Sense and Sensibility

by Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

I read this book at the end of April 2020 while coping with my semester abroad being cut short and the beginning of a literal pandemic. I needed some comfort reading, and Jane Austen was it. I also bought this book at Powell’s, though on a different trip than the others. I read it while tucked in bed attempting to become drowsy.

At the time, the only other Jane Austen book I had read was Pride and Prejudice, so I expected a similar slow-burn romance (after all, it takes Elizabeth half the book to fall in love with Mr. Darcy). But Sense and Sensibility is not like that. The heroines, Eleanor and Marianne, fall in love quickly, then it is the separation from those men that carry the drama. This begins within the first chapters, as Elinor and Edward Ferrars become close, then are separated. The sudden distance is treated as a wrench thrown in their relationship, but I didn’t realize they had a relationship. When I had thought of him as a possible love interest, he had already become The Love Interest.

As a romantic plot, it is not as satisfying as Pride and Prejudice. As a story about two sisters and the social dynamic between women, this book is fantastic. Elinor and Marianne, are definitely sisters. They disagree, they misunderstand each other, but they are bound in love as siblings always are. From genuine love to the forced appearance of “civility”, this book outlines a wide range of relationship between women.

Like with most 19th century novels, it may take a new reader some time to adjust to Austen’s language, but once they do, they will find it full of interesting characters whose actions and interactions were not entirely left in the 19th century.

I would recommend this book to any one who can appreciate romantic tropes, women’s relationships, and the theatrics of teenage melodrama.