Friday, April 18, 2014

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Publisher: Starbooks Classics Publishing (2013)
637 pages, eBook (Purchased Myself for $1.99)
Book Rating: 5 Stars

Content Ratings:
Violence: Mild-Moderate-Brutal
Swearing: Clean-Light-Filthy
Sexual Content: White-Pink-Red




Summary:
With one sister’s imprudent marriage and the other two more comfortably settled, the mending of the rift between the sisters only comes about when the rich relations agree to taking on the eldest daughter of the poor sister, and young Fanny is sent to live at Mansfield Park, being both advantaged beyond her family’s means and isolated by her lesser standing in society.
My Thoughts:
Much of this story revolves around the connection between the Crawfords (the showy, urbanely sophisticated brother and sister who come to stay with relations at the parsonage in Mansfield) and the Bertrams of Mansfield Park. Henry Crawford is a “player” and takes his amusement in overcoming the challenges in making young women in love with him, before carelessly moving on to the next. Mary Crawford, though cautionary in her advice to her brother, is more accepting of social “follies” than is proper and on many occasions shows herself to be money-grubbing and selfish in her thoughts and actions. The unhappy result of this connection for more than one of the Bertrams is what follows, and in the course of everything, Henry sets his sights on the biggest challenge yet, trying to win the heart of Fanny. Having seen the 1999 movie adaption I had felt Mr. Crawford was denied his chance of reformation in Fanny’s repeated refusals, but the sequence of events in the book and the different way in which things play out from the movie, finds me in no doubt as to Fanny’s correctness in belief and my disappointment in Mr. Crawford’s actions, given his feelings. I must confess that Edmund and Fanny had been nothing more than siblings through most of this (certainly with regard to Edmund’s affections), so the conclusion came as a bit of a contrived surprise, but was happily enough received as a conclusion to the tale, along with a few words as to everyone else’s ultimate fate.
Edition Notes:
This Starbooks Special Illustrated Edition with Literary History and Criticism is the best ebook version of Mansfield Park that I’ve found. It is organized for optimum maneuverability, is prettily arranged, very readable, includes illustrations by the Brock brothers combining the illustrations from their 1898 and 1908 editions, and includes the literary history and criticism section from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, though there isn’t much to it other than quotations from the text and a few paragraphs in explanation. For a standalone copy, this is it, but if you are looking for an ebook collection of Jane Austen’s novels, I’d recommend The Complete Illustrated Novels of Jane Austen by MobileReference.
Quotes:
“By the end of eleven years, however, Mrs. Price could no longer afford to cherish pride or resentment, or to lose one connexion that might possibly assist her. A large and still increasing family, a husband disabled for active service, but no the less equal to company and good liquor, and a very small income to supply their wants, made her eager to regain the friends she has so carelessly sacrificed . . .” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 1
“He thought of his own four children, of his two sons, of cousins in love . . .” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 1
“—but her love of money was equal to her love of directing, and she knew quite as well how to save her own as to spend that of her friends.” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 1
“—it was impossible for her to aim at more than the credit of projecting and arranging so expensive a charity . . .” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 1
“She spoke of her farther as somewhat delicate and puny, but was sanguine in the hope of her being materially better for change of air. Poor woman! she probably thought change of air might agree with many of her children.” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 1
“Nobody meant to be unkind, but nobody put themselves out of their way to secure her comfort.” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 2
“The rooms were too large for her to move in with ease: whatever she touched she expected to injure, and she crept about in constant terror of something or other . . .” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 2
“She was a woman who spent her days in sitting, nicely dressed, on a sofa, doing some long piece of needlework, of little use and no beauty, thinking more of her pug than her children, but very indulgent to the latter when it did not put herself to inconvenience . . .” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 2
“His daughters, he felt, while they retained the name of Bertram, must be giving it new grace, and in quitting it, he trusted, would extend its respectable alliances . . . “ -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 2
“—he recommended the books which charmed her leisure hours, he encouraged her taste, and corrected her judgment: he made reading useful by talking to her of what she read, and heightened its attraction by judicious praise. In return for sure services she loved him better than anybody in the world except William: her heart was divided between the two.” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 2
“I consider the blessing of a wife as most justly described in those discreet lines of the poet—‘Heaven’s last best gift.’” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 4
“An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged: no harm can be done.” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 5
“—there is not one in a hundred of either sex who is not taken in when they marry. Look where I will, I see that it is so; and I feel that it must be so, when I consider that it is, of all transactions, the one in which people expect most from others, and are least honest themselves.” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 5
“Cut down an avenue! What a pity! Does it not make you think of Cowper? ‘Ye fallen avenues, once more I mourn your fate unmerited.’” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 6
“A young party is always provided with a shady lane.” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 7 
“Yes, certainly, the sun shines, and the park looks very cheerful. But unluckily that iron gate, that ha-ha, give me a feeling of restraint and hardship. ‘I cannot get out,’ as the starling said—Mr. Rushworth is so long in fetching this key!” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 10
“And for the world you would not get out without the key and without Mr. Rushworth’s authority and protection, or I think you might with little difficulty pass round the edge of the gate, here, with my assistance; I think it might be done, if you really wished to be more at large, and could allow yourself to think it not prohibited.” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 10
“You must really begin to harden yourself to the idea of being worth looking at.” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 21
“—as ignorant in business as in books, with opinions in general unfixed, and without seeming much aware of it himself.” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 21
“In all the important preparations of the mind she was complete: being prepared for matrimony by a hatred of home, restraint, and tranquility; by the misery of disappointed affection, and contempt of the man she was to marry.” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 21
“—every addition to the party must rather forward her favorite indulgence of being suffered to sit silent and unattended to.” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 23
“Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connexions can supply . . .” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 24
“It would be something to be loved by such a girl, to excite the first ardours of her young unsophisticated mind! She interested him more than he had forseen.” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 24
“Whatever was wanted was hallooed for, and the servants hallooed out their excuses from the kitchen. The doors were in constant banging, the stairs were never at rest, nothing was done without a clatter, nobody sat still, and nobody could command attention when they spoke.” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 39
“—the temptation of immediate pleasure was too strong for a mind unused to make any sacrifice.” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 48
Movie Adaptations:
Mansfield Park (1999)
Frances O’Connor, Jonny Lee miller, Alessandro Nivola
Movie Rating: PG-13
My Rating: 4 Stars
Adaption: Verbatim-Tweaked-Veiled
Eye Candy: Plain-Pretty-Sultry


