Jane Austen, MANSFIELD PARK

In honour of Jane Austen's origins we picked up Clare's idea and organized a Mark&Spencer inspired picnic on the Champs de Mars. Caroline, Catherine, Clare, Cynthia, Maren, Mark, Michel, Monika and Robin enjoyed the sunny, not too fresh evening.
A thought goes out to Phoebe: We missed you here dearly!!!

The appreciation of Jane Austen's MANSFIELD PARK was very varying: From Caroline claiming it to be her favourite Austen work to Mark surrendering on page 8 on account of the book's style, all degrees of appreciation could be found within our group.
We could agree on the sense of Austen's fine and subtle sense of humour, and, too, that it is a rather difficult read today. As Maren admitted, it was difficult to hold back the red pencil and not to correct what seem today to be grammar errors. Also, in terms of expression, Austen's style brought us closer to the convention of that period: It was clear at any moment who were Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram. But who were Mr or Miss Bertram depended clearly on the circumstances.  

A discussion flamed up on Clare's declaration that she found Fanny Price somewhat insufferable for not being straighter forward, demanding and self-assured. Several defended Fanny by mentioning her difficult situation of being parted from her own crowd and put into a foster family, which had apparently no particular interest in her. Rather suspicious was judged Sir Thomas' change of attitude towards Fanny on his return from West India. But on the other hand, a girl grown into a handsome young lady will probably always attract a middle-aged man's attention and sympathies.

Unanimous, well almost, was the 'warm' reception of Lady Bertram, the matron. She, being depicted overwhelmed and exhausted by a day on the sofa, was an image Cynthia very much loved and others joined her. The only critical mention: her passiveness, not being able to decide on anything on her own, despite being the mistress ("Sir Thomas, could I do for an evening without Fanny?").

Some laughs in response to Cynthia's question, of how many times everybody of us would have liked to shoot Misses Norris to the moon. Everybody agreed about her being the most unsympathetic character of the book. What brings us to the conclusion that Austen's drawing of her characters seems still working and effective even 200 years after actually setting it up.
Mentioned, but not discussed in depth, were the settings: Very figurative, describing, almost theatre like.

Robin mentioned the role and the treatment of a human life at the time: West Indies needed human capital because there was a huge drain. It was "customs" and so there was no big fuzz about people being sent away and not coming back. 

The travel of Austen's protagonists to Bath gave occasion to exchange on personal experiences for some of us having travelled to or have actually even lived in Bath.

Very amusing:
Clare brought a book called MISS JANE AUSTEN'S GUIDE TO MODERN LIFE DILEMMAS by Rebecca Smith, which does exactly what the titles suggests: describing how to address nowadays' issues according to the "morals" of Jane Austen's era. Especially Catherine had a good laugh about the advices how to deal with young adults.



© Maren

Maren