Sanditon
Because I cannot bear stopping indelicately in the middle of a book just when it's beginning to become interesting, I had to forgo the true Austen version of this story and instead found a completed version... Sanditon by Jane Austen and Another Lady. It was, surprisingly, seamless! And I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. Another Lady is a true Austen Aficionado and seems to understand just exactly where Austen herself could have gone with this. The first eleven chapters are pure Austen and then our mysterious Another Lady takes it from there with surprising competency.
Warning: Spoilers ahead. Proceed with caution.
This novel begins, surprisingly, with a carriage crash, in which a Mr. Tom Parker is injured. Along with his wife, appropriately named Mrs. Parker, he is invited to stay for a time with a seemingly Bennet-style situated family named Heywood. Mr. Parker is attempting to turn a little seaside village called Sanditon into a fashionable resort. It is rather funny how he is completely and thoroughly obsessed with the subject of Sanditon like... like Mr. Collins upon the subject of Rosings. Only in a less disturbingly-Collins fashion.
Charlotte Heywood, the eldest daughter of the Heywoods and surmised by... basically everyone... to be the intended heroine of the novel, accompanies the Parkers back to Sanditon for the summer. As far as I can figure, Charlotte is approximately one third Elizabeth Bennet, one third Elinor Dashwood, and one third her own delightful person, with perhaps a sprinkle of Catherine Morland. But only a mere sprinkle. Just enough to add an interesting touch. (Yes, sorry, I am aware I am sounding rather like some sort of a strange chef concocting some sort of a strange recipe.)
We are duly acquainted with the other characters, including a Lady Denham, the "great lady of Sanditon" because, as Austen states, "Every neighborhood must have a great lady." She's a sort of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, but without the nosy and meddling impertinence. There is her ward, the beautiful Clara Brereton, somewhat quiet and believed by aforementioned heroine to be somewhat... shall we say... sneaky? Forgive me for that un-Austen-like term. A slightly Jane Fairfax-type of a person, but less... annoying. There is a Sir Edward Denham and his sister, Esther Denham. The nephew and niece of Lady Denham, Sir Edward is handsome, pompous, and utterly ridiculous, as Charlotte muses after a most annoying conversation with him... "She began to think him downright silly..." and when pressed, all that Charlotte can possibly say is that she thinks him very elegant. (Hint: Sir Edward is, or at least seems to be, the idiot of the book. i.e. Mr. Collins, Mr. Elton... you get the general idea...) She also notes that he is duly infatuated with Clara Brereton. Esther Denham is, bluntly stated, a flirt. No more can possibly be said of her. And she is a terribly minor character at that. Of note are also the siblings of aforementioned Mr. Tom Parker... Miss Diane, Miss Susan, and Arthur, who all believe themselves to be hopeless and miserable invalids. This is, of course, excusable in middle-aged spinsters but in Arthur, who is nineteen and not at all sickly, it's rather... shall we say... intolerable.
Then there is Sidney, the mysterious and apparently, very amusing, brother of both Tom and Arthur. He apparently laughs at Arthur and his nonexistent ailments. Or rather, he apparently laughs at everyone. Although he barely even appears until the extreme end of Austen's own snippet of the book, he is somehow even more intriguing than Mr. Darcy himself. An Austen hero with a sense of humor! Alright, forgive me, they all have a sense of humor in one way or another... but none of them quite like that. For a moment at the completion of this novel, he nearly unseated Edward Ferrars as my favorite of Austen heroes... until I remembered that at least 75% of him was created by Another Lady, not Austen herself, and therefore does not exactly qualify. Does he? Well at any rate, he still is presumed by (again) practically everyone to be intended for Charlotte. Predestined, you might say, like Mr. Knightley with Emma and Mr. Darcy with Lizzie and... oh well, you get the general idea.
As for Sidney's resemblance to other Austen heroes, I find it rather difficult to decide. He's not at all like Darcy, that's certain. In fact, at first he almost seems to be behaving like the typical Austen villain. (i.e. Wickham, Willoughby... but he doesn't have a W name, which points away from the villain status). I don't mean that he's villainous in any way, it's only that he is terribly charming and witty and the heroine falls in love of him, all earmarks of Austen villains before their true colors are shown. Something deep inside of me was waiting for his true colors to be shown, but... it didn't happen. No, this book decided to mess with me a bit villain-wise... but to get back to the point, Sidney is 28, tall, handsome, and fairly well-off. He has an incredibly good sense of humor, he plays practical jokes, he likes to mess with people's minds, actually, and doesn't hesitate to create wild stories in order to push people in the direction he wants them to go. But, Austen-like, he is still a gentleman in every sense of the word, and, having everyone's best interests at heart, is the kind to go out of the way for his friends. And also for himself, actually. But his secret dealings to help his friend Brudenall (who will be introduced shortly) put me in mind of Darcy's efforts to restore the already completely-destroyed honor of Lydia Bennet and save the reputation of the family. Which he did, actually. To put it plainly, Sidney is the closest, perhaps, to Henry Tilney... but is more his own character than anything.
