I'm not a Janeite, but I enjoy Jane Austen's novels, and over the spare quarter hours of the past week have been happily sunk in Persuasion. It's the last of her finished novels, and the only one of the six that I haven't read before. I'm about half way through. My one criticism would be that Anne's strong feeling for Captain Wentworth seems to arise from excellencies of character that she (Jane Austen) forgot to get into the book. And what of the propensity for giving to her families three daughters even though she's only ever interested in two? In Persuasion, it's the eldest, Elizabeth, who's forgotten. I'll see if future developments render this observation inapt (and inept).
I don't deny her greatness. No author I know of has portrayed so vividly the decent mediocrities who make up the largest portion of humankind. For example, from Persuasion:
Charles Musgrove was civil and agreeable; in sense and temper he was undoubtedly superior to his wife; but not of powers, or conversation, or grace, to make the past, as they were connected together, at all a dangerous contemplation; though, at the same time, Anne could believe, with Lady Russell, that a more equal match might have greatly improved him; and that a woman of real understanding might have given more consequence to his character, and more usefulness, rationality, and elegance to his habits and pursuits. As it was, he did nothing with much zeal, but sport; and his time was otherwise trifled away, without benefit from books, or any thing else. He had very good spirits, which never seemed much affected by his wife's occasional lowness; bore with her unreasonableness sometimes to Anne's admiration; and, upon the whole, though there was very often a little disagreement, they might pass for a happy couple.
The passage is ostensibly about Charles, though perhaps more is revealed about his wife, Mary--and perhaps more yet about marriage. My edition, from the Everyman Library, includes a Select Bibliography that recommends Norman Page's The Language of Jane Austen, "a unique and compelling study based on statistical analyses of the most common words in Austen." I'm guessing "tolerable" earns a mention. It seems to be almost her favorite adjective, and its connotations seem a fair summary of what her clear-eyed gaze discovered.
