Austen, Jane, Mansfield Park (Old Saybrook, CT: 2008, Tantor Media), 12 CDs, read by Wanda McCaddon

This is, to my recollection, the  first Jane Austen novel I have ever read.   I may read another, but I am not dashing out to get the collection.   The pace is obviously suited to a more leisurely climate, and the manners of the English country gentry are not exactly my cup of tea, even if this were a work of nonfiction.

The writing is elegantly and sensitively done, to be sure (although how many undergraduates would know that the word “awful” is better translated to “awesome” today and thus understand Fannie’s comment on Edmund’s soon-to-be parish church.  This was only the most striking of the translations needed for the modern reader and, fortunately, is not essential to the plot.  

She generally keeps the (romantic) story line moving along well, although [spoiler alert] I had figured out well before midbook whom Fanny would marry, and the only question was how Austen would pull it off.  I was a little annoyed by the somewhat strained plot twist she pulls near the end to make it work.  So, as you can tell, I am not likely to work my way through the Austen bibliography.