Shall we take a turn...? (Mansfield Park - Jane Austen)

Member Name: spacelamb

Product:	Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
Date:	29/01/01 (41 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good characters, good length, funny

Disadvantages: language?

For anyone who was ever made to study Jane Austen at school my plea to you is: give her another chance. At age sixteen (or whenever), when all you want to know about is next weekend, it's very hard to digest something like Austen where the highlight of most young girls' day is taking a turn about the room. When I was studying Pride and Prejudice I thought her writing was pointless and trivial, but now I really can't get enough.

In my view Mansfield Park is her best novel (well perhaps parallel to P&P, although I'm being swayed by the TV version). As a caution DO NOT watch the recent film of Mansfield Park to gain any idea of what the book is about, as it is about as true to the original as Bill Clinton was to Hilary, and would make Austen turn in her grave.

Short summary of events: Young girl from poor family is sent to live with rich well-educated family (yes there are reasons for this), grows up among them as their inferior, eventually comes into her own and gets her man.

There are a lot of excellent characters in MP, the cream of which is the witchy Mrs Norris who is described in a very cutting and amusing way. Austen is not generally considered a comic author but her social observations can certainly be scathing enough to raise a laugh.

The subject matter is fairly typical Austen - marriage and 'society' - but the plot is relatively complex (not to follow, but it has a number of clever twists). It is also a very good length and will keep the average reader entertained for a good couple of weeks.

The only possible downsides to this book are that the writing style is very much of its time and may not be immediately engaging, but it is worth persevering with; secondly you kind of know all the way through that Right Will Be Done and everything will be ok. Having said that, it is not always apparent how this pleasant conclusion will come about, so maybe it's not such a bad thing.

Summary: