Sense and Sensibility (Penguin Classics)

Edition Review:I have had my eye on the Chiltern Classics edition since a friend showed me her growing collection. My old copy is getting tattered so I decided this was the edition I wanted to replace it. Hardbound with gorgeous raised art print cover, gild-edged pages, ribbon marker, heavy paper stock and easy-read page font. In a word, exquisite! It is not much larger than a paperback and has a comfortable cushioning to the hardcover for reader comfort. Giftable and collectible!Book Thoughts:Sense & Sensibility is the story of the Dashwood sisters coming of age, losing their home and previous income/status, first throes of love and starting over, and making their way along a new path after their romantic adventures are settled. There are two sisters who are central, but it is the oldest whose perspective is most utilized.Many folks are drawn toward one or the other sister, but personally, I've always thought the point was not to go toward either extreme, but to find balance between all sense or all sensibility.I've also found the surrounding characters a split between comedic and dramatic. Some characters fall into both camps. I detest Fanny Dashwood, but I got a real kick out of that scene when she discovers the truth about the simpering, flatterer Lucy Steele. And, that moment when Edward shows up to visit with Elinor in London and comes on Lucy Steele cracks me up almost as much as Mrs. Jennings- my favoritest of S&S characters.I pick up something new each time I read this book and this time it was how Elinor was almost too perfect. She's nineteen and has the wisdom and grounding of a woman far beyond her years. I think back to myself at nineteen and I know for a fact that if I had a mother and sisters up in alt like that and a girl like Lucy Steele rubbing my face in it over her secret engagement to the guy I'm half in love with, trust me, I would have had a few moments of losing my cool and not just internally. I've always cut Marianne some slack because of her age, but never considered how improbable Elinor's behavior was for a woman of her age.And, speaking of Marianne, she wasn't the only one who fell for a less than pristine hero. Willoughby and Edward Ferrars both were not honorable toward these women for more than one reason. Just by conducting themselves so that impressionable and vulnerable ladies allowed themselves to become attached was doing them the injustice of sabotaging their chances of marriage- when they needed the stability of that- with other honorable gentlemen. These guys weren't just wounding the gals' hearts and lying to them, but they were making their chances of future comfort that marriage could give them harder than ever. Neither started out to hurt the women intentionally, but neither were free to court or even let a woman think them eligible for courtship at the time. But, only one of the men really crossed the line. Edward later showed he had honor though it was hard on Elinor's heart at the time.So, it was a wonderful perusal of a fabulous classic.

What a blast it was re-reading Sense and sensibility after more than 30 years. Jane Austen was never an assigned author in my high school or college classes, but I picked up Pride and Prejudice at a used book sale and loved it. Following that good experience, I read through S&S, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion. Somehow I missed out on Lady Susan, so I still have that to look forward to. Sense and sensibility was selected as my local book club's September pick, and the prevailing opinion was very positive with a definite desire to read at least one classic a year. Most of us had read it before and enjoyed the repeat. One of my favorite aspects of Austen's writing is the humor, which is so clever and timeless, and her observations about the human character are astute and still relevant two hundred years later.

I always love the vicious innocence with which Jane Austen tears her characters apart, and Sense and Sensibility is a prime example. Her brutally sarcastic observations of the British upper class reduce her antagonists to sniveling school children who cry and grovel and simper their way through life behind a thin veil of dignity, a veil gleefully ripped open by Austen.From her opinions of parents:"...a fond mother, though, in pursuit of praise for her children, the most rapacious of human beings, is likewise the most credulous; her demands are exorbitant; but she will swallow anything..."to the value of children:"On every formal visit a child ought to be of the party, by way of provision for discourse. In the present case it took up ten minutes to determine whether the boy were most like his father or mother, and in what particular he resembled either, for of course every body differed, and every body was astonished at the opinion of others."Austen constructs a tantalising slaughterhouse of a book, inside which she adorns her hooks with a dazzling array of conceited, deceitful and shameless characters, few of whom escape her witty blade. All this however is not to say the novel is bereft of heart. As the title suggests, the central theme is the conflict and reconciliation between heart and mind, exemplified respectively in Marianne and Elinor, both of whom are endearing characters in their own ways, despite their flaws. It is this respect, no matter how faint, that Austen shows her characters that elevates the story above a satirical denunciation of her society and allows the reader to lose themselves in her narrative and become attached to her players.The overall flaw for me, were the happy endings handed out like charity flyers, though the fact that everybody gets one - from her most hated of villains to the most saintly of maidens, somewhat tempers the sacchariferousness. Sense and Sensibility was an utter pleasure to read - and surprisingly enjoyable when read side by side with Game of Thrones Book 3 - A Storm of Swords. When the clumsy fantasy writing made me cringe too much I could switch back to the succulent eloquence of Austen, and when sitting around in parlours reading the subtext behind eyebrow lifts became a little tedious, I could flip back to sex and bloodshed. Unfortunately due to the size differences in the books, I was only 44% of the way into Game of Thrones when I finished Sense and Sensibility and was forced to endure another six hundred pages of undiluted lumbering nerd prose.