'Persuasion' Conversation: Transcript 3

Recently, as a group, we decided to read Persuasion by Jane Austen then sit down and record our discussion. Here is a very long (very edited for timing sake) transcript where we discuss our thoughts on the book and live out our fantasy of having a podcast. If you haven't read Persuasion (get on it!) spoilers are ahead! Enjoy!

Shannon: Welcome to the round table

Shea: *already laughing*

Shannon: presented by Variety

Shea: This episode is sponsored by… the future Netflix version of Persuasion

Julie: The Netflix PRODUCED version of Persuasion

Shea: Dakota, please reach out!

Caroline: This is our back door pilot… to our podcast.

Shea: Alright! So today we are going to be talking about Jane Austen’s Persuasion. It was on our, sponsoring ourselves as well, go back to our website and check out our “Suburban Elitist Summer Reading List” we all decided that we were going to read it and we did! And this is proof to us and you that we actually did it…

Caroline: Literacy is important!

Shea: Amen!

Julie: We can claim literacy as a group, and I think that that’s really important!

Shannon: I would like to add that there are two main factors as to why we ended up reading Persuasion. One: because I held a gun to their heads and said read this book.

Shea: Literally!

Caroline: Shannon has THREE guns!

Shannon: Two: Dakota Johnson. Right after I finished the book, it was announced that Dakota Johnson would be playing the heroine in the Netflix adaptation

Shannon: Well let's talk about what Jane means to us because then we…

Caroline: What DOES Jane mean to us?

Shannon: What does Jane mean to YOU?

Shea: Um first name basis, first off.

Caroline: Shannon?

Shannon: Umm I love a Jane moment! I read Pride and Prejudice... I tried to read Pride and Prejudice in the eighth grade… didn’t go too well… thought I was stupid. Didn’t TOUCH a Jane Austen until I read Emma last year during quarantine… then I had Persuasion as one of my spring reads, because it just gives spring vibes and my copy had a green cover so naturally spring! Um… so that’s where I’m at with Jane. I love her soooo much. I still think that I’m too dumb to read her, but after reading three of her novels-

Caroline: not true queen!

Shannon: -I’m learning that I can actually understand what she's saying she just puts “ands” in between the numbers and ages

Caroline: This she does “two and twenty”

Julie: I think that sometimes she’s just-

Shannon: I AM one and twenty

Julie: She makes it a little hard. It’s like a scavenger hunt with words.

Caroline: she is a hunt and peck on the keyboard

Julie: And you have to word search sometimes…

Caroline: control, find

Julie: And that is whyyyy it took me so long to read this book

Shannon: Julie, which other novels by Jane Austen have you read?

Shea: Yes, speak of your relationship with Jane.

Julie: I have read Pride and Prejudice, I have read Northanger Abbey, and I have read Sense and Sensibility.

Shannon: And now Persuasion

Julie: And now Persuasion. So four of six. Completed novels.

Caroline: Oh! Go girl! And you FAMOUSLY said the other day that maybe Jane will never be more than four stars to you...

Julie: And we’ll get into that later!

Shannon: And that's UPSETTING!

Julie: But that’s not… I don’t see that as a bad thing...

Caroline (dubious): okay...

Julie: To me! I recognize her as a five star author, but whenever I read her, I can’t personally give it five stars - the last star is a personal star, ya know?

Caroline: it IS personal

Julie: And sometimes I just can't get that personal star, and that doesn’t mean she’s not fabulous, but it’s my own personal star that I simply cannot reach… So it’s my fault and not Jane’s.

Caroline: Seek treatment.

Shannon: We’ll pray for you.

Caroline: Yeah… honestly… pour one out for Julie, but I guess it’s my turn. Miss Jane is also a moral novelist. So she does love morality. So sometimes that can be a drag, but she’s dragging all of us actually is what she's doing… My relationship to Jane Austen is... I read Emma and then Pride and Prejudice and, no wait, then I read Sense and Sensibility and THEN I read Pride and Prejudice, and now I’ve read Persuasion. And Emma is iconically my favorite novel, and so none of the other girlies will ever be it-girly to me, because Emma is the original girlboss...

Shannon: So true

Caroline: Sooo…. Miss Anne does look like… someone out of fashion BUT-

Julie: Sometimes like a jester flop bestie…

Caroline: She kinda flops...occasionally

Shannon: We’re about to fight on that, because I love Anne Elliot. I LOVE her soo much!

Caroline: And that’s ADORABLE, Miss Hufflepuff, that’s really sweet.

Julie: She has really good qualities!

Shannon: Would die for her!

