Mansfield Park

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I’m busy reading two books at once. The first is ‘The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul’, by Douglas Adams. So far, it isn’t as good as ‘Mostly Harmless’ etcetera, but it is quite enjoyable. The other book I’m reading is Jane Austen’s ‘Northanger Abbey’. I’m at about half of the book and they’ve just mentioned the abbey for the first time, which is surprising. I liked the first couple of chapters, as a parody of the standard gothic novel, but now it starts to become a bit boring. This summer I decided I wanted to have read all of Austen’s novels; not only the most popular P&P, E and S&S. I had already read these three novels, but E is so good that I decided to reread it again. Then I read Persuasion, which was very boring. They’re just waiting and waiting, for the entire novel, till circumstances have changed. When they do change they can marry, which they couldn’t earlier, as explained at the start of the novel. They other novel I read was Mansfield Park, which is more serious and gives a detailed insight into the characters’ lives. This novel has certain themes that are in the background, which provide a handle that place the characters in a time and space. Religion, slavery. Fanny Price is good and pure and selfless, but at the same time her thoughts can go all kinds of different ways. Erotic. Who is she going to marry. In the end she marries the clergyman, which is the obvious outcome for that time. That it is also her full-blood cousin doesn’t seem to matter. 200 years ago it probably was common.