My final read of last year was one that had been floating around my “to be read” pile for a very long while.  Mansfield Park is one of the two of Jane Austen’s novels I haven’t actually read – the other being Persuasion. Over the Christmas holidays then, when I finally had more time to relax and concentrate on my reading, it was time to give this lesser known Austen gem my full attention.

At the age of 10, Fanny Brice is adopted into the care of her uncle, Thomas Bertram and whisked away to the elegance of Mansfield Park. Incredibly shy, she grows up the outsider among her cousins, except for that of Edmund, who stands up for her and is something of a kindred spirit. When business takes Thomas to Antigua, life at Mansfield takes a spirited and seductive turn with the arrival of Miss Mary Crawford and her brother Henry.

To start off on less positive territory, I found this one an incredibly slow read. I could sense almost from the get go how it was going to end, but to get there felt unecessarily dragged out; so much so that said ending didn’t have the emotional payoff or impact I wanted it to. There’s also some sequences that go off on tangents that add little to the story, including the plan to put on a play that never actually materialises.

Length aside, one of the things I did enjoy about Austen’s writing here is the subtlety in the social commentary and humour. There’s loads going on thematically throughout the novel: town versus country, religion and morality, conscience and consciousness and so on. The way in which these are explored are through the characters and their relationships, and I was really struck here by the level of detail in the characters, even the more minor ones in comparison to her other novels. To have so many personalities at play that act and more importantly react to one another was really fun and kept me on my toes.

“I was quiet, but I was not blind”

Our heroine, Fanny Price, seems to stir up controversy and mixed opinions. Compared to Austen’s more spirited and ‘sensible’ female protagonists, Fanny’s crippling shyness often frustrated me to the point of repeatedly wanting to give up on the book and throw it down in anger, but with perseverance I warmed to her and realised that she is incredibly perceptive. She is the point on which everything else in the novel gravitates: others are constantly seeking her advice and opinion, she listens where others don’t and has power to react to events and situations. That to me was a really striking dynamic to play with, and I wish more had been done with it. She also has flashes of brilliance where she allows her emotions to come to the fore and be shown, and there’s something very honest and real about that that endeared her to me.

The rest of our cast of characters include the goodnatured, level headed Edmund, the vain and pretentious Bertram sisters Maria and Julia, the charming yet rather boorish Henry, and his sister Mary, beautiful yet shallow. They’re a colourful bunch, and for the most part manage to keep me invested. They’re also pretty messy and contradictory, which is part of the fun!

As an English Literature graduate, this book delighted me in terms of how it plays around with the idea of language and communication. So much store is set by what the characters say or don’t say, people hear what they want to hear, and so on. What Mansfield Park showed me was that language, however problematic, silence can be even more damaging, leading to secrets and scandal…

It’s definitely not my favourite Austen novel and won’t be one I return to often, but it’s a mighty fine character study!