Review: Persuasion

Persuasion by Jane Austen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A classical novel featuring some aspects of life of the English aristocracy in the beginning of the 1800s. The main character, Anne Elliot, got persuaded that she should not marry a young man called Frederick when she was in her early 20s. Then she persuaded herself that she still should - 8,5 years later.

It is essentially a love story, and a good one. It is especially noteworthy that it was written by a woman - can't think of any other more or less famous (and good / readable) female writer before Jane Austen. The characters are interesting, although, typically for the classical books of that time, archetypal to the degree of a good-guys-and-bad-guys-fairy-tale (one sister beautiful but stupid, another one hyperemotional and egoistical, the third one proper and smart)

I, however, kept on thinking while reading this novel how enormous the society inequality was in the England of the 1800s (like anywhere in the world back then, really). The aristocracy had all the time in the world for having long romantic walks, sporting, hunting, dining, attending concerts and private parties, shopping and visiting each other - while the rest 95% of society was there to labour for the privileged ones. This 95% rest does not exist in the books of Austen - like they did not exist in the mental world of the aristocracy that one reads about.

It was enjoyable to read the book in beautiful English of 200 years ago. And this was one of the most elegant and charming love confessions I have ever read (Frederick to Anne):

“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. [...] For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? [...] A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never.”