⇒ Download Gratis Sense Sensibility Joanna Trollope 9780062200464 Books

Sense Sensibility Joanna Trollope 9780062200464 Books

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Sense Sensibility Joanna Trollope 9780062200464 Books

If you loved the original writings of Jane Austen, you'll love Trollope's update! One thing that drove my crazy about Austen's novel is that you never really get to know Edward Ferrars. He's pretty much a hidden character through most of the novel and isn't well fleshed out. Trollope fixes that and gives the readers more access into Mr. Ferrars.

Elinor is still the star--the practical older sister, who has get a job to help her family pay the bills and ensure young Margaret still goes to school instead of playing truant. Marianne is an asthmatic, to help explain how a little cold could lead her to the brink of death (after all, there is no bloodletting in the 21st century to weaken her). Lucy is an annoying social climber, Brandon an military vet who has dedicated his life to helping those suffering from addictions.

Even with all the modern updates, Trollope stays very true to the Austen original, and there are moments where you might almost forget that you aren't reading Austen herself.


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Sense Sensibility Joanna Trollope 9780062200464 Books Reviews

Since Jane Austen is one of my favorite authors, and I greatly enjoy Joanna Trollope's novels, I really looked forward to reading this modern version. I greatly enjoyed it, and it was well-written. The only part that did not translate well to modern day was the Elinor and Edward story. No woman of today would put up with Edward's behavior. But I gave it five stars anyway.
So there are a great many Austen prequels and sequels and rewrites. There are genre mixes and tributes and everything under the sun to do with Austen and her books and it's never clear that any of it is necessary. There is, however, an appetite for this kind of book, an appetite for modernised versions of the novels, and this is a good book and I won't be sorry that I have read it. I've read many sillier Austen-inspired novels and will undoubtedly read more.

Joanna Trollope has done what she can to update the 19th century setting to right now, without stepping too much all over Austen's plot and characters.

I read this book with a great deal of pleasure. It's likely that I'll now go back and read Austen's book with even more pleasure, but I do not feel that I have wasted my time reading Trollope's version, or that it was pointless. Yes, what I enjoyed most about Trollope's novel was Austen. I don't think that's a terrible thing, or any reflection on what Trollope has done. A version does nothing to diminish the original. I've struggled with 'Sense and Sensibility' in previous readings. It was my least favourite Austen novel and when I last read it, not long after the Emma Thompson movie came out, I read it very firmly with that movie in mind. I read Marianne with Kate Winslet's face, her expression as she looks at Willoughby, the heartbreak in her eyes as she gazes towards Combe Magna. I see Edward Ferrars with Hugh Grant's quiet diffidence - Grant gave that character a posture and a distinct voice and it made me like Edward because I could see him now, and it isn't right, but the fact that he was pretty helped make him a more acceptable character. In reading Trollope's version, I could tell that she also had that movie in mind at times, and it meant that I had to occasionally work hard to shut those voices out, because I no longer wanted to read the book with those visuals. I wanted to read it, as much as I could, for what it was.

I noticed that the communications technology - mobiles, texting, Facebook, were all pretty superficial, and I didn't mind. What did bother me, and what I couldn't escape, was how my attitude towards the Dashwood women, and towards Edward's behaviour, changed when I saw them as 21st century people.

The Dashwoods are particularly difficult. Trollope carefully explains how the women have no legal rights to Norland Park, and that's fine. She also carefully updates the money to make it clear what impoverished gentility entails. What I couldn't justify was how I could like characters who made very little attempt towards their own independence.

To remain within their social circle, Austen's Elinor and Marianne had to marry. They would have lost all status if they had gone out to work as governesses, or become useful dependents upon wealthy, charitable relatives. But there are more options available to women now, and for each of them, Mrs Dashwood, Elinor and Marianne, to kind of just flutter their hands and say that they are not equipped to be useful for anything, is actually pretty awful.

Elinor does go and get a job. She's been training to be an architect and when the family are forced out of Norland Park, must give up her education in her last year at university. Trollope's updated Colonel Brandon (Bill Brandon) helps her get a job as a junior draftsperson at an architect's firm near Barton Park. Marianne points out that Elinor is being paid below minimum wage and doesn't get her head bitten off, which is all part of the problem Trollope has turned Elinor into a complete saint and I can't like her that way. She feels, very cheaply, like every other put-upon 'mustn't grumble' Cinderella who eventually gets her just rewards and escapes her horrible family. For this kind of plot to work, there has to be some character growth. I'd expect a Cinderella to stand up to her horrible family and get a positive change in her relationships. Or, for her to come to some understanding that she's probably not helped matters and all her sacrifices have done is build up her silent resentment to a point where she can no longer see anything good in the people she loves, those helpless careless leeches, and that actually, she needs to change and start seeing them differently.

Marianne … I'm assuming that Trollope's Marianne is the same age as Austen's Marianne. I could perhaps just as easily assume that this is left vague so I can age her up to a modern equivalent. If she is still seventeen, she gets away with being a little more spoiled, but it does raise a number of other issues. Trollope's Marianne is asthmatic and suffers from depression. The depression is not really developed in any clinical detail, we're left to draw our own conclusions on how it acts on Marianne's character, but the asthma is important to the plot. It's also difficult because Marianne is seen by her family as 'too delicate for work.' This is never challenged. When she meets Willoughby (Wills, in Trollope's version) and begins her grand passion, it's almost a relief to everyone. Beautiful Marianne, who won't be a model for Sir John's mail order clothes business (in exchange for his continued kindness in allowing the family to live rent free at Barton cottage), who is a 'very talented' guitar player, is only really suited to marrying a rich man. If Trollope's Marianne is seventeen, it makes the direction of her relationship with Brandon towards marriage a little uncomfortable to modern tastes. He's a man in his mid thirties. She's a 'young adult'.

