70.
Author(s): Jane Austen
Title: Mansfield Park
Publication: Kindle - illustrated edition
Pages:
Genre: Classics
Acquisition: Free download on Austen's birthday
Date Completed: September 7, 2011
Rating: ****

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife," writes Austen in her canonical novel Pride and Prejudice. It is likewise a truth that, given a pen and a potential audience, Austen will lambaste and satirize the Regency marriage market, and the practices of both men and women alike.

Mansfield Park, published a year after Pride and Prejudice in 1814, presents an even more scathing picture of contemporary thought related to both matrimony and familial relations. The protagonist of the novel, Fanny Price, is the product of an ill-advised marriage, and at a young age her wealthy cousins decide to alleviate some of the stress of the poor Price family by taking Fanny to live with them at Mansfield Park. There, Fanny is exposed not just to genteel surroundings and manners, but all the snobbishness related to being the charity relation of elevated companions.

Fanny grows to be all that is good: namely, she is quiet, compliant, and pious. While the familiar clandestine relations unfold in true Austen-like fashion, Fanny remains constant, and the conclusion is just what a Regency audience would require. However, the presentation of that conclusion speaks, I believe, more to Austen's sentiments than the content. The end of the novel is decidedly rushed, and details are glossed over, the timeline is obscured, and the author's enthusiasm for her own narrative wanes. It seems that Austen's enthusiasm for convention is about as strong as her approval of marriage practices.

Mansfield Park is not as polished as I find Pride and Prejudice to be, as the narrative waxes and wanes. And for my own tastes, Fanny is no Elizabeth. Still, Austen fans will likely enjoy the novel as much as any other.