Is it heresy to say I found it a tad slow and frustrating to read? I'm a Jane Austen fan - Pride and Prejudice is really good. Based on that, when my PA friends book club had choices I eagerly picked Persuasion. I do suppose it was a good book to read in this time of being rather home bound. The Elliots and assorted friends and family pretty much kill time through the whole book - walking, reading, sewing, and pining and yearning. Hoping for a proper introduction, an invitation, and such concerns over looks and manners. Arrghhh - I wanted to scream.
Then again, I realize Jane Austen was writing for her time and in bringing her observations on vanity and pretension, she truly paints a picture of fashionable society in Bath and Lyme.
p. 34 "There is hardly any personal defect (freckles)," replied Anne, "which an agreeable manner might not gradually reconcile one to."
p.141 Good company requires only birth, education, and manners.
Anne Elliott, old now at twenty seven, might have missed her chance for marriage. If only Captain Wentworth....
Now near the end of the book, a letter arrives that brings about a change of fate and fortune. Can it be love? I suppose I softened near the end of the book and was pleased for Anne's sake that her efforts were not in vain. She was not a simpering fool, like so many of the other characters. I was persuaded.