Shea: She’s an Enneagram 9! You’re allowed to like her! Everyone likes an Enneagram 9!

Shannon: I LOVE her and I-

Caroline: (singing ‘On my Own’ from Les Mis) I love her….

Shannon: Genuinely, confidently said after finishing this, THIS is my favorite Jane Austen…

Caroline: This is your stan Jane Austen.

Julie: We all have a stan Jane Austen

Shea (to Julie): What is yours?

Julie: Mine is Northanger Abbey

Shannon: I think mine has the ability to be...um… Mansfield Park once I finally get around to reading it.

Caroline: Mansfield Park is also the quote-unquote “boring one”

Shannon: I don't know. I feel like me and Fanny Price are just gonna *click tongue and intertwines two fingers indicating that they would click*

Caroline and Shannon: Shea?

Shea: Yes! Ummm my relationship with Jane… um real short if I’m honest. This is actually my first Jane Austen read, because I, too, believe that I am… how you say… too dumb for Jane Austen, and-

Julie: An untrue statement!

Shea: Untrue! But honestly-

Shannon: Sometimes we forget how to read.

Shea and Caroline: Yes

Shea: And also with the… writing of Jane Austen being of not this century it is a bit for me to get used to, because I didn’t actually read the classic literature of highschool that we all did. Not saying that this is classic literature that we all read in highschool but I think that-

Caroline: We should’ve! But our Brit Lit professor was umm…

Shannon: A man!

Caroline: -idiotic.

Shea: Yeah! I didn’t read anything for Brit Lit, and then I think the last time I got to read for class was sophomore year which was… [redacted]… just kidding...

Julie: That was Sherill Frank! I’ll say it! I’ll say it!

Shea (laughing): That was Sherill Frank!

Shannon: She also thought Macbeth was set in Egypt… so……

Julie: *scoffs in disbelief* Did she say that?

Shannon: She actually said that!

Shea: So that is also why I thought I was too dumb to read classic literature...

Julie (whispering and still in shock about thinking Macbeth was set in Egypt): bestie it said SCOTLAND

Julie: Also I have to laugh because we’re also talking like it’s a podcast and we’re going to be HEARD but we’re actually going to be READ

Caroline: Okay I think we should talk about the humor of the novel, because we do need to explicitly state that it is camp. She has a character LITERALLY have a concussion just to call this girl flat out stupid big fat dumb!

Julie: And she was just talking about how she was so intellectual...

Caroline: Yes! And then she marries the quote-unquote “intellectual man”

Shannon: WHICH-

Julie: Because after getting a concussion she becomes a completely different person!

Shannon: We’re gonna circle back because I love those two!

Caroline: It is so funny to me!

Julie: They were the dark horse couple of the book!

Caroline: They were a dark horse couple but I liked Anne’s and Benwick's prose versus poetry debates that they get into. It's just like… Jane absolutely inserting herself in the narrative

Julie: She has to everytime and I love that.

Shea: But yes the humor!

Caroline: That’s also my problem with the main two is that the main two aren’t funny.

Shannon: I thought that Anne was funny because…

Julie: WHEN????

Shannon: I thought that it was funny-

Caroline: DOUBTFUL.

Shannon: Because she was always just like ‘oh i was in love with him. I was persuaded not to marry him. What am I gonna do about it? Avoid eye contact and not talk to him.’ because me too

Julie: But that’s not humorous

Shannon: It was humorous to ME

Shea: I found her semi-relatable. For example, her being in a family dynamic where you’re just sorta thrown about and you have these secret opinions I found relatable, but I wouldn't have said I found her funny. I think that the things that happen to her like of course we’re gonna bring up Mary now where Anne was sorta calm like ‘wow… this is life!’ and Mary is just, ‘NO! EVERYONE LISTEN!’

Caroline: *straight up giggles sounds like ‘hehe’ because her favorite character is Mary*

Julie: Mary overshadowed her…

Caroline: She’s supposed to be her foil. Mary is supposed to foil Anne, but it made Anne-

Julie: Look boring!

Caroline: Look DRAB, because Mary is just… she had one-liner after one-liner! She writes in a letter ‘I have a really sore throat! But...I did end up really liking the central romance because umm Jane Austen is persuasive

Shea: Ding ding ding

Caroline: BUT it feels like the most boring people at the center and then everyone else is doing the carousel around them to distract you from the fact that there is nothing going on in the center.

