I just want to say that after having read Persuasion again, it is glaring that the work remains unfinished. There are too many dangling threads, and Jane seldom allowed her plots to dangle. While I love Emma as a concept, I have a hard time with its passivity and talkiness. Miss Bates and Mr. Woodhouse especially get on my nerves, and sometimes I just want to toss the book and say ‘enough already!’ Mr. Knightley comes off as the prosiest and bossiest of the suitors (even moreso than Edmund). I have an aversion to people who poke into other’s lives and manipulate them, so my reaction to Emma is a personal one.

In order of preference, these are my JA choices: P&P, Persuasion, S&S, NA, Mansfield Park, and then Emma. NA is a delightful romp, and I am falling in love with Henry Tilney. Mansfield Park keeps getting better and better. When I was 17 I was exactly like Marianne Dashwood, a pain, but I had potential. So, reading S&S reminds me of my younger self.

Aw, heck, give me JA over any author any day. Her books are filled with such depth that I cannot get enough of them.

I refuse to elevate any one of the four and see them as an undivided whole with NA a primer. (I agree with Trilling that P was unfinished.) For me S&S is the true foundations on which they were all built. Of course it was much less developed as a novel than its successors but its construction was exquisite and I remain awed by its philosophical brilliance. I never had any difficulty identifying with the story–but that is the beauty of these novels–they all have complementary strengths that appeal to different people. I have no desire to try and shake people out of their preferences–though I do wish more people like Mansfield Park and more would understand Sense and Sensibility.

I wonder to what extent you would agree with my interpretation of Pride and Prejudice. Given our convergence on Mansfield Park I think we might agree, but with the divergence on Sense and Sensibility I think we might disagree. So I am curious.

“Nay, Henry, not by all; not forgotten by all; not friendless or forgotten. Her cousin Edmund never forgets her.”

“Edmund! True, I believe he is, generally speaking, kind to her, and so is Sir Thomas in his way; but it is the way of a rich, superior, long-worded, arbitrary uncle. What can Sir Thomas and Edmund together do, what do they do for her happiness, comfort, honour, and dignity in the world, to what I shall do?”

Ah yes. I remember bristling when I read this speech. What self conceit thought I. Even in the heat of his passion for Fanny it’s still all about him.

I love all of Austen’s work except Sense & Sensibility. Mansfield Park, Pride & Prejudice and Northanger Abby are my favourites, in that order. Going to read the rest of your posts now. I am enjoying your analyses a great deal. ;’