Rating: 
Summary: Morally complex, and not about the slave trade...
Review: I don't know what book the other reviewer read, but it couldn't have been "Mansfield Park." "Mansfield Park" is a political satire according to some, and I think there's reason to believe this assessment. According to Jane Austen, "Mansfield Park" is about ordination (some dispute here, but she wrote it in a letter). Ordination comes from the word "order" and given the events in Europe at the time order was a major issue.Jane Austen's father had 'interests' in the West Indies from which he derived income, and he was very pleased the British Government (Tories) defended these colonies and kept them from joining in the American Revolotion. Jane Austen had two naval brothers who served as part of the effort to keep the English interests en tact. In "Persuasion" a discussion at dinner one evening centers around the West Indies--and the talk is not about slavery. Like it or not, Jane Austen's conscience about slavery did become manifest until she wrote "Emma" and even then she barely touched on the subject. Jane Austen's main concerns involved the lives of women and their place in society. And we have no right to judge her from our perspective 200 years later. Jane Austen was a Tory at the time she wrote "Mansfield Park." The Tories were a conservative party that backed the English king and he had no interest in seeing English colonies in the West Indies--from which he derived income--disappear. The Tories were landed gentry (country aristocrats) and did not want their old agrarian way of life abolished. It was under threat from the Industrial Revolution, and other social change. The Tory opposition party was Whig. Whigs supported the American and French Revolutions, and wanted change (the Abolutionists were mostly Whig). Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park" symbolizes the old agrarian landed gentry way of life. Portsmouth (where Fanny's mother lives) represents the chaos of the masses. London (home of the Crawfords) is an interesting but dangerous way of life. Fanny is a very moral girl. My only complaint of Fanny is that I wanted her to stand up for herself--which she does. She always did, she just didn't do it the way we women who have been emancipated would. Critics from Lionel Trilling to Tony Tanner have defended Fanny's right to be Fanny--i.e. a moral and good girl of her times. We who are caught up in the modern world may not appreciate Fanny, but there she is--and who dares judge her? Fanny holds the course (like the Tories). She is the voice of morality who objects to the London stage play the other youngsters at Mansfield Park stage in the absence of Mr. Bertram (the lord of the manor and the upholder of virtue). Fanny will not be coerced into violating her principles. She will not marry Mr. Crawford because she can see he is immoral. She chides Edmund to stay on the straight and narrow. She facilitates Edmund's remaining on the path to ordination. Say what you will, Fanny gets her man, and she gets him the way she wants him. Was Janie spoofing us all along? Was Fanny right?
Rating:
Summary: Favorite Austen
Review: I saw a preview about two months ago for an intriguing-looking film called Mansfield Park, later that day I went to the library and saw the book by Jane Austen there on the shelves. I decided I should read the book before I saw the movie, I started the book on a Monday night and through school and choir practice finished it that Thursday. I was enthralled, Austen had captured me as I reader, I loved Fanny's unassuming gentle qualities, she was a complex character, so very different from any other heroine I'd encountered. I have since gone through Austen's other novels and with the exception of Persuasion and Northanger Abbey have found them to be a disappointment after Mansfield Park. I think Mansfield was/is Austen at her finest.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This book starts off slowly but picks up its pace after the marriage of one of its character. Fanny, the book's heroine, is bland and boring in the beginning but becomes increasingly interesting as the book moves along. There are two obvious couples in this book that the reader can cheer for, Henry with Fanny and Mary with Edmund. Just when it seems that Jane Austen would transform Henry from an arrogant gentleman into a thoughtful and sensitive suitor for Fanny (like Mr. Darcy in P&B) and Mary from a money-hungry woman to someone succumbing to the power of love, she drops the bomb on all of us with a scandal that leaves everyone in the end not completely happy. Sure, Fanny eventually marries someone she loves, but do we really want our heroine to marry someone who only thinks of her as a sister and loves her only after another woman breaks his heart? If it's a tragic ending that Jane Austen wants, then make it tragic. If it's supposed to be a happy ending, then please make it all-out happy. This middle-of-the-road kind of happy ending is most unsatisfying.