Julie: But that’s what my thing was when the first half is, yes they go to Lyme together, but like nothing! They don’t ever look at each other, they don’t ever interact, but that-

Caroline: that’s the point… like that’s purposeful

Julie: I know that’s purposeful but I think that even if she had written a glance, an accidental hand brush- like the classic…

Shea: Yes!

Caroline: It’s averted eye contact

Shannon: Yeah! And that’s sexy to me!

Julie: But it didn’t… she didn’t even write about their averted eye contact enough to make me invested until the second volume of the book when he gets to Bath. That's when I was like ‘oh this is interesting.’ I can still feel the yearning but I think because Anne- and also Captain Wentworth, in the beginning, I didn’t like him, because he was like ‘women should never go on a boat’

Caroline: He has conservative energy

Julie: He literally has Republican energy and Anne gains more of a personality the more the book goes on, but at the beginning I was like: how am I supposed to care about their averted eye contact when I don't think he’s attractive, and she doesn’t have a personality?! But at the end, when he wrote that letter, he became more attractive and she had gained a personality so I was invested!

Shannon: I don’t want to start a fight with Julie…

Shea and Caroline: Do it.

Caroline: We need drama

Shannon: But… I...loved their absolute inability to look absolute, like, they couldn't even breathe the same air because it was just so awkward because he had already proposed so he was feeling like such a fool! That just made me feel so happy that a man was portrayed as a fool. And Anne felt so uncomfortable because Lady Russell was all up in her business and just the awkward sheepishness of it… I ate it up.

Caroline: I was reading about comparing Persuasion to Pride and Prejudice and how exterior Pride and Prejudice is and their [Darcy and Lizzie] mode of courting is banter. Their talking back and forth is them falling in love through conversation, and so this was a completely different exercise in internality and Anne’s self-persuasions in how does love persist amidst reservation? And asking to existential questions of do you ever stop loving someone if you don’t move on?

Shannon: Well and can the indecisive people pleaser keep up the people pleasing when it goes against the people she loves? Lady Russell wouldn't let her marry Captain Wentworth.

Caroline: This is why confrontation is important!

Shannon: She is like ‘No I actually still love him. I should have married him even when he was poor’ look… I'm not saying that’s right but…

Caroline: But in the end the narrator is already kinda arguing: ‘No, it is better that she married him later because now he has DOLLAR SIGNS

Shannon: Yeah but that's that on love of persisting!

Julie: Well, I think it was also the thing like if she had never made that wrong decision and been persuaded by Lady Russell then she never would have made an actual decision to turn down Charles. Now, she actually has a conviction and it’s not just her doing what other people were telling her to do. And she would've been walked all over if they would have gotten married

Shannon: But she would've been walked all over by Wentworth but instead was walked on all over by Lady Russell-

Caroline: And I would rather it be a woman.

Shannon: Well yeah, because Lady Russell is her surrogate mother. She's not gonna not be friends with her.

Caroline: Curious as to what Jane's relationship with her mother is cause she seems to love a surrogate figure…

Julie: Okay apparently Persuasion is based off of Jane’s secret romance with someone.

Caroline: Yeah, I think this is the most confessional novel, in a way, for Jane.

Shannon: And I love that.

Julie: Well I think that the letter scene and everything after that is the most romantic thing I've ever read from a Jane Austen book.

Shea: In defense of Julie, it did take me a while to get into the romance as well because, I just found it's see yearning on the page. I was just so convinced that he was actually interested in Louisa, but you definitely just need to wait it out.

Caroline:I also thought like she rips up Mr. Elliot, she being Anne, like early on and I.. there were like points where she was like Lady Russell just likes him ‘he's too perfect! He’s too kind! He’s too agreeable! But Anne is like ‘I want a rugged man who sometimes says the wrong thing!’

Julie: She was like ‘I know this man has a dark past…’ She said that, and she was correct.

Caroline: And that whole gossip reveal of Mrs Smith be like ‘um let me actually pull out the receipts from my closet and you can read, in his handwriting, that he called your father...

Shannon: Big dum dum!

Julie: And he said he was basically gonna demolition his house, because it was ugly

Caroline: It's demolition day.

Julie: Yeah. He was like, ‘your house is ugly. I'm gonna tear it down and rebuild it’

Shannon: He wanted to Extreme Makeover that ish

Caroline: That’s why I think Henry Golding’s casting is kinda incredible

Shannon: I think so too!

Shea: I couldn’t stop thinking about it because you need to also sort of fall for the Henry Golding act in a sense like.. No, he’s actually a terrible person but he's trying to be better...

Caroline: And the way he flirts with Anne is like ‘maybe you don’t have to change your last name at all’... okay incest!

