Jane AUSTEN : Persuasion

At twenty-seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young and has few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a handsome naval captain with neither fortune nor rank. What happens when they encounter each other again is movingly told in Jane Austen's last completed novel. Set in the fashionable societies of Lyme Regis and Bath, Persuasion is a brilliant satire of vanity and pretension, but, above all, it is a love story tinged with the heartache of missed opportunities.

This won't be my favourite Austen novel, but I do understand why it's my coworker's favourite and it certainly moved up in my favourites list. Again, it's a re-read for me, I'm re-reading a lot of classics these days and discovering others, and I must say I  had completely forgotten what this book was about.

It's all about the influence that people can have over you : to what extent you should listen to their advice, to what extent you may take your own opinion first, how it can upset your life and those of others, the influence of appearances and of reason.

It's not as witty and sparkling as her other writings (oh, there are wit and sparks, let me reassure you, and social criticism, and the "poor Richard" made me laugh !), but it's more profound in a way that for the first time in reading Jane Austen, an author that I love, who is famous for having written love stories that probably had a huge influence on our contemporary historical romances, for the first time (well, except for Marianne, of course, but it wasn't really reciprocated), I truly felt the love between the characters and felt deeply moved. Maybe because there are more inner thoughts and that not unlike Jane Eyre, Anne feels a lot while she keeps it buried deep underneath the surface.

This novel could be compared to Mansfield Park with the quiet heroin, but I liked Anne Elliot a lot better ! And I really liked Frederick Wentworth too, it took courage to set aside the past and hope again for a future with someone who once rejected him. I felt more for them both than I felt for other Austen characters, maybe they were more mature, older ?... I intellectually enjoyed the others most, really liked them, but I love those more.

And now that I'm writing this review a couple of days after closing the book, I feel like raising my original 4.5 stars to 5. This book is growing on me and the next time I read it, it may well end nearer the top of my favourite list.