say that I have read the entire Jane Austen "Sacred Six"!  It's funny, I've actually read a bit of her juvenalia, but still haven't finished the "canon" yet.  I'm quite surprised at myself about it, really.

You know, the more I read Jane Austen, the more I decide that she only crafted one plot, and kept writing it over and over, improving it each time, in each novel in which she used it.  The most amazing part of the whole enterprise is that she manages to keep me glued to the page EVERY TIME!

It's not actually the same plot, of course; it's a formula of re-arranging certain required elements into different patterns, and it is that very quality that allowed Austen to DEFINE the "comedy of manners".  Someone will behave in an absolutely infamous way when judged by the standards of the time.  At least one, and usually two people will be so impossibly stupid and annoying that the reader cringes every time that character appears on the page.  At least one main character is impossibly good, usually the heroine, though not always.  The one redeeming factor of this aspect is the fact that Austen uses it as a sort of quiet rebellion; though she never actually says so, she makes it clear to the audience that the snarls to happiness would have gotten untangled much quicker if that character hadn't been such a paragon of the virtues of Jane Austen's time.

So, it goes without saying that this book was that novel again, and that like all the others, this one had its own twist, its own take on the themes.  Nothing remains to give you but spoilers and my own opinion, and as I'm diametrically opposed to all spoilers, I'll just say that I enjoyed it, I always enjoy them, even though I'd sometimes be hard-pressed to outline exactly why.  Jane Austen was an absolute genius; what else is there to be said?

Circling Along

Another week gone already, and my goodness, hasn't it been a week of yarn crafting?!  Well, it has for me, anyway.  Friday I attended my first monthly meeting of my new church's prayer shawl circle; since I didn't yet have their pattern, I just took along some yarn for a new baby blanket I've been wanting to start and got crocheting on it while I got to know everybody a little.  So, two crochet baby blankets in two different colorways going at once right now, and one of them is almost finished.

The big victory this week, however, was that I cast on a new project onto my newly-acquired CIRCULAR NEEDLES!  Are we so proud? Because I am.  Yes, after five years of scheming, dreaming, and several disastrous failed attempts, I am finally making some headway on the Ravenclaw house scarf I have dreamed of knitting.  Indeed, it was my ambition to make this scarf that drove me to learn to knit in the first place!  It's slow going, obviously, since I'm a very new knitter.  Even the halting rhythm I have slowly begun to build up with regular needles still hasn't developed yet on the circular ones, so it's definitely going to be awhile before it begins to look like a scarf, instead of some kind of yarn covered halo, but still I'm terribly pleased with my progress.

 

For any Harry Potter fanatic like me who may be wondering (because I would be, if I were you), yes, I will be using the Ravenclaw house colors as described in the BOOKS, blue and the closest I could find to bronze, rather than the blue and silver of the films.  Anything worth doin', etc., you know?

And what have I been reading in the interim since we last met?  Nothing less than one of the greatest writers in the history of the English language--yes, I have finally read Jane Austen's Mansfield Park.  I feel almost as proud of getting through that thrilling but linguistically challenging tome as if I had written something monumental myself!  If you've never read the book, let me just say that while the effort is absolutely worth it, the way that Jane Austen's language twists and writhes in this one may leave you feeling like you're trying to navigate a dense maze without even a breadcrumb trail, let alone a map.  Don't give up, but be sure to bring a lot of patience and your best attention with you!

Yarning Along--FINALLY!

LOOK!  Look, look, look!

The Christmas afgan is FINALLY finished!  ALL finished.  Ends woven in and everything.  I feel like I just won a Nobel prize for astrophysics or something.

Also, the first baby afghan is coming along nicely.

Even my current choice of reading material leaves me with a sense of pride and accomplishment for several reasons.

1. There ARE far easier things to read than Jane Austen written in the English language.
2. I've been a devoted Austen fan literally for decades.  HOW could I have left out not one but TWO of her canon of works until just now?  Mea culpa!
3. This book is required by two challenges I'm currently supposed to be finishing.  Hopefully I'll get through it before the "deadline".

So, there we are.  I hope your week was productive, filled with yarning delight and reading joys.

Top 10 Late Lamented Authors

I've been compiling my list for the Top 10 Tuesday question this week, "Authors you wish would write another book," and it turns out that many of my favorite writers are dead!  I'm not sure what that says about me, or about the current state of publishing--probably nothing that profound, I'm willing to bet--but there it is, all the same.