Mrs Dashwood is just awful. She's 'Belle' for Trollope, and was an art teacher before she entered into a relationship with Henry Dashwood that never quite resulted in a legal marriage. What defines her for me is a scene in the book where she hunts through Elinor's things looking for any sign that her daughter's relationship with Edward has progressed towards marriage. Mrs Dashwood pushes aside Elinor's neat piles of the family's bills with no other thought than that they are neatly organised, and how like Elinor. She doesn't even pause to think that the family's finances are more her responsibility than her daughter's. There is no corresponding scene in Austen's novel, and the closest (to my recollection) that it comes is to scenes from the Emma Thompson movie, where it is clear that Elinor manages everything practical.

Edward is a big problem, and in Trollope's version I thought he was useless. He'd been forced out of Eton in disgrace, not for his own crime/adventure, but for abetting other boys in theirs. His mother had great expectations of his future, but Edward wants to be some kind of social worker. So ok, that's fine. Austen's Edward wanted to join the clergy. I don't necessarily think that social worker is the 21st century equivalent to priest, and certainly both occupations have attached qualifications which both Edwards clearly lack. I accepted Austen's Edward as a young man frustrated by his obligations towards his family name, and his duty to his mother. Whether it is just or not, I expected more from 21st century Edward.

And with 21st century Edward, there is also the Lucy Steele problem. Austen's Edward could not break the engagement, it was a point of honour. The same rules don't exist - Lucy Steele's reputation cannot be irreparably damaged if Edward decides that he does not want to marry her. 21st century Edward keeping faith with Lucy makes no sense if he really loves Elinor. It feels either contrived, or it makes Edward look weak.

Which, perhaps, is how both Trollope and I have read Austen's Edward, as an essentially weak man who is only granted some hero status by his wrong-headedly noble support of Lucy Steele when she reveals their secret engagement to Fanny. I don't necessarily think either of us are right to read the character this way. I also disagree with Trollope's reading of the Palmers. Charlotte comes across like a 'Real Housewife' and Mr Palmer contradicts what I read in Austen and seems to be an extension of how the character was portrayed in the Emma Thompson movie.

Trollope hints a lot more strongly that Elinor and Bill Brandon would have dealt quite well with each other, and although this clearly inserts more relationship than was there in Austen's original, it doesn't stand out as awkward. It's more that 21st century people can talk to each other more freely about their circumstances … so they do.

There are no huge departures from Austen's plot, nothing crazy like Wills being redeemed and transformed into a suitable lover for Marianne, or Bill Brandon finding in Mrs Dashwood a suitable partner closer to his own age. This is ultimately still reading 'Sense and Sensibility' perhaps in the same way that you are still watching 'Romeo and Juliet' when you see the Baz Luhrman movie (for example). It's just all in a different wrapper that doesn't always fit as well as it could.
I didn't realize when I bought this that the authors of the "Austen Project" were going to literally RE-TELL the stories, just set in a modern context. That simply doesn't work with a story like this, which relies in the original on the marriage politics, restricted opportunities for women, and sexual restraint of the early 19th century. Just one example of how ridiculous this makes the story why on earth would Edward feel so obligated to a girl like Lucy, to the point where he'd sacrifice himself in a loveless marriage, in our modern times? It makes sense two hundred years ago in Regency England, but it doesn't make sense today.

I guess I had hoped that rather than just be retold, the stories would be re-imagined. It would be really interesting to read a book that successfully imagined how the timeless "types" of Elinor and Marianne would navigate the sorts of situations we actually do encounter, and the type of attitudes you actually find, in the modern world.
I was excited to hear about the "Austen Project" where Jane Austen's six books will be re-imagined by selected authors, each bringing the story to the 21st century. Frankly, I loved Austen's SENSE AND SENSIBILITY(both the book and the movie) and had great hopes for this re-telling.

I like most of Trollope's ther books....and thought she was a good choice to write this. Unfortunately, the story just does not translate well to current times in spite of her efforts.

Some parts just seemed awkward when made "current." For example, Edward comes off as odd and weak instead of sensitive. The very idea that he plans to keep a promise to marry Lucy (the promise made in secret when they were younger) when he does not love her, much less LIKE her falls flat in today's world.

With the characters using Facebook, email, and texting, communication issues don't make a lot of sense, as they did in the 19th century. And picturing Marianne playing the guitar instead of the piano, was odd. Perhaps a cello would have been better or a violin?

I finished the book with a feeling of a let-down. I couldn't think of ways to make it better and I wonder how the Austen project will handle PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Instead of this book, I'd advise folks to go back and read the original.
If you loved the original writings of Jane Austen, you'll love Trollope's update! One thing that drove my crazy about Austen's novel is that you never really get to know Edward Ferrars. He's pretty much a hidden character through most of the novel and isn't well fleshed out. Trollope fixes that and gives the readers more access into Mr. Ferrars.

Elinor is still the star--the practical older sister, who has get a job to help her family pay the bills and ensure young Margaret still goes to school instead of playing truant. Marianne is an asthmatic, to help explain how a little cold could lead her to the brink of death (after all, there is no bloodletting in the 21st century to weaken her). Lucy is an annoying social climber, Brandon an military vet who has dedicated his life to helping those suffering from addictions.

Even with all the modern updates, Trollope stays very true to the Austen original, and there are moments where you might almost forget that you aren't reading Austen herself.