Critics have given Mansfield Park-- and it's heroine Fanny especially-- a hard time for a very long time. While I would never say MP is my favorite, I could never really understand the vitriol it could bring out in otherwise sound intellectuals. This article takes a look at how MP has been potentially misinterpreted.
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.
But Jennifer Petkus's blog post appreciation is making me consider re-reading what may be Austen's least beloved book.
AnAppreciationOfMansfieldParkUponThe200thAnniversaryOfItsPublicationLink
P.S. And I loved Petkus's book Jane, Actually which brought Jane Austen into the modern world (and not as a vampire) via the AfterNet.
How was I not informed? Harper Collins is publishing six reimaginings of Austen's novels by six contemporary authors. So, for example, Joanna Trollope has written a new version of Sense and Sensibility that takes place in the twenty-first century (I understand there are iPads involved).
I am always interested in reimaginings of classic works, although I'm not sure why it was necessary to hire authors for this specific task -- after all, Cathleen Schine and Allegra Goodman already rewrote Sense and Sensibility last year without even being asked! Does the world really need three twenty-first century versions of this novel?
That said, of course I'll read it. Trollope seems to be a good fit for Austen, and I'm downright excited to see Val McDermid's take on Northanger Abbey. (In my view, Northanger Abbey is far and away the worst of Austen's novels, so I might find myself preferring McDermid's version.) I'm less enthused to see that Curtis Sittenfield is taking on Pride and Prejudice, and slightly ill at the idea of the terribly twee Alexander McCall Smith being given custody of my beloved Emma.
Mansfield Park and Persuasion have yet to be assigned. If I were in control of the publishing universe, Jeanette Winterson would be adapting Mansfield Park and Valerie Martin would handle Persuasion. (Martin is probably not a big enough name, but she should be.) Here's hoping Harper Collins resists the temptation to hand them over to J. K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer.
Log in with Facebook 
