Mansfield Park (1814 original; edició 1999)

Once again I find myself baffled at the task of giving “stars” to a book. Just recently I gave Madame Bovary three stars, but today I am giving Mansfield Park 5 stars. I am tired of justify, if even to myself only, the inner workings of my logic. So, be aware that the stars I give have to do to a personal measure of the pleasure a book gave me, in addition to provoking in myself some form of reflection on humanity and/or enlarging my understanding of social norms or historical/political moments.

Mansfield Park scored very, very high in personal pleasure. I actually listened to it in audio, and maybe part of the pleasure was in being carried to the time and place by the narrator. Jane Austen is such a great social commentator; her sharp wit in portraying the society around her, but also the emotional motivations of each character leaves me amazed.

I did play this game in my head, trying to figure out a different title for this book in the lines of other books by Austen (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility), and the most apt title for this book in my opinion should be Rightness and Frivolity.

There is through this whole story the common tension of “the good and the bad”. And it is maybe too naïve and unrealistic that the good do win at the end. When I think of this book in these terms, I have to admit that Pride and Prejudice is maybe a more complex story, where the qualities of the characters are not so black and white as in Mansfield Park.

And yet, at this moment in my life, I am more prone to admire the fortitude of the righteous and to recognize the damaging power of the frivolous. The better example of it in the struggle of Henry and Mary Crawford to become better people who cannot however overcome their superficiality. And the strength of Fanny in not letting go of her moral principles even when faced with the great monetary advances of a marriage.

I will stop at this. The righteous don’t always gain my admiration. (it is too easy to be self-righteous) and the older I get, the less black and white, good and bad, the world has become. There are many shades of gray out there, and yet, it is nice to be reminded that good exists and that it wins at the end sometimes.
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This is my least favorite of Austen's novels. I liked the first part a lot, then somewhere around the middle it started to fall flat for me. I felt sorry for Fanny in the beginning. Later in the story I just found her annoying. The lack of connection I had with the characters is the reason I found this book to be just so-so.

This is a reread for a book club. It has been 40+ years since I had read it and had forgotten lots of the stuff that went on. I had even forgotten about the kerfuffle over the play! Don't know how I managed to forget. In my defense, it has been a long time since I first read this book.

A lot of people loved this one. However, I can honestly say this is just not my cup of tea. ( )

I was inspired to reread this by watching the movie and wondering just how much of its slavery subplot was text in the original and how much subtext. The answer is: absolutely none: it's neither text nor subtext because Mansfield Park is an inherently extremely personal novel; the movie's made it all up out of whole cloth. Which is fine of course, and possibly even necessary since the book takes place so much inside Fanny's head it's pretty impossible to replicate the experience on screen. Fanny doesn't do much, and chooses less; she never gets off any devastating ripostes to Mrs Norris; it's a far subtler story about her surviving with her soul intact despite a host of people determined to use her and grind her down; about her growing the strength to do so, and I think learning to trust her own judgement as Edmund eventually realises he should have after she's been amply vindicated. ( )

-- abridge edition of the, presented as a radio play on the BBC ( )

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