Sunday, August 15, 2004

The 306 Greatest Books #32 - Persuasion

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 


The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Persuasion by Jane Austen. This book can be found on the BBC Book List. 


Many of the books on my list remain with me long after I have read them and some are forgotten completely. This is one of those forgotten completely books. This is easily not the best of Austen's work, which is probably the reason why it is not mentioned alongside Pride and Prejudice, and it is also not even close to my favorite. The plot-line was a little hard to follow and the book was slow to start off at first, however about halfway through I had no troubles at all. The book is a love story, like many of Austen's works. It follows a young girl who was persuaded to let her one true love get away (hence the title). The book then picks up seven years later while she is still alone, when her true love suddenly returns. Persuasion does stand out from Austen's other works, primarily Pride and Prejudice, because the main character is not looking for marriage, but is actually trying to avoid it. She does this mainly because she feels she is too old for marriage. If you are an Austen fan then you should read it because it is not all that bad, however it was just not for me.