mikaela_wade's review against another edition
5.0
~ Audiobook Review ~
After hearing about this book from a podcast I was very intrigued. I wasn’t sure what it would be like to read an unfinished book but I really enjoyed it and it’s sparked so much imagination. Especially since Sidney (most likely to become the love interest) and Miss Lamb (a west-Indian heiress) are only introduced in the final chapters leaving much to imagine! It was light and humorous making for an enjoyable relaxing read.
I wish Jane had the chance to have finished this book, I think it could have been a favourite (mind you I have only read a few of her books). I can just imagine Jane tucked up sick in bed with broth in one hand pen & paper in the other dreaming of healing by the sea:
“...Nobody could catch a cold by the sea; nobody wanted appetite by the sea; nobody wanted spirits; nobody wanted strength. Sea air was healing, softening, relaxing, fortifying and bracing...” ch2
I love how this book is all about illness and health resorts, fitting with Jane’s season of life (which also fits mine at the moment.) Plus adding in the hypochondriacs who bring the wonderful Austen comedy that I love. I would have loved to see where she was taking the plot!
Fun Facts & History:
Jane titled the book “the brothers” her family later renamed it “Sanditon”. She only wrote <12 chapters leaving the book unfinished. She had been unwell for a year when she started writing in January 1817 to distract her, when she became too weak to hold a pen she continued in pencil, she stopped writing mid-chapter in March, sadly passing away in July. Jane never shared the plot or ending with anyone. She introduces a West-Indian Heiress which sparks some curiosity if she was planning to include an anti-slavery abolitionist message.
(Sources: historyextra.com and “Women of the Church” podcast)
Audio Performance: 9/10
Beth was a wonderful reader, she was able to really draw out the humour in the dialogue making for an enjoyable audio experience.
Narrator: Beth Kesler
Length: 2hrs 23min
Platform: Apple iBooks
Producer: Page2Page Audio
After hearing about this book from a podcast I was very intrigued. I wasn’t sure what it would be like to read an unfinished book but I really enjoyed it and it’s sparked so much imagination. Especially since Sidney (most likely to become the love interest) and Miss Lamb (a west-Indian heiress) are only introduced in the final chapters leaving much to imagine! It was light and humorous making for an enjoyable relaxing read.
I wish Jane had the chance to have finished this book, I think it could have been a favourite (mind you I have only read a few of her books). I can just imagine Jane tucked up sick in bed with broth in one hand pen & paper in the other dreaming of healing by the sea:
“...Nobody could catch a cold by the sea; nobody wanted appetite by the sea; nobody wanted spirits; nobody wanted strength. Sea air was healing, softening, relaxing, fortifying and bracing...” ch2
I love how this book is all about illness and health resorts, fitting with Jane’s season of life (which also fits mine at the moment.) Plus adding in the hypochondriacs who bring the wonderful Austen comedy that I love. I would have loved to see where she was taking the plot!
Fun Facts & History:
Jane titled the book “the brothers” her family later renamed it “Sanditon”. She only wrote <12 chapters leaving the book unfinished. She had been unwell for a year when she started writing in January 1817 to distract her, when she became too weak to hold a pen she continued in pencil, she stopped writing mid-chapter in March, sadly passing away in July. Jane never shared the plot or ending with anyone. She introduces a West-Indian Heiress which sparks some curiosity if she was planning to include an anti-slavery abolitionist message.
(Sources: historyextra.com and “Women of the Church” podcast)
Audio Performance: 9/10
Beth was a wonderful reader, she was able to really draw out the humour in the dialogue making for an enjoyable audio experience.
Narrator: Beth Kesler
Length: 2hrs 23min
Platform: Apple iBooks
Producer: Page2Page Audio
nisha_castelino's review against another edition
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
clementine_'s review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
2.5
fictionfan's review against another edition
4.0
Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside...
Sanditon is a fictional little village on the south coast of England, and local landowner Mr Thomas Parker dreams of turning it into a health resort like its bigger neighbours, Brighton and Eastbourne. The current fad among the fashionable is for sea-air and sea-bathing, both promised to cure any number of ills. Mr Parker and his wife invite the young daughter of a friend to visit, Charlotte Heywood, and it’s through her sensible eyes that the reader sees the inhabitants of Sanditon, with all their foibles, kindnesses and hypocrisies.
This is known as Austen’s unfinished novel but it would be more accurate to describe it as barely started. We get a mere 70 pages – just enough to introduce us to some of the many characters and to begin to see the various plot strands on which Austen’s health never permitted her to follow through. It’s a pity, because it looks as if it would have been fun, and rather different from her finished novels. There’s a more cynical tone about it – the same bright wit but with a harsher, less forgiving edge. It’s not nearly as polished as her usual writing but that’s hardly surprising since in reality this couldn’t have been much more than a first draft.
