Mansfield Park: the most underappreciated book of all time?

[paintandbrush]

Listened to this while painting the kitchen. Large chunks of the middle drag on a bit, but otherwise this is one of my favourite JA novels.

It's such a modern story, it could work well even today: Poor girl from Portsmouth goes to live with better-off family. Life isn't great. She returns, only to realise her father's a filthy old alcoholic, her mother's lazy and there are now a dozen cheeky kids living in squalor. Life is now worse. And then she marries her cousin but let's forget that bit.

I believe MP gets ignored because it's not as 'light' as Austen's other novels iyswim. It really is a work of brilliance though (and deserves its own appreciation thread!)

I don't hate Fanny, she is just a bit bland. I would rather sit by Mary at dinner.

Humphrey - I have a feeling that Mrs Norris mving to 'another country' might be another part of the countryside (another county maybe?) and not necessarily a foreign country.

Studied this at uni and spent a long time discussing the slavery issue. Sir Thomas owns a sugar plantation I think. The only direct mention of slavery in the book is infamous- it's a conversation between Fanny and her Uncle (she is talking about it afterwards with Edmund):

“Did not you hear me ask him about the slave-trade last night?”

“I did – and was in hopes the question would be followed up by others. It would have pleased your uncle to be inquired of farther.”

“I longed to do it – but there was such a dead silence!”

There is a massive amount of critical debate about that "silence", and what it means. My lecturer thought it represents a massive lost opportunity by Austen to squeeze in an abolitionist message.

I think of the "silence" often and I still can't decide what I think about it which is why I wrote my final essay on Sense and Sensibility instead

Goodness, how can I not have noticed that!

No need to blush. I could well be wrong. I just find it difficult to imagine Mrs N being persuaded to schlep off to France or whatever, and it would be highly unusual in the context of the other novels etc.

Adore MP, and though loving Fanny is probably a bit too far, I love that JA kept experimenting with heroines that weren't.

Anne - truly intellectual and every kind of snob it is possible to be
Emma - smug manipulative bitch with the concentration of a flea
Catherine - thick as mince, dull as ditchwater, married literally the first man who spoke to her who wasn't related to her
Fanny - genuinely pious woman of principle - and JA says ' see what pious people are REALLY like, you pretend to admire religious people but in real life you stick her in a freezing cold attic and insist she is happy there'

And I love all these women what does that make me?? I love how JA messes with my head.

Link to page discussing the "silence" and Jane's links to the slave trade and abolitionist movements if anyone is interested:

consideringausten.wordpress.com/austen-and-antigua-slavery-in-her-time/

I think I need to dig my copy out again, I haven't read it for a couple of years!

I don't think Anne is a snob!

Nope, I don;t think Anne is a snob at all. She was a young woman who allowed herself to be influenced by the snobbery of somebody else (and it's hard to judge her for that, I think), and has regretted it ever since.

don't

And her view of Mrs Clay?

She hates Mrs Clay because of her scheming and duplicity, not because of her social class. In fact, when Sir Walter is lamenting her relationship with Mrs Smith, Anne just stops herself from pointing out that Mrs Smith is not the only widow of unremarkable surname of their acquaintance.

Mrs Clay is a manipulative, money grabbing sycophant, who is taking the last few scraps of familial affection away from Anne. Why wouldn't Anne dislike her?

I did it for Eng Lit Alevel and hated it with a passion! Can't remember s thing about it except it was very very long! Should dig it out and give it another go.

Mrs Clay is a silly woman, taking advantage of an even sillier man. It doesn't take snobbery to not feel terribly happy about that imho. The real snob in the novel is Sir Walter.

annandale, that's exactly it, they're the polar opposite of what DD would moan about as a Mary Sue, but they're utterly alive. I can't bear to read Emma, I just die inside at her fucking up, but she's totally real and believable and relatable to.

I always remember that Henry Crawford had good teeth and realising that so few men did in those days.

My DD has the same name as a character in JA's novels - but it isn't Fanny.

I think the "silence" about the slave trade really is just a comment on how Maria and Julia don't take even the slightest interest in serious subjects. Fanny doesn't want to look like she is currying favour with her uncle by being interested in his concerns when his daughters are not.

Maybe there is a deeper meaning, but I am not sure.

"Can't remember s thing about it except it was very very long"
Be grateful you didn't have to read Nostromo

I found MP heavy going too, tbh. It just doesn't have the humour (or I may have missed it) of some of the other books and seems very, very long. I agree it deserves more attention. Some of the characters jump out, such as lazy, drug-addled Mrs B , Norris and the slatternly mother, but somehow it doesn't add up to much.

Fanny is passive and oppressed, yes, and understandably so, but she's so bloody insipid as well.

I'm not quite sure what the book is supposed to be "about". Lazy parenting? Indulgent lifestyles? The triumph of good over evil?

I really like the portrayal of Portsmouth, though. It very real. I think this is one of the few times that the rougher end of life is portrayed in the novels, and is a welcome addition imho; it gives a sense of place somehow.

Just read that article about the 'silence' but can't say I'm particularly feeling it. I think the point is that Julia and Maria don't give a fig about Fanny and her efforts at conversation, so when Fanny doesn't follow up with another question, there's nowhere for the conversation to go.

Yes, I have always thought the same Clara. The silence surely can't be because Fanny has dared to ask a critical question as she just wouldn't, no one else in the room has a moral viewpoint on the slave trade, she just was fearful of the notice she was bringing on herself.

It's an interesting book - I don't think even Austen really liked Fanny. She makes Mary Crawford so likeable, despite her dodgy moral fibre - you get the sense Austen would rather have spent time with Mary. I read some analysis once along the lines of Fanny being who Austen wanted to be like - but if you read her letters, she's far more of a Mary.

I have always been desperate to know what on earth had the ladies done to their hair, that William Price thought they were mad when he first saw them - until he saw Fanny 'who could reconcile him to anything'. Does anyone know? Had a mohican for posh women come into fashion?

I don't think Anne was a snob either; just too young to follow her heart and go against the wishes of her family and Lady Russell, her mother figure. It is made clear that she would have accepted him initially, if it were not for their opposition.

But I'm biased as Persuasion is my favourite JA.