Sense and Sensibility...and Dissatisfaction

 

Despite knowing absolutely nothing about the plot of this novel, Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility has long been on my list of books to read. Like many others before me, I wrongly assumed it to be a companion book to Pride and Prejudice (which I've also never read), and thought the story would be akin to Little Women or some other period drama with an obsessive female fan base.

Overall, I found myself looking forward to reading this book. Having just come from a painful biographical read (see my previous review for reference), I was looking forward to a more female-focused, fictional read. While at first I was fairly engaged with Sense and Sensibility, I quickly found myself bored with the storyline altogether.

The novel follows two sisters--Elinor and Marianne--who respectively represent the values of "sense" and "sensibility" (in other words, trusting one's head or one's heart). Put briefly, the book chronicles their romantic endeavors and all the confusion, heartbreak, and healing and that inevitably ensues. The tension between "sense" and "sensibility" portrayed in the book is one that many women are all too familiar with, and in many ways the romantic experiences of Elinor and Marianne are not entirely different from the emotional side of modern love and dating. 

While the book offers a fairly lighthearted story, the structure of the novel itself is at times frustrating. Sense and Sensibility is very dialogue-heavy, and it's occasionally quite difficult to keep track of all the various characters and who is saying what. Many individuals are only briefly introduced and readers are simply expected to know where these characters fall in the storyline. Moreover, the plot of the book moves at an extremely leisurely pace. Major plot points take quite some time to develop, and a lot of what I read just felt like needless filler in the overall storyline. 

The book does offer some commentary on wealth and its conflict with interests of love, but it is overshadowed by the overall disappointment that is the ending of this book. Without spoiling anything, the ending does leave readers feeling somewhat dissatisfied, as though both sisters have settled for less than they likely deserve. For modern audiences unfamiliar with the dynamics of wealth and courtship in 19th century England, Sense and Sensibility perhaps does not resonate in the way that Austen originally intended.