September Book Club has arrived.
This month I’ve chosen Persuasion by Jane Austen to read.
Synopsis provided by Goodreads:
Twenty-seven-year old Anne Elliot is Austen’s most adult heroine. Eight years before the story proper begins, she is happily betrothed to a naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but she precipitously breaks off the engagement when persuaded by her friend Lady Russell that such a match is unworthy. The breakup produces in Anne a deep and long-lasting regret. When later Wentworth returns from sea a rich and successful captain, he finds Anne’s family on the brink of financial ruin and his own sister a tenant in Kellynch Hall, the Elliot estate. All the tension of the novel revolves around one question: Will Anne and Wentworth be reunited in their love?
I’m beginning to use Book Club as a way to force myself to read books that I was supposed to read a long time ago. I’ve only read Pride and Prejudice and Emma by Austen, but I’ve heard that despite the popularity with those books, Persuasion is her best work.
Last month (last two months…) I chose a monster of a book, so hopefully I learned my lesson!
If you’re new to Book Club:
I choose a book at the beginning of the month, we have the month to read it, and at the end I’ll post a review of sort. In the review post we can discuss the novel.
Also, always open to suggestions for next month’s book.
So, join…because talking about books is fun.
My personal favorite Jane Austen book is Sense and Sensibility, but I can see why people would say Persuasion is her best work. But, honestly, Austen is one of those authors who I have not read a single book by that I did not like. I like all her books, though I have yet to read Lady Susan! Good luck with your reading!
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I’m a sucker for anything Pride and Prejudice. I think it’s because it’s the first one that introduced me to Austen.
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Me too!
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Persuasion is a wonderful book- I may have to read along if I can π (I enjoyed the film too, for the most part- the hubby got it for me a few years ago.)
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That’d be awesome! I first saw the films before I read any of Austen’s books. They actually helped me be open to reading classics when I was a teen.
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I drive an hour in the car for work everyday, so I do audiobooks. Iβve done tons of classics that truthfully I would never read in real life. Think my favorite so far is secret life of bees. If I can find an audiobook, Iβll try this. I just finished gone girl so looking for something new.
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Same! With audiobooks I’ve been able to ‘read’ books I never had time to pick up. π I think Persuasion will be a great addition!
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I love Persuasion! I might join you but listen to the audiobook instead (it’s a great way to ‘read’ while doing housework etc). I’ve read this one a few times and it’s definitely my favourite.
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Awesome! π
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Amazon offered this as a $0.00 Kindle download. So…
I read the first sentence. 102 words long. I ran Persuasion through my ALANN and it comes across as expected – highly literary. Average sentence length? 23 words. I got exhausted just trying to load my limited RAM with each sentence and the five or eight clauses that occurred within them.
Reading this feels more like some sort of penalty, torture almost.
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Hahaha. Noooooo. Emma is worse π
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Isn’t there something, I don’t know, current, you’d rather read? Surely all the best writers can’t have been born centuries ago.
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Oh come on, Austen is great. At least I didn’t pick Dickens or some great Russian novel.
And I’m cracking up because, while the best writers aren’t all born centeries ago, the one’s I tend to admire are ππ€£. You know, before the fall of literature.
Have you read any Austen?
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I’m gonna try and struggle as far as I can through Persuasion…
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It’s the little things that Austen does best! Sometimes she can go on and on… but still worth the read.
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Oy! This is hard. I’ll admit I’m learning creative clause composition. How many commas can you fold into a sentence? Gee, let me count… Reading her sentences is like playing a mental puzzle game. I’ve posted about this, but I’ll briefly explain: reading is like programming for the mind.
A sentence is like a tiny program that one must load into memory. As the words are added, they add to the meaning until the period is met. At that point the full meaning of the sentence (the tiny EXE) is executed and understanding is the result. Commas are like subroutines that must be cached in memory, and add wrinkles of structure. The more commas, the more complex the EXE, and the harder to keep track of the nesting of concepts while one loads one’s memory of the entire sentence. (I’ll see if I can dig up that post.)
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How far are you into it?
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I read (slogged) through ch6 then skipped to ch16 – same painful prose. Gobs of explanation, Rodney was ugly, magnificent, Beatrice was forlorn, pining away, lovely. And then buckets of description of unnecessary non-story stuff. And then the soliloquies, every time anyone talks they orate. “Attention, I’m about to speak – so everyone listen…”
Sorry, I hope you enjoy it. Not for me, though.
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Hahaha. Your reaction is great. It’s not for everyone. I have a particular love for Austen, so I’m less prone to care about “unnecessary” stuff.
Have any suggestions on what I should choose for next month?
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I enjoyed each of these:
β’ A Tale for the Time Being – Ozeki, Ruth
β’ The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly – Oakes, Stephanie
β’ Outrun the Moon – Lee, Stacey
β’ The Graveyard Book – Gaiman, Neil
β’ The Girl With All the Gifts – Carey, M.R.
The last one is zombies, but is a great story.
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May have to check out the Gaiman one. I’ve read him before and enjoyed his style.
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That’s a strange but engaging book. Out run the moon, is one you might like too. SF earthquake 1906 story, YA.
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Started listening to it today. Yeah, forgot how flamboyant the writing was back then. For A Tale Of Two Cities it took me a few chapters, but I did get used to the style. To me the hard part with *Tale was the endless description. I wanted to yell βget on with itβ and I did a few times
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Yeah, I’ll admit Dickens isn’t my favorite π I’ve read Bleak House twice and still fell asleep often while reading it. (Once because I wanted to, and once because it was assigned π )
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I’ve just joined book club lol
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I’m glad to hear! π
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Seriously. she needs to stop using the word ‘intercourse’! It brings up an entirely different mental image!
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πππ
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Chapter 21…
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Oh just now reading this! Yes…did you not suspect?
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Finished…. so what did anyone get out of it?
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Ignore this, I found the other post
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