Sense and Sensibility in The Dusty Bookshelf

Sep 12, 2011 Anne (Booklady) Molinarolo rated it it was amazing

Shelves: permanent-library, summer-2013, favorites, great-literary-fiction, classics

10 Stars if I could

I love Jane Austen! I love Jane Austen!Did I say that I love Jane Austen? And I think Sense and Sensibility may have replaced Pride and Prejudice as my second favorite book of all times with The Old Man and the Seabeing my ultimate favorite novel. Elinor is the "sense," while the romantic Marianne is sensitive. She wears her emotions and is not ashamed to do so, even if it means that "sensibilities" of the day are offended. Austen uses two distinct sisters as her protagonists 10 Stars if I could

I love Jane Austen! I love Jane Austen!Did I say that I love Jane Austen? And I think Sense and Sensibility may have replaced Pride and Prejudice as my second favorite book of all times with The Old Man and the Seabeing my ultimate favorite novel. Elinor is the "sense," while the romantic Marianne is sensitive. She wears her emotions and is not ashamed to do so, even if it means that "sensibilities" of the day are offended. Austen uses two distinct sisters as her protagonists mocking the times she lived. Her prose is wonderful as is almost always the case - Persuasion is an anomaly (finding it painful to read it). The characters are well developed and the reader can't help but like like them, even the n'er do well Willoughby. I am ashamed that I never read this wonderful story, because we readers catch a glimpse at Austen's wit, her skewering of polite society, and her wicked humor.

Mr. Dashwood has died and his trust unto his son to do right by his wife and three daughters: Elinor, Marianne, and young Margaret is quashed by John's greedy wife, Fanny. Mrs. Dashwood and the girls relocate to Devonshire into a small cottage on the grounds of Mrs. Dashwood's distant relative. Over the next few weeks, the eldest daughter Elinor begins to fall for Fanny's studious, quiet brother Edward, and being a down-to-earth young woman, she knows she hasn't a chance. Where as Marianne soon attracts the attention of two men. One is the quiet, much older Colonel Brandon, and the other is the dashing and romantic Willoughby. Marianne falls hard for Willoughby and isn't afraid to show her affections unlike her sister, Elinor. Willoughby is about to propose.

Then everything seems to go haywire. Both Edward and Willoughby share a secret - they are secretly engaged and not to Elinor nor Marianne.
It is in London where the ugly truth comes to light. Both sisters react to the news in very different ways. Elinor is quiet dignity, while Marianne refuses to believe her ears - her heart tells a different story. After some disgrace and disaster, both Dashwood sisters learn what true love really is.

Austen's prose in Sense and Sensibility is a bit more meloncholy with powerful emotions and vivid descriptive colour that is almost poetry than prose. But her universal theme of impoverished women's search for love and marriage, entailment, mild scandal, and the perils of falling for a sexy bad boy who cares more for money than for true love is so fresh here. And Marianne and Elinor make excellent dual heroines for this book.

Their quiet love and devotion to each other, even though their polar opposite personalities frequently clash. What's more, they each have to become more like the other before they can find happiness. Austen also pens a small but solid supporting cast - the hunting-obsessed Sir John, the charming Willoughby (who has some nasty stuff in his past), the emotional Mrs. Dashwood, and the gentle, quiet Colonel Brandon, who shows his love for Marianne in numerous small ways. Sense and Sensilbility has all of the ingredients in which devotees of Miss Austen would want to inhabit and never leave. ...more

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