I picked up Pride and Prejudice earlier in the year, rereading it for the who-knows-how-many time. Then I kinda felt like reading Sense and Sensibility…which naturally led to Emma and after that a biography of Jane Austen, then Persuasion (one of my favs after P&P). And so, it seemed, I had unknowingly set a goal of reading the entire Austen canon this year! Which meant I was now staring down the road at Northanger Abbey (not bad, just not your usual Austen), some of the partial works, and…

Mansfield Park.

I’d only read this once before and all my memories, combined with anything I’ve ever read about it were that it was a long slog of a book, not your usual Austen heroine, and often, well, I hate to say this, boring.

Were my memories correct? Kinda, yeah. But after ALL those pages and tiny print ( I insanely chose to read my original, yellowing paperback). I found it a worthwhile story with plenty of twists and turns. There’s some food for thought about morality. And you can’t help ponder the pros and cons of parenting styles that produce thoughtful, kind and intelligent human beings versus cluelessly self-centered ones who are too often unknowingly careless of others. I’m not sure nature vs. nurture was a thing 250 years ago, but that one came to mind, too.

Quick recap for those who have either forgotten or never read it (casting no aspersions here). Fanny Price is plucked at an early age, from near poverty, to live with her wealthy aunt and uncle. She’s raised with education and taste but nothing resembling real parental love. Her cousin, Edmund, is the only one who truly cares for her and so, over time, she grows to silently love him. When her uncle leaves town on an extended trip and new neighbors move in nearby, their influence, with city manners and city morals, begins to play havoc with the status quo at Mansfield Park, setting up a series of incidents that will challenge Fanny–and Edmund–in so many ways.

If you want to know the ways, you have to read it. And yes, if it comes with an introduction, even if it’s by Margaret Drabble, there are things to be learned and considered in there. But here are a few of my take aways after I made the long, arduous journey through Mansfield Park.

First, Jane Austen really, really could have used a good editor. I can’t believe I’m saying this about such a revered author, but easily a third of this book should have been cut out. I confess to having skimmed over lengthy paragraphs of endless and annoying comments from Fanny’s Aunt Norris alone.

Second, be prepared. Fanny is not the intellectual and witty Lizzy of P&P, or the charming and delightfully mislead matchmaker of Emma. She’s not even the thoughtful, mature Anne of Persuasion. She’s quiet, shy, silently judging those around her, afraid to speak up, insecure.

Of course, all Jane’s heroines judged, but most of them did it in ways that were delightfully written while also so often bitingly on target. Fanny, on the other hand, often sounds more like a Sunday sermon than Regency gossip. This takes patience from Austen readers accustomed to finding characters like this in secondary or lower spots in a story. Will you love Fanny by the end of the book? Well…you’ll like her more.

Third, (SPOILER ALERT!!!) I’ll agree with others that the story winds its way a little too conveniently at the end to a happy conclusion for Fanny. But to be honest, if it hadn’t I think more than one reader would have thrown their copy in the fireplace of their comfortable Mayfair mansion!

Finally, if you love all things Jane Austen and want to know her better, you’ll find this a curious and interesting read all the same. It came after a long drought (read a biography, I don’t have time to explain that here) and it makes you wonder about all that went through her head in those years and where it brought her. Nevertheless, after writing Mansfield Park something lit her back up and out came Emma. Then, in her most mature years, Persuasion, a gem of a story about love that survives the trials of time and the misguided persuasion of others.

We’ll never really know where the spark came from for any of her stories thanks in great part to her relatives destroying what must have been a treasure trove of her letters! But if you want to get a more rounded vision of the woman behind the words, you must tackle Mansfield Park at some point. Put your head down and go. It’s not terrible, it’s Jane, after all. And she still knows how to do it.

Click HERE to find Mansfield Park on Amazon