It begins with the meeting between Mr Parker and Charlotte’s father, and we quickly see that Sanditon is an obsession of Mr Parker’s – he is determined to improve it, whether it wants to be improved or not, by building bathing machines and upgrading houses to be suitable for the fashionable people he hopes to attract. He has a partner in his enterprise – Lady Denham, the great lady of the neighbourhood, having inherited wealth from one husband, a title from another and a pack of relatives from both. Mr Parker’s extended family includes two sisters and a younger brother, all suffering from debilitating ailments according to themselves, or from hypochondria, as the more cynical might see it. There is another brother, Sidney, who, it appears, would likely be the sensible one and possibly a love interest for Charlotte, but I fear we catch only a glimpse of his handsome features before the fragment ends. We also know that new visitors to the town are expected, including a “half-mulatto” heiress from the West Indies, but again we are left tantalised but with our curiosity unsatisfied.
There’s a lot of humour in the portrayal of the Parker siblings, rather less subtle than Austen’s usual. There’s no knowing, of course, how the book would have developed, but I felt that it would probably have had a lot of filler added later – this felt very rapid for Austen as if she were getting down the main elements of the characters and setting up the plot, possibly with the intention of then re-working it to add in more of her delightful social observation. But perhaps she was trying a new style intentionally. The introduction by Kathryn Sutherland in my Oxford World Classic’s edition (which is about a third as long as the entire fragment of story) puts it in its historical context, in an England looking to the future now that the long Napoleonic Wars are finally over. Perhaps Austen was reflecting the new modernity and process of rapid change that tends to follow a long war.
Obviously it can’t be wholly satisfying as merely the start of a story, but I had fun deciding for myself who would marry whom and be happy and who would be taught the folly of their ways and so on. An enjoyable read – just wish there was more of it!
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Oxford World’s Classics.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Sanditon is a fictional little village on the south coast of England, and local landowner Mr Thomas Parker dreams of turning it into a health resort like its bigger neighbours, Brighton and Eastbourne. The current fad among the fashionable is for sea-air and sea-bathing, both promised to cure any number of ills. Mr Parker and his wife invite the young daughter of a friend to visit, Charlotte Heywood, and it’s through her sensible eyes that the reader sees the inhabitants of Sanditon, with all their foibles, kindnesses and hypocrisies.
This is known as Austen’s unfinished novel but it would be more accurate to describe it as barely started. We get a mere 70 pages – just enough to introduce us to some of the many characters and to begin to see the various plot strands on which Austen’s health never permitted her to follow through. It’s a pity, because it looks as if it would have been fun, and rather different from her finished novels. There’s a more cynical tone about it – the same bright wit but with a harsher, less forgiving edge. It’s not nearly as polished as her usual writing but that’s hardly surprising since in reality this couldn’t have been much more than a first draft.
It begins with the meeting between Mr Parker and Charlotte’s father, and we quickly see that Sanditon is an obsession of Mr Parker’s – he is determined to improve it, whether it wants to be improved or not, by building bathing machines and upgrading houses to be suitable for the fashionable people he hopes to attract. He has a partner in his enterprise – Lady Denham, the great lady of the neighbourhood, having inherited wealth from one husband, a title from another and a pack of relatives from both. Mr Parker’s extended family includes two sisters and a younger brother, all suffering from debilitating ailments according to themselves, or from hypochondria, as the more cynical might see it. There is another brother, Sidney, who, it appears, would likely be the sensible one and possibly a love interest for Charlotte, but I fear we catch only a glimpse of his handsome features before the fragment ends. We also know that new visitors to the town are expected, including a “half-mulatto” heiress from the West Indies, but again we are left tantalised but with our curiosity unsatisfied.
There’s a lot of humour in the portrayal of the Parker siblings, rather less subtle than Austen’s usual. There’s no knowing, of course, how the book would have developed, but I felt that it would probably have had a lot of filler added later – this felt very rapid for Austen as if she were getting down the main elements of the characters and setting up the plot, possibly with the intention of then re-working it to add in more of her delightful social observation. But perhaps she was trying a new style intentionally. The introduction by Kathryn Sutherland in my Oxford World Classic’s edition (which is about a third as long as the entire fragment of story) puts it in its historical context, in an England looking to the future now that the long Napoleonic Wars are finally over. Perhaps Austen was reflecting the new modernity and process of rapid change that tends to follow a long war.
Obviously it can’t be wholly satisfying as merely the start of a story, but I had fun deciding for myself who would marry whom and be happy and who would be taught the folly of their ways and so on. An enjoyable read – just wish there was more of it!
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Oxford World’s Classics.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
brinastewart's review against another edition
4.0
Reading Austen's unfinished work is sad for me. This one has started off slower, as many of her novels, and it would build..., you get that sense as you read it. However, since it is unfinished, you don't get a big feel for where she is going with the characters where the book drops off. I long for her completed version but that will never happen. I am left to read the one completed by someone else and I just hope they can hold up to the standard of Austen.
alydanielson's review against another edition
hopeful
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
pipdunlox's review against another edition
honestly a little heartbroken that this was unfinished, i need to know more about sidney parker pls
also this took me 2 months to read which is actually just embarrassing but in my defence i moved house and my sister had a baby in that time so i’ve been busy
also this took me 2 months to read which is actually just embarrassing but in my defence i moved house and my sister had a baby in that time so i’ve been busy