Your favourite Austen?

[ThursdayLast]

By dreadful coincidence I've finished my library book and audio book on the same day

I'm visiting the library tomorrow, so to tide me over I'll probably pick out an ancient old Austen but I can't face the decision!

Which is your favourite?

[IsadoraQuagmire]

Persuasion, not because I identify in the slightest with Anne, but because I LOVE her father Sir Walter. He's hilarious!

[TittyBiskwits]

It's got to be Pride and Prejudice for me. I could probably recite the whole book here and now as I read it at least once a year. I absolutely hated 'Longbourne'. It sucked every single drop of joy out of P&P.

Persuasion is next on the list, simply for the line, 'You pierce my soul.' If you fancy watching an adaption, the BBC version with Ciaran Hinds is excellent.

[MitzyLeFrouf]

Pride and Prejudice for me, quickly followed by Persuasion.

Emma is my least favourite. By a long, long shot.

[LittleNel]

I like sense and sensibility. It's very well written and the characters are great.

[LadySharrowOfGolter]

Persuasion, I love it for the characters, storyline and Dorset connection.

[burblish]

I think "P&P" will always be my favourite, but I also adore "Persuasion" (the kind of book you want to read sitting in a bay window, wrapped up cosily in a blanket with a mug of tea while the rain pours down outside), and "Northanger Abbey" (I just love Catherine; couldn't say why other than I like that she is meant to be just an ordinary girl and so a mock-heroine - I guess I like the fact that she isn't the kind of girl who would usually get the guy).

I dislike the character of Emma Woodhouse from start to finish, so rarely pick up "Emma"; ditto the insufferably priggish and passive Fanny and limp lettuce Edmund in "Mansfield Park". I read "Lady Susan" only relatively recently and thoroughly enjoyed her shameless antics - I think Austen got a kick out of writing that!

[lizzieM58]

I too have always loved Persuasion, closely followed by P&P. I love the language and the humour.

[Clawdy]

Persuasion. That lovely,slightly melancholy feel.....

[linbrikat]

Northanger Abbey - it's really funny

[Badgerlady]

Persuasion. That letter always gets me.

However, I listen to audiobooks on my commute. When I've had a terrible day, I always listen to a bit of Emilia Fox reading Pride and Prejudice. Doesn't really matter where in the book I pick it up. It's an audio cup of tea, glass of wine and warm blanket in one.

[TravellingHopefully12]

S&S - my mother gave it to me after my first boyfriend jilted me, and told me I was Marianne.

[ancientbuchanan]

" no-one will like her except for me" or words to that effect.

I do like Knightley, but like (as her caro sposa doubtless calls her) Mrs E, think he is too good for her. Her patience with her father is the only thing I find attractive ( and in this case wish I could have emulated).

I admire the way in M P JA recognises that Susan's more fearless nature means she is easier to get in with and ends up bring more loved. Fanny is the victim, poor soul, in a way some years later but not all that long Jane Eyre never is.

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

P

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

I can think of several 'journeys' that I'd have liked Fanny price to go on!

[ThursdayLast]

Yes, you're right of course - Austen sure did love a 'journey'

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

We're not supposed to love her - that's the point. She develops as a character. In this she is like Ann Elliot, Lizzy Bennet, both Marianne and Elinor Dashwood and Catherine Morland - and not at all like Fanny bloody Price, who remains a po-faced joyless sap throughout.

[ThursdayLast]

Yes, that section is basically why I can't love Emma. The person. I think the Knightly thing is why I don't feel much affection for the novel. It's not as satisfying in any way as Anne and Capt. Wentworth, or Lizzie and Darcy.

[ancientbuchanan]

It's so awful. And her stupidity over Harriet Smith and Elton. I look back to my younger self with recognition and contempt.

[WellErrr]

Ah yes I remember now! Poor Miss Bates.

Haven't read Emma for years, must dig it out.

[BertrandRussell]

"It will not do," whispered Frank to Emma, "they are most of them affronted. I will attack them with more address. Ladies and gentlemen,I am ordered by Miss Woodhouse to say, that she waves her right of knowing exactly what you may all be thinking of, and only requires something very entertaining from each of you, in a general way. Here are seven of you, besides myself, (who, she is pleased to say, am very entertaining already,) and she only demands from each of you either one thing very clever, be it prose or verse, original or repeated or two things moderately clever or three things very dull indeed, and she engages to laugh heartily at them all."

"Oh! very well," exclaimed Miss Bates, "then I need not be uneasy. 'Three things very dull indeed.' That will just do for me, you know. I shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth, shan't I? (looking round with the most good-humoured dependence on every body's assent) Do not you all think I shall?"

Emma could not resist. "Ah! ma'am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me, but you will be limited as to number -- only three at once."

Miss Bates, deceived by the mock ceremony of her manner, did not immediately catch her meaning; but, when it burst on her, it could not anger, though a slight blush showed that it could pain her.

"Ah! well -- to be sure. Yes, I see what she means, (turning to Mr. Knightley,) and I will try to hold my tongue. I must make myself very disagreeable, or she would not have said such a thing to an old friend."

[HoldYerWhist]

Emma says it about Miss Bates. the cow

[WellErrr]

What's that quote from Bertand?

[NuggetofPurestGreen]

I usually put MP in my bottom 2 along with S&S but I think I'll have to give it another go following all the love on this thread!

That's not to say I don't like them obviously just not as much as the other 4.

[BertrandRussell]

" ah, but madam, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me, but you will be limited as to number- only three at once.".

Real kicking the bedclothes at 3 in the morning stuff!

[hackmum]

ancientbuchanan: "Emma makes me cringe and recall my own sins of commission."

Yes, I feel a bit like this too. It makes you go hot and cold remembering the awful things you said to people.

John Mullan's book, What Matters in Jane Austen? has a chapter about sex, iirc.