So what this time?
It's a Jane Austen head-to-head. Pride and Prejudice vs. Persuasion. I know some people will have other favourites from the Austen canon, but these are the two I hear mentioned most often, and I'm intrigued as to which will come out on top.
And, to whet your appetite (or does one wet an appetite?) expect thoughts on the following over the next week or so:
- some new children's books
- Hallucinating Foucault by Patricia Duncker
- Sex Education by Janni Visman
- Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
- Dreamers by Knut Hamsun
- They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell
- Parents and Children by Ivy Compton-Burnett
Get voting on Austen, and do please tell me if there are any books in that list above that you'd particularly like to hear about first - supply and demand, doncha know!
Oh dear Simon, it's like asking whether you like icecream or chocolate better!
ReplyDeleteP&P for wit and fun, Persuasion for deeper, darker reasons. So, both (but don't bother about the bread!)
I like both but I'll vote for P&P because I love it more and it's my first Austen and I've read it many times.
ReplyDeleteSimon, P&P is one of my favourite books, let alone Austens. I have just signed up for an Everything Austen challenge and have Persuasion on the list as it's the only Austen novel I haven't read (as well as some of the juvenilia). It may be that I vote differently afterwards but I doubt it; P&P holds a special place in my heart.
ReplyDeleteI am happy to hear about any of those books and look forward to all of your posts.
It has to be P&P (which is also a permanent placement in my all time top 5) but I do adore Persuasion too... More so as I've grown older.
ReplyDeletePersuasion for me, every time. P&P is delightful and one of my favourite books, but Persuasion pips it to the post for its sheer depth of emotion. I cry every time at Captain Wentworth's letter...every time..."You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...Dare not say that a man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you."
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've ever read anything as romantic or as heartfelt as this. It is perfection itself.
I'm torn. A few months ago I would have said P&P without hesitation - it was my first Austen, read over and over again with increasing delight, the summer I was fifteen and in Austria with hardly any books.
ReplyDeleteBut a few months ago I re-read Persuasion for the first time in about ten years, because I was staying in Lyme Regis. I had found it dull before, but this time I was swept away by the romance and the depth and ... everything!
So I'm afraid I'll have to follow the example of OVW and go for both! Now to re-read ...
P&P... there is no question.
ReplyDeletePlease do a post about Elizabeth Bennet. Or literary heroines.
I think you would perform the task splendidly.
pride & prejudice seem more fun compare with persuasion but I prefer persuasion - it seem to be less like Austen and the fact that Anne isn't this young lady who goes around looking for a husband, she seem to be more down to earth and earnest, I suppose I like her for the main reason that she's not as stuck trying to keep up appearances
ReplyDeleteBoth are magnificent...but I have to go with Pride and Prejudice. It's like Godfather I and II (if that's not semi-blasphemous).
ReplyDeleteOur Vicar's Wife explained how I feel perfectly. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteWe were having a family discussion on this very subject on Sunday. It was a tie. I think the younger members preferred P&P, whilst I, not being amongst the younger ones, prefer Persuasion, but just by a whisker.
ReplyDeleteC.B
Gracious! I have just now found your blog??? What on earth have I been reading up to now?
ReplyDeleteI would probably vote for P and P...but I'm attending an out of town Jane Austen book club meeting on the 11th, and will be re-reading Persuasion this week. I'll vote when I finish. Never know, I might change my mind!
Wonderful blog. Really.
Easy choice for me: P&P.
ReplyDeletePersuasion. Hands down. Anne is a sincere and dignified woman hiding a broken heart, and her depth of passion is unmistakable. That scene where she meets Frederick again after so many years, and he barely even sees her... oh, the pain.
ReplyDeleteA vote for Persuasion from me.
ReplyDeleteThe depths of Anne's feelings run through the book and of course it all comes right in the end.
I LOVE P&P but Persuasion is one of my all-time favourite books of all time, ever (but you have to have loved and lost to truly get it, I think!). That bit when she sees Wentworth for the first time after the break-up is INCREDIBLE, and the bit toward the end when he is writing the letter while listening to her say 'all the privilege I claim for my own sex...is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone' may be one of the finest scenes Austen ever wrote.
ReplyDeleteI just think there is more heart in Persuasion...
Definitely Persuasion (though I still love P&P).
ReplyDeleteAlready voted, but one thing to add: the Persuasion pic is from the lacklustre 2007 TV movie, instead of the excellent 1995 movie. I'll bet that would capture the swing votes.
ReplyDeleteNo contest, Pride and Prejudice wins hands down for me, I think Mr Darcy is the deciding factor!
ReplyDeletePersuasion. (Although I have to ration my reading of it, as it always makes me cry!)
ReplyDeleteReading these answers has prompted me to begin reading Persuasion sooner than I intended!
ReplyDeletePersuasion - each time I readt it I love Anne Eliot more and more.
ReplyDeleteRachel - yes that letter of Captain Wentworth. Oh my goodness what can I say...
ReplyDeletePride and Prejudice is, I think, the perfect novel, the best novel. (Even if she didn't put anything about Bonaparte or Walter Scott in it, to keep it from being too light, bright and sparkling.) About Persuasion, I have always agreed with Austen who wrote that she was "taking a heroine who is almost too good for me." Anne is too good for me, too.
ReplyDeleteDiana
This is like asking which child you like best .... except I havn't got any, so the analogy doesn't fit very well.
ReplyDeleteAnyway - I think Persuasion has the longer lasting appeal. I love them both, but Persuasion offers something more as I grow older!