Shannon: Okay incest! Okay kissing cousins!

Julie: She does like him, but I think that took away some of his appeal as like… a villain character… because he like -

Caroline: He's full-on Monet!

Julie: Henry Goulding will be a red herring

Shea: Into it!

Julie: I think this is gonna sound bad but it’s not bad but I think I understand Jane Austen’s stories more when I see them played out on a screen

Caroline: They’re very theatrical

Julie: Not that it’s not interesting in the book, but to see it all happen is so interesting like there's something about-

Shannon: It's the facial expression and the awkwardness or the comedy…

Caroline: That's why Austen is like the creator of the romcom and so our brain is trying to ingest it in book form and wants to visualize it because we associate it with romantic comedies

Shannon: Now that we’ve talked about the com, let's talk about the rom.

Caroline: The confession scene! Wentworth being an absolute buffoon, ‘I forgot my gloves’ and then you open his clumsy letter and it says the most…

Shannon: Beautiful! Eloquent! Yeah him like not knowing how to give her the letter so he's like ‘ehh I forgot my gloves I gotta come back’

Caroline: That is my favorite Jane Austen trope! The man being like ‘I'm speechless I don’t have the words to say because I feel too much! Forgive what I say because it's not gonna be beautiful’ proceeds to say the most BEAUTIFUL THING.

Julie: Well the conversation she [Anne] was having with Sir Walterwas that she thinks that women actually like yearn more

Caroline: Furiously scribbling

Shea: Yes! And then he dropped his pen as she was talking and it was so good!

Shannon: And he's writing this beautiful letter for her in the same room and she doesn’t even know like gah!

Shea: It's also her subtly revealing to him that she didn’t move on! The debate is her basically not looking at him but telling him that she’s still hurting from giving him up and she's still yearning for him.

Julie: She was getting super emotional

Caroline: Well, she was having this debate about women being more constant or less constant than men… yeah I have to read part of Wentworth’s big letter: ‘Dare not say man forget sooner than a woman that his love has an earlier death. I've loved none but you’ and this is my favorite part! ‘Unjust I may have been and weak and resentful I may have been but never inconsistent’ she always has the man apologize! It's always confessional! It’s always like ‘no I’ve acted stupid and-

Shannon: I messed up!

Shea: She knows what we like to see!

Shannon: That's why I think it was so tense in the beginning because he is so SO upset and just seeing her is like ‘you've literally broken my heart.’

Shea: I could definitely see this as a reread! After they get together and he explains why he was pursuing Louisa, the entire book became so worth it. Because, in the beginning, I didn’t see it as a slow burn, it just felt very drawn out.

Caroline: I also love that Jane Austen loves to get the whole town's reaction to the coupling and everyone was like ‘hmm whatever’ and Mary was like ‘oh my gawd my sister is marrying a hottie that makes me look like a hottie! But! Oh my gawd, he's kinda more of a hottie than who I married’ Mary has the most Glinda energy. I’m OBSESSED with her! I love a hypochondriac woman!

Shea: Mary is just a queen because she's like ‘I just hate my kids. I just hate my kids! And I want to be involved!’ but has no talents… I'm so sorry!

Caroline: She’s fun! That’s a talent!

Julie: She's like ‘ I am not a qualified nurse but I'm coming to nurse her anyway!’

Caroline: She said, ‘I don’t know what a contusion is.” but she's also like ‘ugh! I hate my kids’ then she’s like ‘my kids hate me! Why do they hate me? I don’t get it’

Shea: Mary is just a bored housewife who is like ‘I'm going to make everything about me’

Caroline: She’d make a killing on Housewives!

Caroline: Back to Anne! I… still… don't… see Dakota Johnson… I don't not see it.. I’m just having trouble seeing anyone as Anne

Shea: Like I've said Dakota Johnson, as a person, is not Anne Elliot. However, most of the characters she’s ever played are very Anne Elliot-like

Shannon: Very sweet, innocent,

Shea: Yearning and just sorta gets pushed into situations

Caroline: I'm gonna need her to turn out a PERFORMANCE though…

Julie: Has she played a romantic person?

Caroline: Fifty Shades?

Julie: That's not romantic.

Shea: Fifty Shades of Grey, How to be Single…

Shannon and Shea: The High Note!

Julie: But in the yearning way that is required here...

Shea (mumbles): Fifty Shades of Grey…

Julie: No, bestie. I would not use that as a reference.

Shea: the LITERAL beginning of it!

Shannon: Anyway, I think that it’s something I think she can do, but I am worried about her accent.

Caroline: OHHH… I'm worried about whether she can deliver monologues?

