Tag Archives: Persuasion

Dandelion Wine & Rereading “Persuasion”

I have never made dandelion wine, but I read part of Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine years ago. (I was a fan of The Martian Chronicles and disappointed that DW wasn’t science fiction.) The dandelions are blooming here and I wondered whether you use the flowers or the stems. However, I’m not sanguine about boiling dandelions when so many weed killers are squirted in the neighborhood.

Here are the ingredients and a link to the recipe online. It looks simple.

INGREDIENTS FOR DANDELION WINE

1 quart yellow dandelion blossoms, well rinsed
1 gallon boiling water
8 cups white sugar
1 orange, sliced
1 lemon slice
1 (.18 ounce) package wine yeast

I would recommend MUCH soaking as well as rinsing!

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS POST-MODERN BOOK COVER?

The Janeites have been oddly quiet in their celebration of Jane Austen’s 250th birthday. I expected bonnet-sightings, buddy reads, and Jane Austen-inspired fashions.

Last year I reread four of Austen’s novels, so I am temperate, too; it’s too soon to reread her complete works. And in Captain Nemo’s view, that is a good thing. He cannot understand the extent of the fandom. And it can be over-the-top: costumes are worn at the revival of the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice. At my age, I would dress as Mrs. Bates, which I might do by flinging a shawl around the shoulders and wearing a cap (but all I have is a Fordham baseball cap).

Anyway, my quiet celebration consists of rereading Persuasion. Anne Elliot is my favorite Jane Austen heroine.

And this is my favorite quote in Austen’s novels. Anne wittily says:

“My idea of good company, Mr. Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.”

“You are mistaken,” said he gently, “that is not good company, that is the best.”

Mr. Elliot is not, however, the romantic hero: that would be Captain Wentworth, who, ideally, would be played by Clark Gable or Gary Cooper, depending on your interpretation. I see Joel McCrea as Mr. Elliot.

Every year I enjoy Anne’s company more, though I don’t approve of her turning down Captain Wentworth when she was 20. (She was persuaded by family and mentor.) She tries to persuade herself, and us, that she was right: it is better to be persuadable, she thinks, than rash like Louisa Musgrave, a young woman who endangers her life by impetuously jumping off the steps at Lyme despite Captain Wentworth’s warning.

But the present is all that matters. It is a pleasure to see Anne bloom again in the company of two suitors. She is in charge of her own life now.

TGITh! and have a good weekend.

Jane Austen’s “Persuasion”: Pride and Passivity

Jane Austen’s novels are my comfort reads. In her last complete novel, Persuasion, a gentle romance, Austen considers the power of persuasion. Persuasion ruined Anne Elliot’s life, though the gentle heroine blames no one. Persuaded by her mentor, Lady Russell, who was her late mother’s best friend, that it would be imprudent to marry Captain Wentworth, since he was in the Navy and beneath her in class, Anne, now 27, regrets the decision.

The truth is that eight years ago the opposition beat her down. Her ridiculous father, Sir Walter Elliot, who likes reading the Baronetage (a book listing baronets), said the match would be “degrading.” Lady Russell thought it “unfortunate” that a man of Captain Wentworth’s “uncertain profession” and lack of “connexions” would propose marriage.

Anne is confused, incoherent, and desperate to rationalize. “Had she not imagined herself consulting his good, even more than her own, she could hardly have given him up. – The belief of being prudent, and self-denying principally for his advantage, was her chief consolation, under the misery of a parting…” Captain Wentworth was hurt and furious: he left the country. And now he is a wealthy, successful naval captain – a suitable match.

Single daughters and widows in Regency England are often emotionally, if not financially, dependent on their families. Anne, a single woman, has and had no autonomy or power. Now at 27, she has lost her looks and is on the way to being an old maid, or so people say. Anne is dutiful, the one who visits and cares for her hypochondriac married younger sister, Mary, when Mary has a headache or an imaginary cold. Anne also looks after Mary’s unruly children.

This is not the fate of her unmarried older sister, Elizabeth. By a twist, Elizabeth is her father’s female double, treated more like his younger sister than like a daughter. Father and daughter are always together. Elizabeth, a vain, empty-headed woman, does not have to visit Mary. That is Anne’s duty. Elizabeth is still beautiful – almost a professional beauty – but slightly anxious about marriage now that she is 29. She has her eye on delightful Mr. Elliot, the relative who will inherit Kellynch after her father’s death, because Sir Walter has no male progeny. But delightful men are not always the most devoted, as we know from Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility, Mr. Crawford in Mansfield Park, and Wickham in Pride and Prejudice,

Very little of the novel is set at Kellynch (the Elliots’ home. Travel is very much part of the characters’ lives. Travel to Bath and Lyme gives the characters more scope for action. Anne’s father and Elizabeth move to an apartment in Bath, where they parade around in all their beauty, while Anne is taking care of Mary at Upcross. Here she encounters Captain Wentworth. Anne barely dares to look at him at first. He has not forgiven her. And yet he is always swiftly, discreetly helping her. He assists her into a carriage when she is tired; when Mary’s unruly little son climbs on her back and won’t get off, he swoops down and removes him.

