Sense and Sensibility

 

I've just recently finished Sense and Sensibility for the first time for my Jane Austen seminar (which was a great decision by the way.) It's the third Jane Austen novel that I've read and I feel like I finally have a great sense of who Jane Austen is as a writer and a storyteller. So I thought I'd write my little review on Sense and Sensibility.

Jane Austen is known for her books about high society of England in the early 19th century. This book is no different. While the main characters of Elinor and Marianne are not rich by any stretch, they are consistently in the company of friends and family who own great estates and participate in the society of London. The action of the book mostly revolves around Elinor and Marianne going from one house to another to speak of goings-on among their acquaintances. It doesn't sound interesting at the surface but Austen has an amazing ability to make society feel interesting and breathe life into ordinary conversations.

The two main characters of Elinor and Marianne embody the sense and sensibility of the title respectively. Elinor looks at every situation with logic and reserve and only draws conclusions after proof is indisputable. Elinor acts as the Dashwood family's voice of reason and ultimate decision maker, even at the young age of nineteen. Marianne, her sister, instead embodies sensibility. She acts on her emotions and whims. She'll cry for days about sad events and doesn't think of societal rules when doing things as long as she believes it to be the right thing to do. While on the surface it would appear Elinor and Marianne would butt heads, we learn of their companionship and respect for each other throughout the book even if they have differing viewpoints.

Austen is also known for the love stories she weaves into her novels. The idea that someone could marry solely for love was definitely an uncommon thought in her time so her novels highlighting love were shining examples of an idealistic world in which money didn't matter in high society. This is the case for the love stories between Edward and Elinor and Marianne and Willoughby. 

Both take up a good deal of the book but overall I would say that Edward and Elinor's has a more immediate impact on the story of the entire novel. Which is interesting given that Edward and Elinor are rarely together in the novel except for a grand total of five chapters out of fifty. It definitely doesn't have the same buildup as romance novels today. The focus lies primarily on Elinor's feelings about Edward and her personal journey rather than a buildup of romantic feelings, which is an interesting choice for Austen. However, given that this was her first novel, she may not have felt comfortable focusing on two different people gaining feelings for each other, which is somewhat understandable.

Marianne and Willoughby's relationship is more of a love triangle that involves the older Colonel Brandon. This relationship actually involves the two characters more, as no one else gets involved in the relationship to the same extent that Elinor and Edward's seems to affect everyone in the story. In this way, this couple feels like more of a background couple, even when it gets a remarkable amount of focus in the early novel. The conclusion of this love triangle feels a little unsatisfactory compared to the Elinor and Edward relationship. Marianne ends up forgoing her more emotional nature to be with her ultimate husband, which feels like she's sacrificing part of herself in the end. Austen also wrote the end of the novel to make it out that Marianne's husband got to marry her more as a reward for being a nice guy than by Marianne's own choice, which irked me a little bit. Perhaps this was Austen's intention. By showing what a love match looked like compared to a thrown-together match, we can assume that women lose a little independence in the latter.

I felt that the action of the book was a little slow and most of that action involved conversations and petty arguments to move the plot forward. It's something that I'm not used to reading in Austen, since her following books have her characters go from place to place and do things that set the plot forward beyond talking of fellow acquaintances. This isn't to say that Sense and Sensibility ever dragged. The pace felt quick even when over half the book was set in one place. While reading it, there wasn't any particular moment when I felt antsy to get out of the London home that Elinor and Marianne stayed at for half of the book except in the few moments when that was explicitly Austen's purpose. 

My only criticism is the buildup of the two relationships in the book and how they were both wrapped up in the last forty or so pages of the book. While wrapping up plotlines quickly is Austen's forte (and she does it in her following books), this felt particularly rushed because of the lack of time that Elinor and Marianne spent with their respective future spouses. In fact, by the time the end of the book comes, Elinor and Marianne hadn't been talking to their eventual husbands in any major way for around one hundred pages. It made the eventual weddings feel a little empty by the end. I guess I'm more used to the slow burn of "Pride and Prejudice" but there we are. 

Overall, I liked this book quite a bit. While it's not my favorite of Austen's works, I always enjoy her commentary on the bourgeoisie of 19th century England. Her wit in the narration and in the dialogue is such a pleasure to read that, even if you don't love the ending, you're more than happy to have spent that time in her world.