Julie: Probably not, but Anne really isn't a monologue bestie

Caroline: But I think that there will be a monologue at the end where they are absolutely grasping each other in the gusty wind.

Julie: I love Dakota Johnson, but I also… not that they always have to cast a British person, but I think that it can be harmful for the movie when you know the person isn’t British so you focus on their accent the entire time

Caroline: I don't wanna say: ‘badly done, Dakota…’

Shannon: I don't want it to be a Emma Watson in Little Women

Caroline: Eyebrow acting!

Shannon: I don't want her accent to be distracting from her role, but also did we know that Suki Waterhouse was gonna be in it

Julie: As who?

Shannon: I don't know who, it doesn’t say who on Letterboxd.

Caroline: Miss Smith, Miss Smith…

Julie: Okay yeah Mrs. Smith was a girlboss and she’s my favorite character! She was the Gossip Girl of the town and that’s all I have to say.

Shannon: Suki Waterhouse's role is not yet known but most people are predicting that she's Mary… which I don't like but! But-

Julie: She could pull a Mia Goth [as Harriet in (EMMA 2020)] and do a great job.

Shannon: She could but I just see Mary as like… like I know she's younger but I just see her as this older, pissed off, annoying…

Julie: Suki Waterhouse is too pretty

Caroline: Uhhh… Mary’s a SERVE

Shannon: She's not handsome..

Caroline: In my head, she's hot as hell but…that’s because I will be playing Mary.

Shea: We also need to quickly talk about our thoughts on Lady Russell.

Caroline: She’s no Caroline Bingley

Julie: I honestly think that Sir Walter and Elizabeth were the villains…

Shea: Elizabeth is queer.

Caroline: Elizabeth is queer!

Shea: And I will stand by this!

Julie: Mrs. Clay was kinda a villain.. But a fun one.

Shea: She's the one at the end who ‘you guys think so low of me but I'm literally coming out on top! I’m going to marry Mr. Elliot and I'm gonna get his money. Freckles and all!”

Julie: She was out for the bag! She wanted to get a dilf. It backfired. She went for Mr. Elliot.

Caroline: I think I will need the movie to kinda paint a portrait of Lady Russell for me. I need her to have a strong, sharp shoulder or something just pointed to represent evil.

Shannon: I need a Kristin Scott Thomas casting of Lady Russell. Like that level of exactness.

Caroline: Final thoughts, Shannon?

Shannon: I give it five stars. I love love love. It is my Jane Austen stan. I am very excited for the movie. I felt like it was fate with my fave Dakota Johnson right after I finished. I just- the stars aligned for me!

Caroline: I'm so happy for you! So proud of you!

Shannon: Thank you! It really was a lot of work on my part.

Shea and Shannon: Julie?

Julie: Umm I give it four stars which i thought it was gonna be lower than that

Caroline: You can hear the eyerolls

Shannon: Can you hear the stab in my heart?

Julie: Until the end! Which was amazing! It was a five-star ending! But then there was also 75 percent of the book before that… I had to compromise. I enjoyed it. I like it.

Caroline: I loved Persuasion, absolutely five stars. I think that it ranks middling for me: Sense and Sensibility is my least favorite. Emma's my favorite. Middling for Persuasion, but we did love her, we do have to support and bolster her reputation.

Shea: Umm honestly this is my favorite Jane Austen novel I’ve read so far… yeah no it's the first Jane Austen I've read and honestly it didn't put me off of reading the other ones! So that's very exciting! I think I'm gonna stay by my Goodreads, also follow us on Goodreads, get on Goodreads!

Shannon: Follow us on Goodreads! We’re really fun!

Caroline: Here's us shouting out an Amazon-made app

Shannon: NOooooo

Caroline: But, you know, there is nowhere else to go.

Shea: Also, Goodreads, if you’re listening, please give half stars, because I give this book 4 and a half stars. It’s my first, so I don't want to give it five and I do feel as though the ending was earned. However, I cannot forget about the middling parts! The first couple chapters of volume two after Lousia jumps off an elevated surface and gets a concussion they just talked about something else and I just wanted to get back to the hustle and bustle of that life even though a book can't be an action movie!

Caroline: And with Jane Austen we have come to the conclusion that only women..

Shannon: Only women are allowed to create art.

Julie: So true

Shea: Amen!

Caroline: And queer identities… okay!! Thank you!!

Shannon: Thank you so much for joining!

Julie: This has been a Suburban Elitist podcast!

Shannon: Yeah, so we're gonna go, so I can kick everyone out of my house