Book review
冯美诗
Sense and Sensibility is a novel by Jane Austen that was first
published in 1811. It was the first of Austen's novels to be published,
under the pseudonym "A Lady." The novel has been adapted for
film and television a number of times, most notably in Ang Lee's 1995
version. The story concerns two sisters, Elinor and Marianne
Dashwood (Elinor representing "sense" and Marianne
"sensibility"). Along with their mother and younger sister
Margaret, they are left impoverished after the death of their father,
and the family is forced to move to a country cottage, offered to them
by a generous relative.Elinor forms an attachment to the gentle and
courteous Edward Ferrars, unaware that he is already secretly engaged.
After their move, Marianne meets Willoughby, a dashing young man who
leads her into undisciplined behaviour, so that she ignores the
attentions of the faithful (but older) Colonel Brandon. The contrast
between the sisters' characters is eventually resolved as both find love
and lasting happiness. The most remarkable characteristic of Jane
Austen as a novelist is her recognition of the limits of her knowledge
of life and her determination never to go beyond these limits in her
books. She describes her own class, in the part of the country with
which she was acquainted; and both the types of character and the events
are such as she knew from first-hand observation and experience. But to
the portrayal of these she brought an extraordinary power of delicate
and subtle delineation, a gift of lively dialogue, and a peculiar
detachment. She abounds in humor, but it is always quiet and controlled;
and though one feels that she sees through the affectations and petty
hypocrisies of her circle, she seldom becomes openly satirical. The
fineness of her workmanship, unexcelled in the English novel, makes
possible the discrimination of characters who have( learn from others)
outwardly little or nothing to distinguish them; and the analysis of the
states of mind and feeling of ordinary people is done so faithfully and
vividly as to compensate for the lack of passion and adventure. She
herself speaks of the "little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on
which I work," and, in contrast with the broad canvases of Fielding
or Scott, her stories have the exquisiteness of a fine miniature.
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