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Mansfield Park

Jane Austen

Start date: May 1, 2020

Finish date: May 31, 2020

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Why we're reading this: Revisit the Shelf Group Read, May 2020

Contemporary Classic Group Read, January 2012
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Contemporary Classic Group Read, January 2012

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Jun 27, 2020 Julie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fin-2020, classic-novels

I read Austen's major novels when I was a teen so I figured that I was due to revisit them. I still like them as much as I did back then - maybe more - but Mansfield Park remains one of my least favorites. It's not that I dislike Fanny Price; it's a refreshing change to have a shy & introverted lead character. I appreciated that she was able to see through everyone's shenanigans and remain firm in her opinion and resolve towards them. No, my issues lie elsewhere.

Let's talk about that crazy final I read Austen's major novels when I was a teen so I figured that I was due to revisit them. I still like them as much as I did back then - maybe more - but Mansfield Park remains one of my least favorites. It's not that I dislike Fanny Price; it's a refreshing change to have a shy & introverted lead character. I appreciated that she was able to see through everyone's shenanigans and remain firm in her opinion and resolve towards them. No, my issues lie elsewhere.

Let's talk about that crazy final chapter. I'm reading along, in my Jane Austen groove, wondering as I get closer to the end about how exactly she is going to wrap everything up in those neat little bows of hers that I love. Apparently Jane started wondering about that as well & realized that if she continued along at the same pace, the novel would end up being 900 pages long. How to resolve this dilemma? How about fleshing out the outline of the plot just enough to describe how the story end? Cramming in months and months of action in about 10 pages? It's bewildering. Did authors not have editors back then? Was she famous enough at this point to push through a book with a stilted and disjointed ending? It reminded me of the end of Don Quixote, when, after nearly a thousand pages, Cervantes got tired of writing and chose to instead briefly summarize the ending. Come on people, learn to pace yourselves!

However, my biggest bugaboo about this book is the extraordinarily creepy coupling of Edmund and Fanny Price. Yes, yes, I understand that 200+ years ago it wasn't so strange for cousins to marry. However - cousins raised as siblings? Ewwww. Throughout the entire novel, Edmund refers to Fanny Price as his sister. Then suddenly in the last two pages of the book (I am not exaggerating) Edmund decides that she is the gal for him? And no one bats an eye? Has everyone gone insane?

Again, I recognize that grooming wasn't recognized the way it is today, but Edmund certainly groomed Fanny Price into falling for him. He was 18 and she was 10 when they started living together. She hung on every word he spoke. He told her what to read and appointed himself as the person to further her education since no one else in the family seemed interested. All of this is well & good - Edmund is the only kind person in the family for most of the story - but it feels like he is taking advantage of her when the relationship turns romantic. It left a sour taste in my mouth.

As an aside, am I the only one who noticed a strong resemblance between the plot of Mansfield Park and the plot of Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos? Henry Betram is Valmont, Mary is the Marquise de Merteuil, Fanny Price is Madame de Tourvel, Maria is Cecile and Edmund is Chevalier Danceny. Austen had to have known about the book, even if she hadn't had read it herself. Hmmm, I wonder.

Aside Part II - I also got the vibe that Lady Betram's "indolence" was caused by an addiction to laudanum. She was always napping or acting spacey, lounging around the drawing room with her pug dogs. (I loved it when she was feeling such affection for Fanny Price that she offered her a pug puppy. That is the height of affection, coming from Lady Betram haha) Was this behavior something that the reader was to infer, reading between the lines? More hmmm.

I'm a sucker for the whole Austen aesthetic so I enjoyed this novel. However, it's not one of hers that I would recommend to the reader who has never read Austen before. Start with Pride & Prejudice then follow it with Emma. Northhanger Abbey is my favorite novel out of her 6 but since it's not as Austen-y as her others, I usually never recommend it. Not that people are knocking down my door, demanding Jane Austen recommendations haha.

Edited to add: Goodreads keeps editing out Fanny Price's first name which I why I weirdly keep referring to her by her full name instead of just by her first name.

#Literary life reading challenge 2020/a classic female author ...more

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Sep 21, 2010 Emily rated it liked it · review of another edition

Although the heroine of Mansfield Park is different than other Austen heroines, painfully shy and timid, I still thought she was very sympathetic and enjoyed the book. It's probably the least favorite of Austen books I've read and I spent a lot of the book annoyed by the evils of some of the characters (I think I hated Henry Crawford more than Fanny herself), but it was still enjoyable. I kept waiting for something to happen to make Fanny more bold and more like other Austen heroines, but she st ...more

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