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| Here is a picture of Sidney from the Sanditon TV series, by the way... which I don't think I'm brave enough to watch. I may and then again, I may not. Depends. Anyway, this is somewhat how I pictured Sidney, actually, just a little less... modern-looking. Modern period dramas just don't have that classic historic feel to them... like P&P95 does, for instance. |
To cut this rather short, Charlotte, sensible as she is, falls very much in love with Sidney (as I would in her case... wouldn't we all??) And then goes on, Emma-like, to assume that he himself is in love with Clara Brereton. Follows the pretzel-like twists and turns of all typical-like Austen drama. Aforementioned Mr. Henry Brudenall arrives who, according to Sidney, is suffering from thwarted love as the distant cousin he was to marry is to marry another. Alas! And so Sidney, in attempt to comfort his friend, goes about telling secrets to all and making a general muddle out of it all. This is where it gets to be ever-so-slightly annoying as he actually has to lie to cover it all up and thus annoys Charlotte, although she doesn't exactly stop being in love with him.
At some point along this story, Arthur falls in love with a young mulatto heiress... a Miss Adela Lambe who is actually a real invalid. He seems to forget his own "ailments" in his devotion to her and the result is one of the sweetest (albeit somewhat unecessary) side couples in Austen history. (Although, again, it doesn't exactly count... this is ever-so-slightly frustrating...)
Undeniably, one of my favorite scenes in the book occurs when Sidney insists the entire company of young people travel to Brinshore... Sanditon's rival for fashionable resort status... for the day. This seems to be some sort of elaborate prank on his brother, Tom Parker, who hates Brinshore as fervently as he loves Sanditon. It took me a bit to sort this out (I'm a little slow sometimes...) but Sidney comes up with this ridiculous arrangement carriagewise, sending off most of the people in the first two carriages, leaving only four to occupy the remaining two... himself, Brudenall, Clara Brereton, and Charlotte. He bundles the other three off into the first carriage and sets off behind them, on his own. Well, wouldn't you know it? Not long after they leave, the carriage with the ladies in it suddenly and mysteriously "breaks a wheel" and they must resort to the final carriage. At Sidney's insistence, Brudenall and Clara are put inside of the carriage and Charlotte must ride in front with Sidney. Highly improper, if you ask me. Fancy Darcy and Elizabeth setting out cross-country on the front and outside of a carriage like that! No, you can't fancy that. Some things are too much for the imagination. Anyway, Sidney confides to Charlotte that that very same day is the wedding day of Brudenall's cousin (you know, the one he broke his heart over?) and he seems to be trying to push his friend together with Clara, although he doesn't exactly say that in so many words. And then Charlotte realizes that the carriage wasn't in need of repair after all and he staged the whole thing and at first she's flattered and then she's confused and... *takes deep breath* Oh well. Just read it for yourself.
Sidney has to leave for London the following day, leaving behind a package for Charlotte--an ugly little shell box with "Brinshore" spelled out across the lid. He explains, in an accompanying note, that he meant this box for his brother, but thought better of it and thought she would enjoy it instead. (Inside jokes...) Not even Sidney, apparently, could carry a prank quite that far. But he does leave a pamphlet for his brother, which praises the beauty and convenience of Brinshore, which quite outrages him. Perhaps even more than the box would have.
Charlotte is properly despondent. And, by turns, overwhelmingly cheerful. Ah, the female mood swings of love! (Dreadfully wonderful, aren't they?) A ball is then planned, supposedly to further remove Brudenall's mind from the painful reality of his cousin's marriage... and apparently, Sidney has told Tom that Brudenall's cousin's wedding was the day of the ball! Hm... something doesn't line up here...
And then Sidney returns, and Charlotte's resulting surprise and confusion is rather adorable. *happy sigh* Ah yes. We shall finally get this all resolved. When she meets him, it is rather by accident, in a Sanditon public tea room, in an old dress and covered in scratches from blackberry brambles... (she had been picking blackberries for Miss Diana's blackberry syllabub for the ball, lest that worthy lady go into severe hysterics for the lack thereof of blackberry syllabub.) *Cue Pride and Prejudice vibes...*
There is a delightful little scene in which Sidney practically forces Charlotte to stay and have tea with him... he even takes her hand and makes her sit down... and she is all in a flutter for the rest of the day because he held her hand. He asks for the first two dances at the ball, and then he tells her all this ridiculous stuff about pretending to like her in order to play a prank on his sister Diana and thereby breaks Charlotte's heart and we all simultaneously hate Sidney, so on and so forth, amen.
By this time, I'm confused. Very confused. And so, understandably, is Charlotte. She decides, in an Elizabethan fit of emotion, to leave Sanditon and forget Sidney and all that...
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| We must leave here at once! |
Aaaand... cue climax. So Sidney has left again, to do what, no one is exactly certain... but is anyone ever really certain what on earth Sidney is up to? Apparently not, for that's when Brudenall arrives in a state of extreme agitation, accompanied by Reginald Catton (another friend of Sidney's. I'd explain, but it would take far too long... please not that this is not an exhaustive review. Merely meant to spark your curiosity... and also crush the suspense. *evil laughter*)
Ahem. So, thus comes the surprising revelation that Clara meant to elope with Brudenall after all, that she is the mysterious cousin, that there was no other wedding, and so on and so forth. Typical Austen intrigue. And don't we love it!
