loveforlingerie

An early epistolary novel and two unfinished works--none of them very well-known, but all well worth reading for anyone who's loved Austen's other stories. Lady Susan is brief and entertaining. Its title character is a worldly, willful woman whose unfeeling amorality is almost cartoonish. She reminded me of both the lovely and manipulative Mary Crawford and the domineering Catherine de Bourgh, but Susan probably stands alone as the character whose treachery and hunger for power are the most obvious from the start; the epistolary form was much more blatant than the subtle third-person omniscience of Austen's more famous novels. The story is told through Susan's letters, as well as those of the acquaintances and family members caught up in her romantic ventures. It is a revealing and amusing look at the many ways in which different people perceive the same events, and the ways in which they represent those events to others. All there is of The Watsons is a sketchy start, but I think it would have ended up a wonderful novel. The heroine's circumstances are sad and uncomfortable, but she remains kind and lively, successfully resisting dejection and jealousy. She surprised me and earned my respect at the ball scene where she saved a young boy from humiliation. As for Sanditon... I think it would have been even better than The Watsons, and maybe even better than several other of her books. From the first page--on which a carriage accident takes place--it shows Austen setting off in new directions. Its cast of characters include a pair of vigorous hypochondriac sisters, a brother who is all too happy to play sick too, a man who considers seductiveness his duty, an enthusiast of all things sea-related, and a wry, down-to-earth heroine. The way in which Austen pokes fun at illness is made poignant by the fact that she herself was close to death as she wrote it. Needless to say, it's very sad that she didn't live to complete this novel, and many more.

2023-02-03 02:28