Our local book club read for the month of November is "Persuasion" by Jane Austen. This novel is Jane Austen's last completed novel and was published posthumously December 1817. Her works stand the test of time, a tribute to a woman who wrote novels highly valued in the English literary tradition.
Persuasion - first line, first page "Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage, there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one, there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents, there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs, changed naturally into pity and contempt." Possibly the longest written sentence in history, thus begins the story.
Touted the story of Jane's most memorable heroine, Persuasion's lead character is Anne Elliot, "a young woman of breeding, depth of emotion and unswerving integrity." (from the back cover). Anne is a strong woman who finds freedom from less than ideal familial relations through her relationships with other women of strength. Personal fulfillment, something every human desires, is hers in this novel where men and women are equals in morality and roles of hero and heroine are reversed.
Thus begins the read of the month.
i LOVE this book. and when you are done reading it, you should rent the BBC DVD with ciaran hinds and amanda root. it's the only movie i have ever watched all the way through and then immediately started watching again, from the beginning. very true to the book, too.
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