Someone tell me which Jane Austen to read

HOS, your Lady Catherine quote made me smile, It's one of my favourites

DownyEmerald - Have hunted out my Persuasion with Ciaran Hinds DVD (originally bought on video, but had to update!!) to watch this evening once my little monkey is in bed!!

xxx

I was given P&P for my 8th birthday and had recently seen the film on tv, with my parents chuckling all the way through at Mr Bennett's delightful speeches. I loved reading it as Mr B reminded me so much of my dad whose humour was very similar. I skipped all the other stuff, just read conversation after conversation, sometimes having to stop to puzzle over what Mr B had said and why it was funny this time.

Persuasion the best - also I think the best TV adaptation I've seen with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds - fantastic last scene.

But Emma, P&P etc all v funny. She really is taking the piss a lot of the time. That is what totally passed me by when I failed at P&P when I was 14 - too dumb to notice!

Wouldn't be without now.

Oh P&P is my fav, closely followed by Persuasion.

Something like this book can help with the contemporary nuances.

Sense and Sensibility was my least favourite, to read anyway.

You have to imagine that she is mostly taking the piss, except she is not really as most of her observations are grounded in reality, women were reliant on men so it was important that you got a rich one in those days, and it was a full time occupation to do so. Austen would so have been a mumsnetter.

Wasn't Northanger Abbey a parody anyway? Not really "cannon" Austen.

Sorry that was a bit first year undergrad.

Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?!
Just wanted to say that I am loving this thread. Not heard discussion of Austen like this since A Level English/quoting bits from books with friends! (My now sadly demised book club refused Austen and it was not a choice - P&P or nothing).
Seem to recall discussing Mansfield Park and Jane Austen liking Fanny the best of all her heroines as she as good and pious, rather than outspoken like Lizzie & Emma but still utimately ended up happy (well if you can be happy to be your hubbys second choice)?!
Did Austen feel the same about Anne in Persuasion?
Hmm, am also thinking of all the characters I have been in love with over the years, Darcy/Knightley/Wentworth/Brandon....am going to have to read them again soon....
Never got on with Northanger Abbey though. Catherine was just too silly!

RedLentil, I don't know the period in-joke. What is it?

Pride and Prejudice if youre in your 20's. Persuasion if you are older. Recon you'll identify better with the heroine better that way. So jealous that you haven;t read them, would love to read them for the first time again.

as for Persuasion not being finished, it is, but perhaps not edited/redrafted like her others, due to her death. Some of the plotting doen't feel as "tight" as some of the others. But I love Anne Elliot and so fancy Captain Wentworth!

emma

Persuasion's my fave.

I've read the Zombie P&P which is OK but not that funny unless you know the original.

You could always try The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde which is brill, but not Austen, I realise.

ANother vote for Emma here (sorry whippet!)

Apart from the fact I have always been a little in love with Mr Knightley, who is the most swoonsome of all Austen heroes, I like the fact she's a very flawed heroine, and sometimes she's really unlikeable.

Did I mention Mr Knightley?

And don't think of JA as "literature" as taught on A level English lit. It's chick lit - all the characters are there - annoying siblings, embarrassing parents, mad relations, skinnier (in that time, richer) girls on the make...

Emma is very very funny too.

Heresy, I know, but go and watch the TV version of Persuasion with Rupert Penry Jones as Captain Wentworth and then read it.

Bleugh, hate Emma. Is the only one I've never finished, I just can't stand her.

Love Northanger Abbey, def my favourite - very gothic.

Mansfield Park is fun because you don't know whether to love or hate the heroine.

Persuasion I did't read til my 20s having been a bit 'nervous' of it... had been told it was the grown up one. Absolutely loved it.

yes - you'd think they'd have the decency to stay at home until AFTER we'd posted ours, wouldn't you?

Have you started Max yet?

Sorry Flame - I went to the PO today but they were queueing out of the door, so I didn't wait. Will try a different one tomorrow.

Tis now packaged and ready to post - will go to PO tomorrow (first day of the holiday - yay!).

Persuasion or Emma to start. I love all of them and have read them to bits except for Mansfield Park mainly because Fanny is such an insufferable drip BUT am having another go at the moment.

The thing about JA is it helps if you have a bit of background knowledge, eg all this stuff about marriage settlements and entailed estates takes a bit of getting to grips with.

Okies - think I've still got your address. Will want it back at some point though so I can reacquaint myself with Captain Benwick!

Hopes desperately that Flame likes Max Tivoli, so I can talk about it with someone.

Benwick! Thank you!