This adaption takes liberties of construction and depiction that I think change the tale itself. It made me sympathetic to Mr. Crawford (perhaps past the point that I ought to be so) and made me think Sir Thomas a tyrant (when he was everything kind and indulgent in the book), and I think it also inserted a modern view (slavery/women’s rights and independence) where it did not belong. Contrary to the self-possessed young woman in the film, the Fanny in the book was an unapologetic doormat. I would not call it a faithful adaption of the book, except in the most general sense, but there are things about it that draw me nonetheless. I can’t help but like the idea that Mr. Crawford might have been reformed, if Fanny had felt differently toward him and he hadn’t been driven away in defeat and despair. Taken as a story all its own, it is an entertaining film.
Mansfield Park (TV Movie 2007)
Billie Piper, Blake Ritson, Douglas Hodge
My Rating: 3 Stars
Adaption: Verbatim-Tweaked-Veiled
Eye Candy: Plain-Pretty-Sultry



This adaption is no more faithful to the book than the 1999 movie, and in some ways it is even more altered, and I’m not sure the alteration was for the better. I thought some of the parts well cast, but Fanny was sometimes too forward, Lady Bertram too aware of her surroundings, and Mr. Crawford too creepy to do justice to the book. As in the other adaption, there is again an attempt to incorporate modern views, particularly with regard to slavery, which had no part in the book, and really such cares of the outside world were never incorporated into any of Ms. Austen’s books, choosing to focus on more domestic concerns. I suppose it is entertaining enough, but for me, it lacks the uncertainty with regard to Mr. Crawford and therefore lacks engagement.

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