(Twenty)-First Impressions of Elinor and Marianne

One of the things I love about reading a book or watching a movie for the twentieth time is noticing something that didn’t strike me in previous encounters. I’m currently re-reading Sense and Sensibility, and there are two things that keep jumping out at me: Elinor’s emotions and long sentences.

My movie-watching-to-book-reading ratio is decidedly tilted toward the Emma Thompson movie, making my mental image of Elinor Dashwood significantly older, more reserved, and less giddy and/or painfully in love than how I imagine her when I’m reading. Then again, I don’t think the recent portrayal by Hattie Morahan was any less austere, so perhaps not having the benefit of reading Elinor’s inner thoughts makes all the difference. I enjoy hearing those inner thoughts. It makes her outward self that much more thoughtful. Elinor is as emotional as Marianne. She just has the amazing fortitude to contain her innermost feelings and not count her chickens before they hatch. Couldn’t we all use a little more of that? I’m not suggesting that emotions aren’t healthy, wonderful, and enjoyable to behold; I simply find it a relief to know that there are some cautious (while still lovable and loving) people out in the world.

A friend of Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s recently commented that she was like Marianne in her youth, but has become more like Elinor as she’s gotten older. This suggests that there’s hope out there for our confessional culture! Also, it may be another reason why I think of Elinor as being so much older than Marianne—most people learn Elinor’s kind of fortitude as they get older, and don’t have it when they’re 20!

Now for the long sentences. I confess that I can only quote books or films in short bursts. (We’re talking things like, “I greatly esteem . . . I like him” and “No one wants your concertos here!” and not soliloquies.) So it’s no wonder that when Edward Ferrars is talking about his search for a profession, I remember the lines, “I always preferred the church . . . but that was not smart enough for my family. They recommended the army. That was a great deal too smart for me.” Pure, snarky Austen! But Edward continues:

“As for the navy, it had fashion on its side, but I was too old when the subject was first started to enter it, and, at length as there was no necessity for my having any profession at all, as I might be as dashing and expensive without a red coat on my back as with one, idleness was pronounced on the whole to be the most advantageous and honourable, and a young man of eighteen is not in general so earnestly bent on being busy as to resist the solicitations of his friends to do nothing.”

My friends, that is a sentence of epic proportions! And still filled with Austenian goodness. My bold plan was to diagram the sentence, but I failed miserably and am too embarrassed to share my work. (Though if you want to put on your grammar hat and give it a whirl, you will receive a gold star or perhaps a congratulatory haiku from Miss Ball.) Some movies and even audio books distill dialog and exposition to the essence of the situation at hand. Emma Thompson’s Academy Award–winning script certainly did that, and I appreciate it. As much as I love Hugh Grant, I am pretty sure I wouldn’t want to sit through that entire speech. Mostly, I’m amazed at the idea that Austen’s dialog is typical of her own speech patterns and those of her circle. Is it, or was book dialog fancier in the day? Anyway, no executive summary for that gang! They clearly had enough time on their hands to get into the nitty gritty. But I don’t find that Austen’s long sentences make her hard to read. Do you?

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On a completely unrelated note, I have to share one annoying thing:

I never write in books. I treat them with respect. (Yes, that’s right. I never highlighted a single page of a textbook in college.) But I was so irked to see this typo that I marked it. Perhaps it’s time to move the colored pencils and Post-It notes away from my nightstand.