If memory serves, Jane Austen has been a highly esteemed author for most of my life, mostly because of “Pride And Prejudice”. The first movie version of that story came out in 1940, 127 years after the novel came out. Austen's other work, though it stayed in print, was not as popular. Boy has that changed.
“Sense And Sensibility” was the first of Ms. Austen's six novels published during and immediately after her lifetime, although she had written several stories in her earlier years. Some of them have come out in the last few decades, such as “Sanditon” and “Lady Susan”. As for “Sense And Sensibility”, it did not appear under her name. It was attributed to “A Lady”, presumably because of the gender attitudes of the day. So what's the big deal about Austen's work? In part, it's that she had a habit of telling the truth about things (particularly about romantic relationships and marriage) that her society tended to get a little squirmy about.
At the commencement of “Sense And Sensibility”, for instance, the Dashwood family – widowed mother Mrs. Dashwood and her three daughters, Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret – find themselves in financial difficulties upon the death of father Henry. This is due to the laws of inheritance that apply, in that the aforementioned widowed mother is Henry Dashwood's second wife, and the child of his first wife – only son John – is due to inherit the family home and all the wealth available. On his deathbed, Henry asks John to provide for his half-sisters, which he is quite prepared to do until his wife Fanny encourages him to ignore their needs, ostensibly as a matter of making sure that their son doesn't suffer for it. In other words, this one character at least presents her greed and nastiness as an expression of virtue, and she's not the only one who does this, in this novel or in the rest of Jane Austen's work.
Fortunately, she's not the focus of the story. That is the Dashwood sisters, the “sense and sensibility” of the title. Much as they love each other, these two are completely different in temperament. Elinor, the older, has all the sense of the two, while Marianne has all the sensibility – which in 1811, the novel's publication date, meant “the ability to appreciate and respond to complex emotional or aesthetic influences; sensitivity.” In other words, Elinor relies primarily on her intellect in deciding how to behave, while Marianne relies on her feelings. Both of them get in a certain amount of trouble because of this, especially (this being Jane Austen) when it comes to possible marriage relationships.
Marianne, who spends the first few chapters advising that Elinor can't possibly love a likely man because his taste in art and music isn't passionate enough, proceeds to fall head over heels in love with a nearby man named Willoughby, largely it seems because he looks and acts rather like a Byronic hero. Elinor finds this ridiculous, especially when Marianne makes a public spectacle of herself when Willoughby ignores her, and then proceeds to get terribly ill. On the other hand, there's no need to give Elinor all the esteem of the two sisters; Elinor is very much in love with a man named Edward, but not only doesn't make her feelings clear (no very big surprise in upper-class 1811 England), she barely even acknowledges those feelings to her mother, her sister, or herself. “Sense And Sensibility” is a 19th century romance, so I'll leave you to guess whether they all live happily ever after; as always, though, the main point is not how the story ends, but with what inventiveness and elegance the author takes us there.
I don't usually comment in these reviews about the author's later work, but I'm going to break that rule here because Jane Austen is one of my favorite writers and deserves to be treated by me with some close attention to her excellencies, even if doing so breaks the rules. Over the course of her career, starting with this work, she published six novels, almost all of which are unlike anything else you're liable run across. Here, at the beginning, her work was a bit less unique than it would become later. She always dealt with romance and marriage, often among other things; with “Sense And Sensibility,” her writing resembled typical romance writing more closely than in just about anything else she produced. It's still a top quality romance, but a romance it is, certainly by comparison to her subsequent books. One of my favorite characterizations of Austen, which I will quote and quote again, is that she was a lot better than we deserve. With “Sense And Sensibility,” I would say she was a little better than we deserve. That makes this a good place to start with her work. Read it and enjoy it, and then as you proceed with her other five pieces, prepare to be amazed.
Benshlomo says, Practice makes perfect.
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