Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Happy New Year!

Over the holidays I read Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. This will be discussed by my book club on Jan 30th however one of my NY Resolutions is to be a better blogger.

One of the most striking thing about this book is that the heroine is very different from the others in Jane Austen's novels. Fanny Price is timid, meek and sometimes utterly annoying! She doesn't have the spark that Lizzie Bennett has or the wisdom that Ann Elliott has. That said, she does her job in moving the plot of the book along. She has a suitor whom she can't stand and is in love with her first cousin (gasp--that still takes some getting used to when it's still taboo today).

Austen has very developed characters in this novel. In some of her earlier novels this wasn't the case (Northanger Abbey is the book that comes to mind). Mrs. Norris meddles around in everyone's business. Mary Crawford is Fanny's "friend", the brother of her suitor. She seemed to have a lot of ulterior motives but you find out more about that at the very end so I won't ruin it for anyone.

I would think that maybe this is Austen's least popular book, but I did enjoy it. It is different than the others which is why I liked it. What fun would it be to re-tell P&P over and over again? ;)