Book Review Mansfield Park

By Jane Austen. Even by the end of the book when I was actually seeing the page and what it was saying I still had difficulties with some of the speeches. Many converstaions sounded a lot like morality lectures to me.It certainly does give a picture of what polite Society was expected to be like. The basic story is love unrequited on all sides. Fanny loves Edmund who loves Mary who loves herself, Mr. Crawford ( Henry) loves Fanny who obviously does not even like him but is expected to get over her dislike and distrust by her domineering uncle as the pleading lover has a good income and Fanny would be set for life in comfort and the benefits of society if she married Henry . All comes to naught when Mr. Crawford runs away with Edmund's married sister bringing disgrace on all the family and the younger sister elopes with her lover. In between the stories of love and pain are the secondary characters, the nasty aunt, well nasty to Fanny and overly fond of Maria the runaway wife. , the good aunt who loves Fanny because Fanny does everything for her, and Fanny's beloved brother William. Other incipient characters populate the story of course and pad the novel's plot or confuses it. Then there is Fanny's original family from whom she was rescued by her uncle Sir Thomasas the lord of Mansfield Park as an act of Charity and to whom she was sent packing after refusing Mr Crawford's proposal, There she finds another young sister of like mind and who yearns to be educated and to leave her dreadful family circunstances. Of course the ending is pretty predictable and I am sure I do not have to tell you what that is. All is well and everyone lived happily ever after. Make of it what you will :>)
As you can see there is enough angst for all.
It appears to me that Jane Austen has created the template for all the romantic stories to come. We still find the same plot outline in today's romantic novels.
Since I prefer biographies and murder mysteries over romances I may not read any more Jane Austen. I do like the movies though as costume dramas appeal to me. Odd isn't it how the mind works. However the use of language and vocabulary are very erudite.
These are my thoughts on Mansfield Park, lovers of Jane Austen will be quite unhappy with this review I imagine.