June Reading Romances Challenge: Read a Stand-Alone book
I bought this book in my first visit to London about seven years ago. It was on sale on a little book store in Nottingh Hill and I just couldn’t pass this opportunity to bring a personal token from the city I love so much.
It is my first Jane Austen’s book and I postponed this reading due to a number on reasons, one of them the initial difficulty in understanding some of the expressions used. Seven years and about seventy English/American titles later, I found myself more capable of appreciating this story in its original language.
At first I was a bit dumbfounded with the all agreeable tendencies and women submission theme. But as the reading progressed I found myself enjoying this story and eager to find out how these brave women subsisted in a male dominated society.
The rigid social rules gave way to new forms of female expression and I was able to enjoy the common ground that I believe the modern women share with these nineteenth century females. It appears that our ‘hint and show’, instead of ‘tell and confront’, were mostly inherited from these characters and even thou I’m not a great fan of the former I’m well aware of its necessity.
Anne Elliot our on duty heroine gives us a true lesson in defending our ground in a polite and intelligent manner even when in complete disagreement with the general ideas. Through ‘Persuasion’ she will dabble with some of the social stigmas of the nineteenth century, conceptions that turn women in their late twenties too old for marriage or free enough to choose their future spouse.
This heroine shows us that age does bring wisdom and even thou being oppressed by the social impositions she is able to discern the noble from the opportunistic and choose to oppose them in a quiet but determined way.
The threads of family, money, power, marriage, deceptions and social impositions are the sub-plots of this story and the romance between Anne and Frederic is the result of all things endured and surpassed.
I really enjoyed reading this book. It was a really good starting point for Jane Austen’s novels.
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