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Austen's first published novel is, like most of her work, a story of young women who struggle with their emotions and attachments in a romantic drama ending with marriage. In this story, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood are sisters, the former representing 'sense' with her calm, reserved character and the latter 'sensibility', with her high-strung, romantic, impetuous nature.

What struck me most throughout this, my first reading of Austen, was her acerbic, vitriolic and highly dismissive treatment of so many of her characters. It's as if very few of her contemporaries would measure up to her standards either intellectually or morally. The sisters' half brother John and his wife Fanny are shown to be grasping, unfeeling, selfish creatures who think only of their household's bottom line. The Middletons, who befriend them after their removal to Devonshire, 'resemble one another in their total lack of talent and taste'. Mrs. Charlotte Palmer, a relation of Mrs. Middleton, is constantly cheerful and outgoing, to the point of getting on the Dashwood sisters' nerves, while her husband, Mr. Palmer is described as 'indifferent, insolent and discontented'. Mrs. Jennings, who will prove a true friend to the Dashwoods throughout their various tribulations, is so effusive and verbal that her presence in a scene is almost always best read as a comedic interlude. Then there are the Steele sisters, Nancy (Anne) and Lucy, about whom Elinor observes that Lucy 'was certainly not elegant, and his sister was not even genteel'. Finally, Robert Ferrars is described as a 'coxcomb' in a delightful scene in which his takes an inordinate amount of time in a shop ordering the precise sort of toothpick box to suit his fancy. Eventually, the dominant selfish mover of all these persona manages to trap him by appealing to his seemingly boundless personal vanity. Finally, his mother is a paragon of class prejudice and vengeful spite.

A special level of distaste is reserved for the seducer Willoughby whose self interest, egoism, lack of conscience and general hypocrisy create much of the novel's tension and dramatic wonderment as to motivation and eventual consequence. That he is given an extended scene of relative self-recrimination is perhaps Austen's own subconscious reaction to a feeling that she was somewhat overdoing it in her disenchantment with so many of her characters.

Mrs. Jennings, like the sisters' mother, Mrs. Palmer and even Marianne herself, are frequently shown to let their imaginations run away with them, and come to believe things which are simply not true. They are said to have 'conjectures one moment [which become] beliefs the next' and 'to wish was to hope and to hope was to expect'. Thus, for a long part of the story, it is believed that an engagement to marry has been secretly entered into when in fact the truth is quite different.

Colonel Brandon and Edward Ferrars are the only characters who come off as relatively innocent when measured by Austen's far-too-severe moral yardstick, but even they are not blameless, as the former's difficulty in enunciating his thoughts and feelings leave his overwhelmingly good intentions largely unknown for far too long while the latter's wrong-headed willingness to follow through with a rashly undertaken youthful commitment threatens the ultimate happiness of two of the novel's main characters. Even Marianne's impulsive romanticism -'she was everything but prudent' - and Elinor's internal reserve - when her sister's dreadful illness is overcome she showed 'no outward demonstration of joy, no words, no smiles' - are shown to be less than healthy manifestations of character.

The novel is not without humor, especially in the characters of Mrs. Dashwood and Mrs. Jennings who, while being of the best possible intentions, always tend to run on with an often unreal appreciation of reality. The dramatic irony at play when Jennings mishears Brandon and Elinor's conversation while Marianne plays the piano is truly delightful.

Finally, there is real drama in Austen's plot. The scene of confrontation at the Middleton's dance in London is truly climactic, and later, the illness of one of the main characters is chillingly described, particularly when the victim of the fever becomes delusional. Then, while awaiting the arrival of a key relative, instead the true villain of the piece shows up in what amounts to a true cliffhanger end of a chapter.

Nonetheless, the overwhelming impression I had is one of Austen's haughty disdain for the common run of humanity. Certainly, none of us is a true paragon of noble sentiment and moral uprightness. But to castigate such a wide swath of the common people with such critical and dismissive brush to to have her characterization verge far too perilously on that of caricature.

I'll continue to read other of her novels, but I hope to find a broader form of sympathy with the men and women therein portrayed.