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Madeline's Reviews > Sense and Sensibility
Sense and Sensibility
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I hate romantic comedies.
I hate them for a wide variety of reasons - I hate their formulaic plots, their repeated character tropes that never seem to change (hmm, will this one have a sassy best friend who only exists to dispense advice?), I hate their consistent failing of the , and I hate the way they try to make me believe that a skinny and gorgeous woman is incapable of finding a man because she's clumsy or has a job or something.
But mostly, I hate them because their plots revolve entirely around what boy likes what girl and vice versa, and nothing else ever happens. Sure, there can be subplots, and yes, brilliant romantic comedies do exist, but I want my movie protagonists to do more than worry about who they're going to marry.
Reading Sense and Sensibility made me realize why I don't like Jane Austen's books, and probably never will: she was a brilliant author, and her novels are funny and well-written, but at the end of the day, her characters spend 90% of their time talking about boys. Nothing else happens: they go to a ball, where they worry about which boy isn't dancing with them; they have tea, where they talk about which girls have snagged which boys; and they write letters about which girls have done scandalous things with boys. It's just pages and pages of "I like you but you hate me!" "No, I really love you, you were just misinformed!" "My, what a silly misunderstanding!" "I agree! Let's get married!" and all its variations and it bores me to death. I love the humor, and I love the characters, I just want them to do something interesting. This is probably why Pride and Prejudice and Zombies resonated so well with me - finally, the Bennett sisters got to do something besides sit around and mope about the various boys who weren't talking to them for whatever reason!
Sense and Sensibility is one long slog of "I love this boy! But oh no, he's engaged to someone else!" and "This boy acted like he loved me but he really didn't and now I am sad and will ignore the other boy who has clearly been meant to marry me all along!" It's for this reason that, when faced with the prospect of reading the last 70 pages of this book in order to finish it, I was filled with dread and realized that I do not give a single flying fuck who the Dashwood sisters end up marrying. The only thing that would make me want to finish the book is if the story ends with Elinor and Marianne deciding to go off to college or travel to China or fight zombies or do something besides get married. But I know they won't, because this is an Austen novel, and things only end one way here.
There's nothing fundamentally wrong with romantic comedies - they're funny, lighthearted entertainment where everyone is beautiful and nothing hurts, and the people who get unhappy endings were mean people and deserved it anyway. I do not begrudge anyone for liking this kind of entertainment - it's just not my taste, and I won't waste any time feeling bad about this.
Sorry, Ms. Austen. I gave it my all, but it's just not going to work out. But don't worry: it's not you, it's me.
I hate them for a wide variety of reasons - I hate their formulaic plots, their repeated character tropes that never seem to change (hmm, will this one have a sassy best friend who only exists to dispense advice?), I hate their consistent failing of the , and I hate the way they try to make me believe that a skinny and gorgeous woman is incapable of finding a man because she's clumsy or has a job or something.
But mostly, I hate them because their plots revolve entirely around what boy likes what girl and vice versa, and nothing else ever happens. Sure, there can be subplots, and yes, brilliant romantic comedies do exist, but I want my movie protagonists to do more than worry about who they're going to marry.
Reading Sense and Sensibility made me realize why I don't like Jane Austen's books, and probably never will: she was a brilliant author, and her novels are funny and well-written, but at the end of the day, her characters spend 90% of their time talking about boys. Nothing else happens: they go to a ball, where they worry about which boy isn't dancing with them; they have tea, where they talk about which girls have snagged which boys; and they write letters about which girls have done scandalous things with boys. It's just pages and pages of "I like you but you hate me!" "No, I really love you, you were just misinformed!" "My, what a silly misunderstanding!" "I agree! Let's get married!" and all its variations and it bores me to death. I love the humor, and I love the characters, I just want them to do something interesting. This is probably why Pride and Prejudice and Zombies resonated so well with me - finally, the Bennett sisters got to do something besides sit around and mope about the various boys who weren't talking to them for whatever reason!
Sense and Sensibility is one long slog of "I love this boy! But oh no, he's engaged to someone else!" and "This boy acted like he loved me but he really didn't and now I am sad and will ignore the other boy who has clearly been meant to marry me all along!" It's for this reason that, when faced with the prospect of reading the last 70 pages of this book in order to finish it, I was filled with dread and realized that I do not give a single flying fuck who the Dashwood sisters end up marrying. The only thing that would make me want to finish the book is if the story ends with Elinor and Marianne deciding to go off to college or travel to China or fight zombies or do something besides get married. But I know they won't, because this is an Austen novel, and things only end one way here.
There's nothing fundamentally wrong with romantic comedies - they're funny, lighthearted entertainment where everyone is beautiful and nothing hurts, and the people who get unhappy endings were mean people and deserved it anyway. I do not begrudge anyone for liking this kind of entertainment - it's just not my taste, and I won't waste any time feeling bad about this.
Sorry, Ms. Austen. I gave it my all, but it's just not going to work out. But don't worry: it's not you, it's me.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
March 1, 2012
–
Finished Reading
March 13, 2012
– Shelved
March 13, 2012
–
14.67%
""She thanked him again and again, and with a sweetness of address which always attended her, invited him to be seated. But this he declined, as he was dirty and wet." Miss Austen, you nasty."
page
60
March 15, 2012
–
48.9%
"Le gasp! Elinor's not-boyfriend is actually engaged to someone else but may actually not like her (the other ho) at all! This is just like Gossip Girl, only boring."
page
200
March 19, 2012
– Shelved as:
the-list
March 19, 2012
– Shelved as:
ugh
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Nikoline
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rated it 5 stars
Mar 13, 2012 10:17AM
how are you liking this so far?
