Everingham by Katharine T (G )

[hlbr.livejournal.com]

Hello, fellow ff addicts. I'm hele and I will be your February drug purveyor driver for the Jane Austen fandom.


A fine driver before me--imacartwright--has given an overview of the fandom. Because my intention is to vary a little the traditional Pride and Prejudice recs (It's not called the Jane Austen fandom for nothing, we do have ff of the other books!), I will be linking to the wikipedia when it's necessary, in case you haven't read the books or seen the movies.

In fact, I will begin with a Mansfield Park week. This book is interesting, because it's one of the most universally hated (Probably on account on being the less romantic.), but it was, curiously, the easiest after P&P to find good ff for. In a traditional fandom as ours, this book has the dubious honour of being the one in which the non-canon pairing is the most popular. I'm talking about Fanny/Henry Crawford, of course. (I think even JA's sister, Cassandra, shipped it!)



Fandom: JANE AUSTEN (MANSFIELD PARK)
Pairing: Fanny Price/Henry Crawford (with a side of Mary Crawford/Edmund Bertram)
Length: 46,400 words
Author on LJ: (Not that I can find.)
Author Website: Author's page in DWG.
Why this must be read:

This is an excellent take on this particular pairing, maintaining the characters IC as much as possible while still making them grow up enough to make it realistic. It's written in an easy, pleasant prose, and despite the length is a quick read. It manages to abstain from character bashing, for the most part, which is refreshing, and it doesn't ignore canon facts. A very good, amusing and romantic what-if fic.



Excerpt:

Mr. Henry Crawford paused in his reading of the Times to stare as his sister entered the sunny breakfast room.

"Lord! It is barely eight o'clock, Mary! Couldn't you sleep?"

She tossed her head as she sat down. "A fine question from you, Henry. You have no more right to be up early than I do. Did you feel a sudden, strange longing to see the sunrise today?"

"What if I did? I am surprised you can remember there is such a thing as a sunrise," he retorted, laughing.

Mary had woken in a bright mood, full of anticipation for a certain meeting that should take place that evening, and she must relieve her overflowing energy by teasing her brother. It was natural, considering the occupation of her own mind, that her next tactical maneuver should be a foray into the state of her brother's heart.

"What a phlegmatic creature you are! Only a week returned from Portsmouth and you sit down to toast and eggs with the heartiest of appetites. I am really quite shocked at you."

A slight widening of his deep-set dark eyes betrayed Mr. Crawford a little, but he was accustomed to disguise, and his hand did not shake as he turned another page.

"I have no idea what you mean, Mary. Do you imply that my appetite is dangerous to my health? The eggs are soft-boiled and would not give a moment's discomfort to even the most delicate, which I am certainly not," he said in the blandest possible voice.

"Henry! The eggs may be soft, but you are as hard-hearted a person as I have ever met. Have you no tender recollections to disturb your appetite in the slightest? And reading the paper as calmly as if you had never met anyone of the family of Price -- for shame! I hope the eggs may give you indigestion after all."

"You know I have an excellent constitution," replied he, to all appearances unmoved.

The truth was that Mary's teasing conjectures had at first missed the mark altogether. Henry Crawford's mind had been occupied with racing results, and the results of the expected evening's entertainment, at which he should meet Mrs. Rushworth and resume an absorbing game he had not yet won. But his sister's persistence bore fruit after all. He was a person of great imagination, and unexpectedly for a moment he saw a vision as vivid as a painting: Fanny Price leaning with both hands against the wall of the sea walk at Portsmouth, eyes looking past him, but sparkling with the reflected glint of sunlight on white foam; her cheeks and nose a little reddened with sharp air and stiff breeze.



Everingham

Comments

[jane-elliot.livejournal.com]

SQUEEEEEE!!! I love this fic and I consider the fact that you started off with it to be a very good sign:) Personally, I find canon pairings to be rather dull in Austen ff, if only because Austen did such a good job with her canon pairings that any other interpretation of those pairings is uninspired by comparison. (And I might be in the minority, but I quite like Mansfield Park. Northanger Abbey on the other hand...)

Looking forward to more of your recs!

[hlbr.livejournal.com]

Heh, I quite like MP myself. (And NA--S&S, on the other hand... ;))

I don't find canon pairings dull in general, but this is a very good fic, regardless of its pairing.

I do hope you enjoy the rest! (Uhm, there are a couple of yuletide fics... i suspect you may have already read them. Well, I will try to surprise you with the rest. :))

[jane-elliot.livejournal.com]

S&S is, well, a challenge. I'm currently trying to read through it for the second time (unlike P&P, MP, Persuasion, and Emma, all of which I've read so many times I've lost count) and either everyone lied and it was written before P&P, or JA was attempting to make her writing sound more high brow (for the time), because it really isn't at all like the lively and brisk writing in P&P. Ah, well.

And I have to admit, I rarely read Yuletide JA fics -- they're too short for me (my preferred length is 50,000 words or more). Combine that with the fact that there don't seem to be any Austen archives that allow you to search by length and I find myself mostly reduced to reading recs. Which is why I'm so thrilled Austen's being featured on CV again:)

[d-moonchild.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, that's an excellent story. Ever since I read Mansfield Park, I felt a deep regret that Henry and Fanny did not work out. I couldn't help thinking that she'd be bored out of her mind, living with Edmund :) Sadly, there seem to be very few fanfiction authors who share that opinion.

[hlbr.livejournal.com]

There seems to be few authors who write MP, period, I think. (And all other JA novels but P&P.)

It's a shame, because it has a lot of space for fanfic. I, too, wished it could have worked out with Henry. I've more than a sneaking fondness for the Crawfords, despite their lack of morality. It would only have worked if Henry changed on its own, of course, and it's pretty realistic that he didn't. (In the novel.)

[stungunbilly.livejournal.com]

I loved Mansfield Park. Fanny/Edmund OTP!
Yet in ff I love the idea of exploring the other possibilities, though I can't imagine a better ending for Fanny herself than the one man who was endlessly supportive of her. She is such an atypical heroine, but I found her very lovable. I may not agree with all her morality or social ideas, but she certainly remained true to herself and her beliefs, which I find admirable.

I still can't help wanting to read fiction in which she was led astray!

[hlbr.livejournal.com]

You articulated exactly what I like about Fanny, despite that I definitively don't share her morality. I still can't love her, though. It's a curious book--it's not often that I like a book when I don't love the principal characters.

My last rec had Fanny/Edmund... And the one after this one a very realistic (so, also sad) Fanny/Henry, if you crave more. ;)