Hmmm, how to critique one of the most revered writers of romance literature? Now, before all of your Jane-ites get on my case for being unromantic or whatever, let me say only that unfortuantely, I read "Persuasion," Austen's last novel, and found it to be one of the best books I've ever read. Now having read "Sense and Sensibility," I will say that it truly doese feel like a first novel, as if the author was still trying to find her voice. So I've done the bookends of Austen, much like a concert of Beethoven's 1st and 9th symphonies...thus, comparisons between nascency and maturity are inevitable.

I will say that Austen's observations of the human mind, her cutting social critiques, and commentaries on the games and masquerades which were all but a necessity of British society in the 18th/19th centuries are fascinating and beautifully rendered. Her prose is art, but the story, in my opinion, is lacking. Two semi-rich young women do the social dance with men who are alternately gentlemanly or cads, reversals and revelations ensue, followed at the end by weddings which are not exactly meant to leave us with the warmest of feelings (as many weddings do). Many of the characters are unlikable (some are downright despicable) and I felt all along that much like Shakespeare, Austen's stories are meant to be performed rather than read, so that the subtleties of the social ingraces and the sublimations of true feelings can be more truly experienced by an audience. The plot itself is anything but complicated and I'm sorry to say that without Austen's ingenious prose, this novel would barely merit a footnote in history.

My recommendation for those of you who are not hardcore Austen fans, read "Persuasion" instead.