It all felt like a good idea. Why not read again one of those good old classics I had found so much interest in as a teenager?
My intensive reading of Pride and Prejudice had been an enriching and pleasing experience, so why not live it again with another one of Austen’s masterpieces?
Well, let’s be honest: I’ve found it harder and harder to plod through the intricately written, albeit thinly plotted piece of writing that Sense and Sensibility is. The bumps on my forehead, from me consistently dropping my e-reader, the wider and wider gaps between two readings, the sigh of relief as I caught sight of the words « the End » even as my device warned me of another 15minutes’ reading time before the end of the book, might serve as clues as to how much of a journey this reading has been.
Austen’s mastery of style and the often unexpected use of irony gather to build the beauty and interest of her work. However, let me go ahead and tell you that NOTHING happens in this bloody novel.
Here is my personal summary of the « plot »:
The sisters Dashwood get kicked out of their father’s house after he dies, since, naturally, only his male heir is to inherit his estate.
A distant relative is kind enough to offer them the shelter of a cottage home, where they will be able to wait, with their mother, for the arrival of a suitor, preferably a wealthy and sensible one.
It finally happens.
The end.
There is, at some moment, a twist in the plot, where one of the secondary characters comes back and makes a confession to one of the main ones, somewhat redeeming himself in their eyes. I must say I did not quite get why, and I did not even bother to do so, such was the intensity of my tedium.
Let’s part however on a few words of Austen’s, to end on a pleasant note. I particularly enjoy how the sting of Austen’s irony peeks out when least expected.
John Dashwood was greatly astonished; but his nature was calm, not open to provocation, and he never wished to offend anybody, especially anybody of good fortune.¹
¹ The italics are mine.
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