Persuasion

Recently I had the pleasure reading a book that I had read about a decade ago, "Persuasion" by Jane Austin. In 95, when I read the book as a 17 year old, I remember getting extremely annoyed by the inability of Anna and Capt. Wentworth to say what they feel. The implications of the society created by the author suffocated me as a reader, and I felt that the characters were very unreal and "bookish". There was this constant feeling that if only I were in the character's place, things would have been so different...

What I got from the book this time around was however completely different, it was as if I was reading a completely different book! Perhaps the person reading the book was a different person altogether. This time around I wanted to escape into that very same society of that many years ago, where means of transportation were actual horse powered carriages. Where you'd announce your visit a week in advance, and the notion of being intimate with someone was considered an extreme anomaly. The place where the worst you could do would be to say something improper, or let your guards down at the wrong time. Where limitless effort was spent on maintaining your dignity, and the most important thing was being proper.

I was impressed by how Anna respected her family (who were complete gits, effortlessly placed into the stereotypes we know so well) and let go of what was so close to her heart without ever actively wanting appreciation for the sacrifice. And how she justified the changes that took place in her physical and emotional self as something very acceptable to her being. Her passion to keep Lady Russel happy charmed me. For that meant respecting and loving someone your mother respected and loved over respecting and loving her own desires. I was silently enthused by the way she handled the spoilt brattiness of Mary, and how completely ignorant Mary was to what she really was.

I was bowled over by the penetrating intricacy of Anna's climactic exchange with Capt. Harville...words, reasoning all the while meant for Capt. Wentworth, to finally make him understand, without being macabre enough to say what's in the heart without any feeling of circumstance!

Anna says with a smile "Yes. We certainly do not forget you so soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us. You are forced on exertion. You have always a profession, pursuits, business of some sort or other, to take you back into the world immediately, and continual occupation and change soon weaken impressions."

Capt. Wentworth's reply in the form of the letter was as amusing, and the battle within the sexes aptly taken to its inconclusive completion.

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in
F. W."

"I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never."

I can see how so many people today would be offended by the gender roles professed throughout the book's journey, but times have changed so much, and we should all appreciate this change. A change that has brought the immense good of liberating women from the shackles of unjust rules and given them the opportunity to express themselves honestly. But with this change we also lost all that was beautiful and serene with that time long gone...

My father (on rare occasions) speaks fondly of the evening he spent in the grounds of the Taj Mahal, and he lovingly recalls the time when it was only the smallest of pleasures that were pursued. How differences in age, gender, thought and occasion were always given preference to all else! He is still sometimes surprised when a 13 year old bursts into a barrage of diatribes directed at their parents. My father is the link I have to that time (for I sincerely believe that we in the East lost track of what was near and dear at least a 100 years after the west). A link I somehow want to freeze in my heart, and to somehow always keep alive. Somehow it makes a lot of sense now to fold my feet when an elder is sitting nearby, or to get up whenever a lady enters into the room.

I only wish we could slow down to the pace of our forefathers and appreciate the value of things said in indirect ways always ensuring never to offend.

There is this strong belief within me that were we to revert to the ways we did things in those times, we would definitely sort out a lot of problems today. Maybe the news channels just for once won't have any unnecessary deaths to report in so many corners of the world. They might report how the world leaders took a day off and went to some lake to have tea, and how they just sat and occasionally chatted about the kinds of birds in the area, and how the winds were changing directions...