Captain Wentworth is courteous, but when the Musgroves visit Lyme, she attracts two eligible men, one of them Mr. Elliot. Anne’s rivals, Louisa and Henrietta Musgrove, Mary’s young, vivacious sisters-in-law, are perfect marriage candidates for Captain Wentworth. Anne assumes that he will marry Louisa, the liveliest of the two.

The marriage plot proceeds. In Bath, Anne once again meets Captain Wentworth and Mr. Elliot. But we also contrast Anne’s not-particularly-enviable position with that of her old school friend, Mrs. Smith, an impecunious widow, who lives in a tiny room, crippled and poor. Having lost all her money and marital status, she entertains herself with gossip delivered by her nurse and the maid. Anne does not approve of gossip, but Mrs. Smith’s correspondence backs up her experiences with charming but devious Mr. Elliot. Anne’s instinct was right: she had not entirely liked him.

In this perfect novel, Austen portrays a mature heroine: Austen’s other heroines are in their late teens or early twenties. Certainly it is delightful to read about a woman blooming in her late twenties. If only Austen had lived longer, she might have written about even older women. That is not, however, in the tradition of the 19th-century novel.

Reading in a Heat Wave: Edith Wharton’s “The Mother’s Recompense” & Jane Austen’s “Persuasion”

Saturday was the last hot day. That’s what the Weather Channel said. You’d think we’d accomplish a lot indoors when it’s 100 degrees outdoors – finish writing that novel, learn to play the guitar – but in fact there is a lot of lolling around.

I did, however, reread two short novels, Edith Wharton’s The Mother’s Recompense and Jane Austen’s Persuasion.

I wonder if Edith Wharton is still in fashion. I don’t see her mentioned much online. The last time I saw an essay on Wharton was in The New Yorker in 2012, by Jonathan Franzen, who is never adverse to being obnoxious. He said that Edith Wharton wasn’t pretty. He adds, “Edith Wharton might well be more congenial to us now if, alongside her other advantages, she looked like Grace Kelly or Jacqueline Kennedy.”

I was exasperated by this non sequitur. Actually, I think Wharton is pretty enough, but what does it matter? What do Grace Kelly and Jacqueline Kennedy have to do with it? Would anyone have said of Henry James or James Joyce, “He isn’t pretty”?

Before I go on to The Mother’s Recompense, let me say that my favorite Wharton heroine is Lily Bart in The House of Mirth. Every time I reread it, I am indignant and distressed over her tragedy, as well as in awe of every elegant word Wharton wrote. How can charming, intelligent Lily fall not just a few rungs, but right off the social ladder? Lily is desperate: she believes she should marry a rich man to support her life-style, but bungles her chances because she doesn’t like the available bachelors. The spell of drugs (laudanum) is her only relief as she falls into debt and deeper unhappiness. Here’s what we learn from Edith Wharton: No Prince Charming will save Lily Bart. People like Lily – but not enough. The mystery of fiction is our identification with characters like Lily from Old New York.

I’ve made my way through most of Wharton’s work, and last week I took The Mothers Recompense (1925) off the shelf, because a writer in one of those short interviews at The Guardian or The New York Times called it an underrated classic.

The fact that I had read The Mother’s Recompense, and didn’t remember it, might have been a portent that I would not rate it highly. If I were a Roman augur, I would have watched some chickens or examined an animal’s entrails and then announced: “This is not a good day to read The Mother’s Recompense.”

But even though it is far from Wharton’s best, I was riveted by this slight, tragic novel. Plot-wise, it is a page-turner. The 45-year-old American heroine, Kate Clephane, has lived on the Riviera for years, ever since she ran away from her rich husband in New York with another man from whom she soon parted. Kate has survived in comfort, living in slightly shabby hotels, and dividing her days into periods of aimless social life, taking long drives with the elderly Mrs. Minty, dining with friends at the casino, attending a Ladies’ Guild meeting at the American church, and buying new hats. And she often muses about her second lover, Chris, a much younger man who eventually left her, but who was the love of her life.

Kate considers herself permanently severed from her family. And then her daughter, Anne, sends her a telegram, inviting Kate to return to New York and live with her. Kate’s mother-in law, the dragon lady who had forbidden Kate to visit Anne for the last 18 years, has died.

Kate’s reunion with Anne is touching, and their relationship almost perfect, until Anne announces she is engaged to Chris. This is a tragedy for Kate, who doesn’t know what a mother should do in this situation. Should she tell Anne about her own relationship with Chris? Can she scare Chris away from Anne? Either Kate or Anne will break.

Wharton is usually a great stylist, but here we simply race through the book, not noticing that it’s less elegant than some of her best work.

A good read, not a great book.

As for Jane Austen’s Persuasion, is it not her best novel? It is less complex than Emma and Mansfield Park, but it is stunning.

These days I read this as a sublime comedy about loneliness and the reinvention of self. Anne Elliott has lost her bloom: she is a lonely woman in her late twenties, who some years ago refused Frederick Wentworth’s proposal of marriage, because her mentor, Lady Russell, said it would be unwise to marry a navy officer with uncertain prospects. Anne has never gotten over the disappointment; she still loves Frederick. When chance brings Captain Wentworth and Anne together during her visit to her very funny, hypochondriac younger sister, Mary, the two try to avoid each other. But Anne blooms in the admiration of others, and reinvents herself, and there is, of course, romance.