The 200th anniversary of Mansfield Park is this summer, and like the author of this article, I doubted that it could ever compete with the other finished works (aside from Northanger Abbey, which is indeed the weakest link). But the more I read it, the more it becomes just as important to me as Pride and Prejudice or Emma.

From the article:

Usually, though, the most arresting scenes in Austen are revelatory, when, for instance, the elegant Mr. Elliot is shown to be cold and self-interested, or Mr. Darcy is exposed as the mysterious savior of the Bennet family. Mansfield Park is weirder. Its best moments are not thunderclaps of discovered malfeasance or heroism, but subtle thickenings in the dynamics of the story, small shifts which are easy to overlook, but in fact are such carefully layered moments as to be eerie, even sublime. One doesn’t often turn to Austen for a chill up the spine, but in Mansfield Park, her Georgian clarity is commingled with dread. In a number of these key moments, particularly those in the three scenes I think of as “the theatricals,” something repellent, even demonic, distends the novel’s porcelain skin.

Day 25: A Character You Can Relate to the Most

I'm trying not to reuse too many books/characters, but I'm not changing either post. It's still Darcy who I chose as my favorite male character for Day 15. He is my favorite male character and it's primarily because I relate to him the most, even though you actually see little of him in the book. I am pretty much him.

Day 15: Favorite Male Character

I have to give it to Mr. Darcy. I find it so rare to find an introverted hero. Not just a dark tortured soul who is mean because he was not hugged enough as a child and just needs someone to love him.

Introverted. He is not talkative. He prefers to stay with people that he knows. He is extremely loyal to his friends and puts what he thinks is best for them first.

"I have made no such pretension. I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yielding— certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of other so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost is lost forever."

There's another quote of his I love regarding how he does not make friends easily, but I can't find it now.

I relate to Darcy more than any other fictional character I have read.

I do always find the culture of trying to find a person's Mr. Darcy funny. As much as I appreciate his character, I think we'd be a terrible match. My husband is actually similiar to Bingley.

My favorite Darcy:

A month from today, I'm getting married.  Holy moly, it's come up fast.  But it made me think of some of my favorite love stories.  Yes, some of them are old or old-fashioned, and use plot devises no author would get away with today (case in point, if you've read LED ASTRAY, you will know that the hero does something that would be totally NOT OKAY in real life).  But I don't care!  I love these all anyway.

What are your favorite love stories?

My fave books that have inspired and shaped my life.