Without further ado, "Bring out your dead!"

10.  Brian Jacques--the wonderful Redwall series that made us all believe that the characters of Watership Down could go badass in the right authorial hands. Requiescat in pace.

9.  Anne Rice--who is actually still alive, and therefore REALLY needs to write another in her Christ the Lord series.  To be perfectly honest, however, I can live quite handily without her adding to the already over-bloated vampire fiction population.

8.  Jean Plaidy--nom de plume of Eleanor Hibbert.  Oh, my dear, how I would love to see what your take would be on the MODERN royal scandals and sagas of the day, if only you were here to write them!  Requiescat in pace.

7.  Tom Clancy--I honestly don't know whether to consider Tom in the still-alive category or not.  They claim he is, but it's been so many years since he actually WROTE a book that has his name slapped somewhere on its cover that I have my doubts.  I begin to suspect that he's like the Chinese emperor whose body was embalmed and toured the country in a carriage because the government feared there would be too much instability if word got out that he was dead!  Tom, I miss YOUR books.  I'm thoroughly weary of everyone ELSE writing "your" books, though.

6.  Terry Pratchett--is definitely still alive, and very much still writing books, despite a diagnosis of Alzheimers, which kind of makes him my hero.  Seriously.  I include him on this list because, just for me, he needs to concentrate all his writing energies on keeping me supplied with new Nac Mac Feegle books the rest of my life, the darling wee scunners.  Wee Free Men Forever!

5.  L.M. Montgomery--Only in such a truly august company could the creator of my beloved Anne of Green Gables rank so comparatively low on the list.  The world will always need about a dozen more of her books, even if we won't ever get them now.  Requiescat in pace.

4.  Chaim Potok--It seems I'm just going to keep raving about this man on my blog until SOMEONE finally says in the comments, "Okay, I surrender!  I finally took your advice, read one of his books, and it WAS, indeed brilliant."  Anybody going to go ahead and do that on behalf of all the rest of my readers?  Because I promise you, the man was a genius, and the world has lost a great soul.  Requiescat in pace.

Getty Images

3.  Sir John Mortimer--Nothing short of the death of his inventor, the final putting down of the pen, could make the incorrigible Horace Rumpole, barrister at law, stop appearing before the Old Bailey bench or the Uxbridge Magistrates' Court in defence of the Timson clan who were his bread and butter for some forty years.  We miss you, Sir John; you were an original, and a fine citizen of the human race.  Here's to "the Golden Thread that runs through British justice".  May I see genuine liberty revived in my lifetime.  Requiescat in pace.

2.  Jane Austen--Unbelievable that Jane is the runner-up here, I know, but still I must eulogize her a bit.  She was the first to teach the English-speaking world what strong, intelligent women could be, to decide for herself where her destiny lay, to prove to the world that a woman's mind could be the equal of any male writer's anywhere, and to lead the charge for staying single rather than settling for Mr. Wrong or Mr. "Eh".  To her we owe every strong female character from Josephine March to Miss Marple.  Without Jane Austen, there is no Hermione Granger, and we are all her spiritual daughters.  Requiescat in pace.

1. J.K. Rowling--She's the only author in the world who could beat out Jane Austen for the top spot, and I can give her no higher praise than that.  Ms. Rowling, the world is crying out for more of your extraordinary gift.  Even if you have no more Harry to give, it would be a travesty of epic proportions to never again use the astonishing talent you've been given to entertain, educate and inspire your fellow man.  Humanity needs your words, and I've never yet known a writer who could actually STOP writing.  Please, miss, may we have some more?

And an Afghan in a Pear Tree

Yes, friends, the now famous "Christmas blanket" appears on Yarn Along for one last week.  I had hoped to have it done before I posted this week, but I've still got a few rows of edging to apply, not to mention the seemingly never-ending task of weaving in the ends once the project is "finished".  Is there a knitter or crocheter anywhere on Earth who actually ENJOYS that process?

So, the blanket is finally all but finished, and I will next turn my attention back to the nascent scarf that will be my first completed knitting project if I ever manage to finish it.  I really like the beginning I've made on it, so hopefully it will go fairly quickly, especially as I'm developing that stitching rhythm that we must each eventually acquire in order to succeed at any handiwork endeavor.  Obviously, I will be bringing you the latest updates on events as they occur.

