Sense and Sensibility and Jane Austen’s Accidental Feminists

This is a great article and you should read it. We disagree, of course, with the quoted assertion by Louis Menand that Colonel Brandon is dull in the book. Dude: he comes thisclose to running away with his teenaged love; he finds her in a spunging-house, rescues her and her illegitimate daughter, is with her “in her last moments,” and he adopts and raises the daughter; he fights a duel for pete’s sake. How is that dull? Is it the flannel waistcoat? Marianne Dashwood is supposed to be scornful of the flannel waistcoat because she is 17 and silly. What’s your excuse?

Incidentally, we saw the People’s Light stage production of Sense and Sensibility yesterday and enjoyed it very much! If you are in the Philadelphia area, we encourage you to check it out.