Monday, March 24, 2008
 
Book Report: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (1996)
Wow, this book has something for everyone. Girls making connections in period costume for the women, and the 36-year-old man ends up with a firebrand 19-year-old hottie (played in the movie, apparently, by Kate Winslet) for the 36-year-old men.

This book is Jane Austen circa 1811, the language is more elaborate than one gets into with modern books, so it takes a bit of patience to read compared to pulp fiction. However, it's not a hard, inscrutable language; just something that requires attention.

The book outlines a period in the late teens (marrying and matchmaking age, natch) for two lower upper class sisters: Elinor, the older, who is very sense-oriented, that is, she is proper and full of etiquette and the stoicism required of a lady, and Marianne, who is sensible--that is, captive of the senses. Or maybe I've got that backwards. However, they move in their circles and fall into and out of what passes for love in that class-conscious society.

The ending sort of bothered me; a bit contrived, and even the villains live happily ever after. I'd prefer a bit of comeuppance to them, maybe not a truly Dickensian bad ending, but at least some psychic misery. Austen is too polite even for that.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:10 PM
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