Sense and Sensibility: Jane Austen

As Sense and Sensibility begins, Mr. Dashwood of Norland Park has passed away. He and his wife, Mrs. Dashwood, and three daughters, Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret had lived in a large country estate in Sussex. Now his oldest child, John Dashwood, is the owner of their ancestral home.  John's father had exacted a promise from him to provide for Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters, but John does not follow through on this. His wife does not want to share her home with them, so they have to move out to a much smaller cottage in Devonshire. Here they live near to a distant cousin, Sir John Middleton, who invites them to dinners and parties and provides some social life.

Before leaving Sussex, Elinor (the eldest daughter) has formed a friendship with Edward Ferrars, her sister-in-law's brother. Unfortunately Fanny, the sister-in-law, disapproves, and is determined that Edward will make a better match than Elinor. 

After moving to Devonshire,  Marianne meets a very personable young man, John Willoughby. They have shared interests and quickly become enchanted with each other. Sir John Middleton speaks well of Willoughby's background and his expectations of a future inheritance. But not too long after that he leaves the area with little explanation. Marianne refuses to believe that she has been abandoned.

The story centers around the romantic tribulations of Elinor and Marianne. Elinor is 19 years old, full of sense, and cares much more for propriety and good manners than Marianne. Marianne is only 16, so it is not so strange that she seems to go her own way, not sticking to conventional ways and often being rude and thoughtless with people she does not care for. The younger sister, Margaret, is 13 years old and hardly comes into the story. Their mother, Mrs. Dashwood, is not much involved either, although she is often talked about or written to by Elinor. 

Elinor hides her own feelings and is too ready to consider only Marianne's needs and ignore her own pain and grief when she is snubbed by the man she had considered to be a friend and possible suitor. Marianne on the other hand is more than willing to let the world know how unhappy she is when she is ignored by Willoughby.

This was the last remaining Jane Austen novel for me, and it is the only one that I have not truly liked. Some of that may be due to my mood at the time of reading it. I did not hate it and it covers the interesting topic of the plight of people who feel pressure to marry for money, not love, but I did not have the urge to hurry to get back to reading it or finish it that I usually do. 

For me, Sense and Sensibility did not have the humor of the other novels, and I did not care for any of the characters one way or the other. I could not work up an interest in the main characters, Elinor and Marianne, and we spend almost all of our time with them. I sympathized with their plight, but I got tired of hearing about it. Marianne was a real brat at times, thoughtless and needlessly rude to people. Her youth could excuse this to some extent. Even characters who could be considered villains to some extent were tame villains.

In some of Jane Austen's novels, it is pretty obvious that the romances will work out by the end, but this one was pretty unpredictable, and trying to guess the resolution was a plus. I did like the ending. In general, Sense and Sensibility gets very high ratings from most readers, so I still recommend this novel if you are interested in classic novels and/or romances.

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Publisher:   Borders Classics, 2006 (orig. pub. 1811)
Length:      297 pages
Format:      Trade paperback
Setting:      UK
Genre:        Literary fiction
Source:      I purchased my copy.