— Neha Cherian
Not long ago, Netflix earned the dubious distinction of precipitating an unprecedented spike in the global demand for smelling salts with what can only be described as a truly horrific adaptation of Persuasion. The New Yorker sagely observed that “Fans of Austen’s novels often respond to new adaptations by following an Austenian playbook. Passionate overreaction (“It’s terrible!”) gives way to proprietary litigation (“The rules of Austenian adaptation are subtle, you see”), followed later by careful reconsideration.” Whether proprietary litigation and careful reconsideration can save Netflix’s Instagram-friendly girlboss heroine from herself remains to be seen. This passionately opinionated fan thinks not.
The melodramatic excesses of the movie reviews are, in part, because Persuasion is the favourite novel of many Austen readers. If you had asked me at age sixteen to name the best Jane Austen novel, pat would have come the response ‘Pride and Prejudice.’ At eighteen, I would have hesitated and said that it is a flip between Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion. Now, at twenty-one- older, sadder and wiser- I know the answer to be Persuasion.
Jane Austen’s last novel, published posthumously by her brother (thank God for him), is her most mellow work. It is about Anne Elliot-the retiring and neglected second daughter of a spctacularly vain and financially incompetent knight, Sir Walter Elliot. Eight years previously, Anne had been persuaded by a mother figure, Lady Russell, to err on the side of caution and turn down Captain Wentworth, “a young man who had nothing but himself to recommend him.” In the present, when Sir Walter is forced to let his house and move to Bath because of his imprudence, Anne goes to Uppercross to look after her selfish sister Mary, who likes to fancy herself ill. Here, she encounters once again Captain Wentworth, whose youthful bravado was rewarded in the war and is now seeking- as all rich men ought to do- a bride. Undiminished feelings on both sides- hers inflected with regret and his denied by anger- make themselves known in episodes in Uppercross, Bath and Lyme, all culminating in four highly compelling chapters and one of the most powerful love letters ever written in fiction.
Persuasion is autumnal, even wistful because it is about second chances- Anne is acknowledged to be past the first bloom of youth. She is a social nonentity, doomed to live out her life as the supporting act in everyone else’s story. Anne is a character crafted in the twilight years of the author’s own life. Unlike other Austen heroines, she is not poised, at the beginning of the novel, to experience her first taste of romance. There is something of the tragic about her- she is pushed around by her family, unknown to the woman who loves her best, confidante to everybody in a social world where everyone is talking but nobody is really listening and resented by the man she has always loved. Anne speaks but little- most of her responses are revealed to us in the narration of her consciousness. However, her clear-sightedness and tendency towards introspection makes for a rich inner world of private entertainment and a fertile field for Jane Austen to do what she does best- skewer the follies and hypocrisy of the landed gentry with her masterful use of irony.
What I love best about the Regency social world is the thrill of small attentions. Turbulent social and emotional tensions find release in barely perceptible acts- the brush of a hand, a glance of admiration or entreaty, an emphatic pronouncement. In a scene I particularly enjoyed, Anne, Wentworth and a few others had gone on a very long walk, during which Wentworth declared to Louisa Musgrove his contempt for inconstancy and weakness for mind. The sentiment obviously sprung from his broken engagement. And yet, perceiving Anne to be very tired by the walk, he quietly arranged with his sister to have her conveyed home in a chaise.
She understood him. He could not forgive her—but he could not be unfeeling. Though condemning her for the past, and considering it with high and unjust resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer, without the desire of giving her relief
(Apologies to readers who are sniffy about chivalry. I’m sure you are very fine people but I cannot relate)
Anne chalks up his kindness to friendship, although we as readers sense some irony in “perfectly careless of her.” It is fashionable among literature scholars to treat Jane Austen’s works sociologically and economically. But it is in little thrilling moments like these that one is reminded that those who read Jane Austen for romance are also reading her right.
In Austen’s parlour world, hearsay and overheard conversations rule. The scene that seals Anne and Wentworth’s relationship is one in which he overhears her impassioned speech to Captain Harville about the equality of the sexes. Anne refuses to allow books to prove anything-least of all bear testament to woman’s inconstancy-because they were all written by men. There is irony in this since we are reading a book written by a woman. Anne believes that women are condemned to long attachments with the men they love because they cannot diffuse their emotions by exertions of the kind available to men. Whether there is truth to this is not for me to say, but it is a reminder (especially for those who dismiss Austen as light bedtime reading about tea parties) that the four walls of the parlour once circumscribed the whole world of some women.
This is not to say that Anne is a tragic heroine or that Persuasion is melancholic- neither is true. As the novel progresses, Anne comes into her own. We are left to reflect on whether the title really refers to a supposed weakness of character or a certain set of convictions- in Anne’s case, a belief in prudence. Persuasion is a book that improves upon re-reading and therefore, as I have spelled out in a thousand odd words, deserves multiple readings. All the same Reader, do not take my word for it because as Austen, in her infinite wisdom, tartly observes in Persuasion “How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!”
Edited by Anoushka Agastya
Design by Alphin Tom
Article 19 