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Kind of bored so far, honestly. I haven't read an Austen book since high school and am having some trouble getting back into her style.
I believe you mean Austen. Austin, Texas is supposed to be quite nice.
Never been there. Can't spell today. Roxanne and Panda (Emma's cute but dim boy cat) woke me up for the day at 4 a.m.
This made me laugh,"This is just like Gossip Girl, only boring." I always find Austen's books hard to get really into but the movies are so fulfilling. Weird.
I enjoy Austen's work for the same reason I like to watch boxing. Here are two people trying to knock the living crap out of one another while following a set of rules, like some sort of controlled chaos. It's insane and yet it's called civil. In Austen's time people of her class actually put themselves through this shit. Like you, I find it infuriating, but I also find it fascinating.
That's a great image, and a really good description of the world Austen was portraying - "insane and yet it's called civil."
I loathe Jane Austen also and enjoyed your review.
never can I under stand Austen or seem to even tolerate her writings.
HA HA HA I just had to re-read this. My friend Madeleine Russel is playing Fanny in the play in Des Moines. I think I should go see it. The play is probably better than the book, yes?
Just read this and I have one word: AMEN!
Perhaps the reason you found the plot so boring and predictable is because Austen plots are the bedrock of most romantic storytelling. I understand yours, and others, frustrations with the emphasis on 'boy and girl stuff' but for a woman in Austen's time, marriage was as fundamental as choosing which university to go to, or which job to apply for. Austen wrote about the world she knew and her social observations at the time are soaked into every page. I think she can be dismissed to easily.
There's certainly nothing wrong with writing what you know, and I understand that Austen is using plots about marriage to illustrate greater issues of her time (like I said, brilliant romantic comedies do exist), but the fact remains that her books simply do not float my boat. I love the Bennet sisters and their antics as much as the next girl, but I can only stand so many stories about silly English girls getting married before I start wishing that something else would happen.
i know this is random.don't you just hate teenage boys?
No, I just hate the patriarchy.
This is the comments thread, dear, not a chat window.
Okay I know this isnt realy relevant but are you an author? The only people I seem to be able to follow are people who write books. I dont have a facebook so I know I wont be able to follow my friends but its only letting me follow a limit amount of people. Sorry im new at this and im super cunfused?!?!
No, I'm not an author. As far as I know, Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ lets you follow anyone with an account and the follow limit is in the thousands. If you have other questions about the site, you're better off asking the site admins.
Madeline wrote: "This is the comments thread, dear, not a chat window."See, that internship at New Moon was your calling.
Ya I understand that I just didnt know who to ask about something I was confused about. Who ever you are this doesnt concern you.
friend except me pleaseeeee!!!!!! :0
Sabrina, c'mere. I got a question for you.
Hmm, I'm not sure if I want to give this a try. I've never read anything by Jane Auste, but, as you, I hate romantic comedies. Time to wonder if I should read this or not!Great review!
*standing ovation* I totally feel you on the "consistent failings of the Bechdel test". It gets old when it seems like female characters only exist as a vehicle for boy gossip.
This book would certainly pass the Bechdel test. The characters spend a great deal talking about and worrying about plenty more than men. The death of their father, how they are going to make it by on their small budget, their odious neighbors, the proper way to behave in public, poetry. But put those things aside, I don't think it's inherently wrong for a woman living in the 19th century to write a book about a woman in love. What else were the women going to do other than go to balls? They certainly couldn't go to work, or become a spy, or solve mysteries. But for the time this novel was written in, the women are surprisingly strong-willed and in control of their destinies.
toooooooooooovoodoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
do u s.m.o.k.e if u smoke can u try to not smoke for four days if no good 4 u
can u guysz be my friend,friend accept please:) :(
Just finished volume one. Agreed! Enjoyed your review. I can't help but roll my eyes at these women's silliness.
I appreciate everything you argue about the airhead-quality of rom coms in general, and the application of this criticism to the worlds of Austen's novels. The thing I think you missed is that, in the early nineteenth century, the status of women socially and economically was so very low that they had to marry well just in order to keep hearth and home together. Thus, the seeming monovision of her female characters. I honestly feel that Virginia Wolff is Jane Austen only with an early-twentieth rather than an early-nineteenth century experience behind her characterizations. They both had great insight into female motivations, and produced very different works since they lived at such different historical times. Also, thanks for referencing the Bechdel test - I'd never heard of it, but it is truly insightful.
While I don’t hate this book, the worst part about it is that while it has an uneventful plot (which is fine), it also has the most boring, dull characters I have ever read.
Austen didn't fail the Bechdel test, the society she describes (and heavily critiques) in the novel did. If you carefully read the novel you will discover her opinions are not at all different from yours. Why do you think she describes how Lady Middleton is obsessed with her children and has nothing else in life, but then tells us she loved and was good at music but had to give it up and even locked her piano once she got married? (For those that don't know, gentry women were only educated in skills that were supposed to seduce men so a woman was not allowed to continue doing any of them once she got married). And the fact that Jane Austen herself never married but made money for her family in secret (she was not allowed to sign her name on books which her male relatives had to publish for her because, again, women weren't allowed to do anything seriously, other than get married and have children, not even be professional writers).You can dislike this book, but to critique it as if it was written and takes place in 2000s instead of early 1800s is completely misinformed and ignorant of what was possible for women in England in early 1800s.
Well said, your review was almost as windy as the book.
