It’s bitter cold here, but I am warmed at the prospect of a Jane Austen overload, which began Sunday on PBS with the first of a series of Austen adaptations, Persuasion.It is interesting that the producers chose to begin the series with Austen’s final novel, which speaks of a change in the British caste system brought about by the realm’s success in the Napoleonic wars. After earning his reputation and fortune at sea, Ann’s Captain Wentworth could finally thought to be worthy of her — although we and Ann knew he was all along.
I love this story, and I loved this setting of it. It speaks of second chances and the unchanging nature of love and hope. ”The one claim I shall make for my own sex,” Ann tells Captain Benwick, “is that we love longest, when all hope is gone.”
That Ann, beyond all hope at 27, could break through the selfishness of the people surrounding her to find and claim her future is so compelling. Perhaps it speaks of Austen’s state of mind as she moved into her late 30s and on to her death at 41. Always hope — for something better, for a resolution, for the knitting up of loose ends. The film was all muted colors and misty British air, dim closeted rooms and pale faces.
While I liked the 1995 film version (especially the brooding Ciarán Hinds as Wentworth), I hated its portrayal of Ann’s family as slap-stick caricatures. In the PBS version, they were cloying, narcissistic snobs, which is probably more of what Austen had in mind. (And we wonder why she hated Bath…)
I chose this novel for my turn at our Jane Austen Book Club. Up next on PBS: Northanger Abbey.