On scholarly introductions, including a sort of review of Sense and sensibility
This edition was published in 2001 by Broadview Literary Texts, and is edited by Kathleen James-Cavan, who also provides an introduction and has assembled some useful appendixes.
To start at the very beginning; this book has a cover that tells you it was never aiming to be an impulse buy. It’s mainly the drab colours and the haircuts that are off-putting. This is a scholarly edition, so includes footnotes and some quite interesting appendixes that flesh out the notion of ‘sensibility’, and what the word meant in Austen’s time. We also get the 2 reviews of the novel that came out around the time is was published, a map of London showing where the various parties stayed, a brief outline of the types of transport used (what, for example, is a curricle?), some essays on the picturesque, and some poems of the kind the characters would have read. All useful.
The introduction makes it clear that the novel is consciously playing against many types and clichés that would have been familiar to readers of its time, and are less so now. But of course the introduction cannot make us familiar with these texts. And therein lies the conundrum with scholarly introductions.
To read or not to read, that is the question.
The introduction will alert us to aspects of the book that might pass unnoticed otherwise. It can explain aspects of characters’ behaviour that are rooted in their time (eg because of inheritance laws) that might otherwise seem arbitrary or even perverse. At the same time, it can shape our expectations too much, not leave us open to simply engaging with the text. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. A lot can be very, very dull. And what if it tells us something we don’t want to know? Sure, the plot is likely to contain few major surprises, but it can happen.
On balance, I think reading the introduction after reading the book is probably the best way to go for the casual reader. (This is a scholarly copy, but I am no scholar, I just picked it up as a reading copy second-hand because it was a good price and is a very well-made volume.) Otherwise my head just gets cluttered up with a little voice going ‘is this a parody of something’ ‘is this the bit that is supposed to relate to The rape of the lock?’ And I find I am a little more distanced from what I am reading.
Oh, what of the novel? Well, it’s all right I suppose. I find Marianne’s agonies tedious (though that is kind of the point Austen is making about self-indulgence in the name of ‘sensibility’), Edward Ferrars dull and unlikely as a love interest, the coincidences that drive the plot unconvincing and a couple of the villains amusing but rather straw-ish.
I suspect the book loses more by being taken out of its time than some of the author’s other works. It apparently includes parodies of other texts, and plays off expectations that readers of ‘novels of sensibility’ of the time would have held, but we (or at least I) don’t; one cannot be amused by a subversive narrative if one is ignorant of what is being subverted. It’s not Austen’s fault – it’s my ignorance, after all – but it does make the book less entertaining.
Some of these forays are recognisable; indeed, flagged quite clearly. Edward Ferrars says, “I shall call hills steep, which ought to be bold; surfaces strange and uncouth, which ought to be irregular and rugged … I know nothing of the picturesque.”
Austen is making fun of the language of the picturesque, and those who celebrate the wild, dirty and rugged without having to actual live in it. It rather reminds me of a Fred Dagg sketch by the wonderful and now sadly deceased John Clarke, in which Fred informs us that a real estate agent is the kind of person who’d call a spade a delightfully bucolic do-it-yourself opportunity (or something).
The movie scripted by and starring Emma Thompson (back in the mid-90s) strays a long way from the text, and does so to remedy some of these issues. It cuts heavily, as all movies must (rough rule is I believe a page to a minute, and most novels run to say 300 pages), makes Edward Ferrars more credible as a love interest for Elinor, deletes characters, moves words from one mouth to another and cuts out a lot of the coincidences (like Elinor meeting Robert Ferrars in a shop; from Austen, one would think there were only half a dozen families in London and about 4 shops). It also works harder to make Colonel Brandon the right guy to end up with Marianne, by which I mean the right guy as far as an audience grown up in the late 20th century is concerned. A movie in which the heroine chooses the prudent option twice her age while she’s on the rebound from both heartbreak and illness? It’s not exactly Thelma and Louise. Austen’s version is coherent with her aims and times, I hasten to add, but the movie had box office takings to consider. Adapting Sense and sensibility would have been a challenge because of these factors, and not holding closely to the book was a necessity.
On the whole, I would recommend the movie over the book. The book does have some good jokes in it, and to be honest I think they actually are zippier in the book – Mrs John Dashwood’s discussion with her husband about his intended generosity to his sisters, Mr Palmer’s ‘droll’ utterances, and a few other bits and pieces are well worth reading, but there is a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and chatting in parlours and agonising over letters to wade through to get there. The movie, it could be argued, is too Hollywood, but it clatters along nicely.
Austen published six novels. Three early ones (Northanger Abbey, Sense and sensibility and Pride and prejudice) and three later, more mature ones, Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion. For my money, this book is less fun than the other two early books and less convincing than Persuasion or Mansfield Park (I’ve not read Emma). Of the five I’ve read, it’s at the bottom of my list.
DSPACE 