This month, pretty much all of my reading for pleasure has been an attempt at Jane Austen's novels (and major fragments) in sequence, so I was really pleased to find this challenge to join. The "in sequence" bit has been a bit of a pain, actually, as Austen's books were not published in the sequence they were written, and some were published posthumously. Also, some of the novels were revised many years after they were written, but before publication, and scholars don't always agree as to the sequence of this work. What I really wanted was to get a sense of the development in Austen's style and thematic concerns, but because of the factors mentioned above, it's a more complicated question than I thought at first. I think if I were to do another Austen re-read (!) in the future, I would read the books in a slightly different sequence to the one I've read them in this month.
This month's order:
Lady Susan
Sense and Sensibility
Pride and Prejudice
Northanger Abbey
The Watsons
Mansfield Park
Emma
Persuasion
Sanditon
Revised order:
Lady Susan
Northanger Abbey
Sense and Sensibility
Pride and Prejudice
The Watsons
Mansfield Park
Emma
Persuasion
Sanditon
The reason for the revised order is what I found to be the dramatic change in tone between the earlier books and the later books. After reading Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey, which are very upbeat, sparky books, I was really struck, when I read The Watsons and Mansfield Park, with how much more complex and downbeat they were. When I did some research and found out that there was pretty much a decade where Austen didn't write (apart from the unfinished fragment of The Watsons) or publish any fiction, probably due to her uncertain family circumstances, and then the first book after this hiatus was Mansfield Park, it all became clear. I think it was more of a shock to go from the youthful sarcasm and high spirits of Northanger Abbey to The Watsons and Mansfield Park than it would have been to go from the more sedate perfection of Pride and Prejudice to the later books, and so that's why, if I had my time over again, I'd read Northanger Abbey earlier in the list. I've placed it before Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice as, whether or not it was started before them, it probably didn't get revised before publication, whereas S&S and P&P both went through considerable rewriting before attaining their final form.
So, at the moment I'm nearly finished Emma, with Persuasion and Sanditon to go. More Jane Austen thoughts soon!
2 comments:
I am so glad you decided to join in! Its really interesting here what you write about the change in tone for Austen's works. I have read most of them now, I think but not in any on purpose order. Having just finished Mansfield Park last week, downbeat is certainly the right term for it. Have you read Nabokov's lecture on his interpretation of Mansfield Park - very intersting indeed!
I am looking forward to reading some more of your thoughts!
I haven't read Nabokov's lecture, no, and now I'm very keen to... I can't say I liked Mansfield Park, but I found it fascinating, and I will probably be mulling it over for quite some time.
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