Finally, as to my current reading life, have you ever reached a point at which you've officially lost count of how many books you're simultaneously reading?  That's where I am currently.  Believe it or not, the book in my picture for this week is something I grabbed off my shelves "for a bit of light reading"--Hermione Granger is my hero!--in the midst of also working on a book about an ancient Greek explorer named Pytheas, Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  (There's pretty much never a time when I'm not re-reading some volume of the Harry Potter series.  Once AGAIN I say, Goodreads, you need a re-read function!!)  After a lifetime spent as a student, I seem incapable of being content unless I'm trying to read more books at once than any one person can balance.  I know; I'm strange.  But at least I'm happy!

2012 Challenge Omnibus

Happy New Year!

And now that 2012 has begun, we have much challenge business to attend to.  First off, the Read Your OWN Library! Challenge is rolling on, especially since I received books for Christmas and now need to chip away at my backlog of reading material more than ever.  Here, as a refresher, are the outlines of the challenge.  (More details are available at the link above, which will take you to the RYOL headquarters.)

1.  The goal is to read books we've owned for more than 6 months, but still have not read for some reason.
2.  There are three levels to the challenge, but each requires that we read one such book each month, write a post about it, and link up to it here at The Beauty of Eclecticism.
3.  When you have completed the first month of the challenge, you will receive the code for a lovely and talented badge, crafted by yours truly, to place on your blog and announce your achievement to the world.  You only get this badge once, however, unless you switch to a different level for the next month, in which case, you can collect them all!

In the December just past, my chosen book was The Chimes by Charles Dickens, one of his famous Christmas Books.  The link will take you to my full review of the book, which was actually my least favorite of the three Dickensian Christmas Books I read in 2011.  Since it still got three stars from me, that should indicate the high overall quality of the series.  (Because the jury was still out on whether or not Dickens was a skilled writer, yeah?  *pardon my eye-roll*)

My chosen book for January's read-my-own is Jane Austen's Mansfield Park.  It will be the last title in my quest to complete the Regency and Victorian Reading Challenge, so as usual for me, let's here it for double-dipping!

Let us also remember that the 2012 Medieval Challenge has officially begun, and will last throughout the year.  (It also has its own HQ page, if you click the link above.)  This challenge has three levels, as well, and depending on which you choose, you'll be reading as many as twelve works written between the years of 400-1550 CE.  There will be a linky post here on the last day of each month, where those who have finished a medieval book that month can link up their reviews.  At the end, we'll all see how we fared, and whether those legendary and hallowed tomes lived up to their lofty reputations.

An Honest Skeptic

(Clearly, I've been reading a lot of books published in Britain lately.  For the LIFE of me, I couldn't remember if it was spelled "skeptic" or "sceptic"!  Turns out, the answer is both--"k" in the US, "c" in the Commonwealth.)

All right, gang.  After years of being bombarded on every side every time I step into a bookstore, and far more ferociously, months of barrage from book bloggers, I am--though reticent--willing to consider the question of so-called Jane Austen sequels.  I hope you all appreciate how difficult it is for me to even type those words, because for years, the very phrase has been anathema to me.  But when I found fire-breathing, hard-core Jane Austen fans--women who devote their lives to blogging about Jane, her books, her manners, her clothes, her England, all things Regency--who had jumped on this bandwagon, I began to wonder if there might be something worthwhile in it, after all.  There's a whole industry made up of people who write all the things they think J.A. should have and maybe would have written if she had lived long enough, for heaven's sake!

So, I'm sending out a general call to all book bloggers.  Please, I ask this in all sincerity--tell me what about these seeming interlopers makes them such good reads that I need to break the habits of a lifetime and give them a shot?  Because if you're all really sure that I'm missing out on something, I really will at least make an effort to read a couple and see if it's worth it.  I would love to get not just comments, but whole posts on this, because I can't be the only skeptical one out there.  Broaden our minds; enlighten us nay-sayers.  Maybe some of us will find friends we never knew we had in some of these sequels.  Spread the word [yes, I'm looking particularly at you, Gina Hott, and you, too, Bev, :) ]; even if you don't read this genre yourself, I'm sure you know plenty of bloggers who do, and I really want to try and understand this phenomenon.  Help me out, fellow Jane devotees.  I earnestly await your replies.

P.S.  I'm sorry, but I absolutely draw the line at vampires and zombies.  I'm firm on that point.  I like my Jane Austen to be completely of this earth, thank you all the same.