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M O N D AY, M A R C H 2 7 , 2 0 0 6"Mansfield Park" by Jane Austen -- The PopsurfingReviewMansfield Park by Jane Austen ** 1/2 (out of 4)I've been working my way through the collected works of Jane Austen.If you're in NYC, a small bookstore just two blocks uptown of FilmForum has a great little boxed set containing all her works in tiny littlevolumes with good-sized type. (Most novels are offered in two books,ie. Pride & Prejudice Vol. 1 and 2.) At $15 for the whole set, it's muchcheaper than buying paperbacks and the little volumes are so pleasingand so perfect for carrying on the subway, if I were filthy rich I wouldhave every new book I wanted to read custom-published this very sameway. Pride & Prejudice was nigh on perfect and Sense and Sensibilitywas only slightly less so. Both were a delight to read. So I'm all thesorrier to report MP is a bit of a let-down. In her first two books,Austen created spirited, wittily charming heroines. The center of thisbook, Fanny Price, is a bit of a pill. She's timid in thought and deed, soher musings are far less satisfying. Fanny is so self-less that whenrelatives take her in and then treat her poorly, she's ashamed to letsuch ignoble thoughts cross her mind. If she's shivering in her dayroombecause a fire is forbidden to her even in winter, Fanny immediatelydenounces herself for wishing for one instead of realizing how luckyshe is. The "bad" girl of the book is Mary Crawford, who perks thingsup whenever she's around. Mary and her brother Henry wreak havocon Fanny's relatives. Mary sets her sights on Fanny's secret belovedEdmund (also quite a prig) and Henry toys with two other youngladies, getting them both to fall in love with him before moving blithelyon. The decision of the young people to mount an amateur theatrical--such scandalous behavior shocks Fanny, of course -- is the subject ofendless discussion and reverberates tiresomely throughout the book.By the finale, Austen's usual canny insights into human behavior arereduced to moralistic scolding. I imagine Austen didn't want to repeatherself with another vivacious heroine. Too bad. Mary would have beenmuch more fun to spend time with. At one point, I had the delicioushope my expectations would be undermined. It seemed quite possiblethat Mary and Henry, by being determined to get Edmund and Fannyto love them, would in fact become reformed and thus genuinelyworthy of their love. It would have been a most welcome development,but unfortunately Austen let all her characters stick to their stereotype.Next Blog»sal1mineo@hotmail.comSEARCH BLOG FLAG BLOGFOLLOW BLOGP O P S U R F I N G . C O MS U R F I N G T H E WAV E S O F P O P U L A R C U LT U R EB Y M I C H A E L G I LT Z & F R I E N D SPOPSURFING.COM: "Mansfield Park" by Jane Austen -- The ...http://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2006/03/mansfield-park-by-jane...
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POPSURFING.COM: "Mansfield Park" by Jane Austen -- The ...http://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2006/03/mansfield-park-by-jane...
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