So Charlotte is enlisted into helping pull off this elopement although, in her practicality and common sense, she doesn't approve of elopements... She sees Brudenall and Clara safely and happily off and then is to meet a cousin of Clara's, Elizabeth Brereton, whose odious task it is to console the formidable Lady Denham. Instead, she encounters an irate and irrational Sir Edward who is raging about Clara's disappearance. He had been planning, apparently, to kidnap Clara... and since Clara is not there, accepts the substitute and kidnaps Charlotte instead. Wild, right?
And now we make for the happy ending. As Charlotte is disconsolately at home, missing Sanditon in general and Sidney in particular, her sisters come to tell her that a certain Mr. Parker is here to see her. Of course... Tom Parker... likely wondering as to her sudden and mysterious disappearance. Her sisters tell her that Mr. Parker had asked about the situation with Edward, had learned that Charlotte was safe at home, and then had sat down, exclaiming in relief, "Thank God!" and, burying his face in his hands, was silent for a long time. Charlotte, surprised at his rather extreme concern, runs out to find him, as her sisters tell him that he has gone out in search of her father. And, of course, as we all know... it's Sidney. Charlotte, however, is not quite so insightful as all of us and exclaims in surprise that she thought it was Mr. Parker come to see her, to which Sidney replies with the obvious fact that there is more than one Mr. Parker. And then, he explains all the confusion and puts everything to rights... and asks her to marry him... and it's a wonderfully sweet, albeit rather confusing proposal... and I'm crying happy tears and warm fuzzies and all that and... The End.
Following are snippets of this book... just little quotes I enjoyed. I would ramble on much longer... MUCH longer... but unfortunately, this post is already long enough.
"We shall walk very quickly," he (Sidney) said, rising and tucking her (Charlotte's) arm into his. "But I am not going to be cheated of my compliment. Miss Heywood, as my brother Tom would say, 'The Sanditon breezes have brought your beauty to perfection.' And you see how cunning I have been," he added gaily as they walked across the shingle. "By putting the words into Tom's mouth, I can get away with a full compliment. Half perfection would not sound nearly so well."
oOo
Charlotte had her own suspicions that Sidney may have realised by then that the prudence and common sense he teased her about were no longer sufficient barriers to her falling in love if he persisted in his attentions. Perhaps he had guessed it even earlier in the tea rooms? But his kindness, frankness and cheerfulness towards her had never varied. Beyond paying her a few charming compliments and amusing her with gay conversation, had he done anything at all to try and gain her affection? He had, Charlotte remembered rather wryly, done nothing except — in a burst of typical high spirits — bought and bestowed on her a hideous little shell box, which she would keep as a treasured memento. And she smiled to herself a little sadly when she reflected that this — her most precious souvenir of Sanditon — was, in fact, labelled Brinshore.
oOo
(As Sidney is talking about his ideal wife, and leading up to a very Austen-like proposal) "Just lately I have sometimes thought I may have found what I have always wanted. But just lately I have also noticed she has developed a most irritating habit of looking at the ground whenever we are together. Do you think she could try to overcome it? Well, Charlotte, are you going to look at me now?"
It was the first time he had used her name. Like the touch of his hand in the tea rooms, it made her heart begin to pound with a happiness so heady, so immediate and so violent that she could not have spoken a word. She raised her eyes to his face, however, and what she read in his was almost too wonderful for her to believe.
"Well, my Charlotte?" he said again.
"You know very well I could never refuse anything you asked," she replied, hardly knowing what she said.
"All the same, I want you to say it," Sidney insisted, smiling down at her, and holding out his hand. "Will you elope with me, instantly, and without one more second's thought?"
"Yes," said Charlotte, putting her hand in his and moving towards him without realising what she did.
Of course, they don't elope... it was just another of those inside jokes. And it was all very sweet.
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| Yes, even as sweet as this... =D |
However, since my curiosity is never satisfied, I did further research and found copies of four other Sanditon completions which I intend to read and review. I'll even attempt to make a decision as to the best one... meaning the one which seems the most Austen-ish. I hereby cordially invite all who read this to join me in this evaluation of Sanditons! While unfortunately two of the Sanditon completions are unavailable, the other four are here, along with the one I already read, by Another Lady:
A Return to Sanditon by Jane Austen and Anne Toledo
Sanditon: Jane Austen's Unfinished Masterpiece Completed by Jane Austen and Juliette Shapiro
Set In the Silver Sea: Sandition Finished by Jane Austen and A Gentleman
Sanditon by Jane Austen and Kate Riordan
Sanditon: Austen's Last Novel by Jane Austen and Another Lady
Let me know your thoughts!! And please give me a follow if you enjoyed this and want to see more. I would appreciate it!
Your tenderest, most faithful friend,
Juliette
P.S. More of Aunt Chatty's grandmother!
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