Rating: 
Summary: good structure and style tailored to evoking characters
Review: Mansfield Park is the work of a mature Austen. Compared to her earlier book, Pride and Prejudice, it features a particularly complex plot structure (complex for Austen, anyway) that works especially well in the first volume, and somewhat less well in the second. The book also features Austen's characteristic nicety of interior character description, her really superior ability to follow the subtle nuances of thought and feeling. This ability is raised to a whole new level, however, in Mansfield Park since the heroine, Fanny Price, is a particularly sensitive, selfless, and considerate girl. Austen is up to the challenge, though, and develops stylistic techniques uniquely and perfectly suited to evoking all of Fanny's moral and emotional struggles. It is simply a joy to follow Fanny through all her travails. The weakness of the book is the structure of the third and last volume. Here, Austen falls back a little to much on the technique of letter writing to move her story forward. This weakness IS offset somewhat by the wonderful scenes in Fanny's hometown of Portsmouth - scenes that evoke one of Dickens' favorite themes, the impoverished family - but overall, the structure here is not up to the standards of the first two volumes. Another weakness, though this is more a comment on Austen's style than on this book in particular, is the paucity of vivid imagery, of truly original metaphors or similes. Compared to Dickens or Flaubert, two of her near contemporaries, Austen is decidedly inferior on this score. Her strength really lies in her ability to describe the subtleties of the emotional and intellectual lives of her characters with a fidelity and clarity that I think is superior to Dickens and the equal of Flaubert. Finally, a comment on Fanny's 'likeability'. While I don't want to deny that a character's likeability can influence our enjoyment of a book, I also think that it should not be a consideration in our judgement of the book's merit as a work of art. Madame Bovary, the book by Flaubert, is populated by unlikeable people and there isn't any one we can 'identify' with (or so we hope), yet that book is certainly a great work of art. In the same way, our gut reaction to Fanny may not be favorable, but this should have nothing to do with our assessment of Fanny as a character or the book as a work of art. The only consideration should be, 'did Austen succeed in creating the kind of character she set out to create?'; NOT, 'did I like Fanny Price as a person?', or, 'would I like to have Fanny Price as a friend?'. Anyway, a good book, flawed only by the somewhat weak final volume. Certainly one of Austen's best.
Rating:
Summary: Great...but uneven.
Review: Jane Austen is one of the best storytellers I have had the pleasure of reading. My favorite aspect of Austen's writing is her characterization; She acquaints the reader with her characters through the most ingenious and subtle techniques. My favorite denizen of Mansfield Park is the irritating and repulsive Mrs. Norris, who is a preeminent example of masterful characterization. For an illuminating artistic look at this novel read Vladimir Nabokov's wonderful and incomparable "Lectures on Literature", which includes a detailed study of "Mansfield Park"---don't miss it, it's a real treat. While I have enjoyed other books by Austen, this one is unique among them in that the plot structure is, for the most part, quite complicated; and, what singles "Mansfield Park" out artistically is its style, as opposed to its story. Some passages are exceptional; for example, the scene where the main characters stroll about Sotherton Court approximates the scene at the county fair in Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" in its complexity, orchestration, and execution. Parts of "Mansfield Park" are simply exquisite. Unfortunately, the denouement is something like a train wreck. The last 1/3-1/4 of the book is stylistically dull, though structurally sound, and the last twenty or so pages read like Cliff Notes. The ending should have been much longer in order to resolve the various, complicated elements of the plot with the stylistic grace of the first 2/3s of the novel. The uneven execution sets "Mansfield Park" a step below the best of Austen's (approximate) contemporaries (Flaubert and Dickens, for example), but "Mansfield Park" still makes the short list of my favorite novels.
Rating:
Summary: Better In Comparison
Review: As soon as I finished reading Mansfield Park, I quickly had to see the movie, hoping that it would be as great as other Jane Austen movie adaptations. I was wrong! None of it compares to this wonderful book. I agree that Fanny Price is not as dynamic or bubbly or as engaging as other Austen heroines, but I do not think her weak or uninteresting. Why should all Austen heroines be the same? She has a quiet inner strenth and sensibility that plays off well to her vain aquaintances. All of her years at Mansfield Park only one person, Edmund, valued her for her true personality and qualities. Day after day she was made to feel inferior, unworthy and ungrateful by her relations, yet she was none of these things. I loved when other characters started to appreciate Fanny's good qualities and give her the praise she was due. The other character developments in this novel are wonderful, and I especially like the parts where Henry Crawford is changing and professing his love to Fanny. Although he is vain and has his faults, I agree with Edmund that it improves Crawford's character by the mere fact that he fell in love with Fanny of all people. I partly wished that Crawford would fall more into Fanny's good opinion and I regret his ruin in the end. If you are a fan of this book, do not watch the movie adaptation! Of course there is not enough time for all the great details in the book and it is terrible and completely distorts the story of Mansfield Park . Fanny is a completely different person in the movie, and it has made me appreciate the real Fanny in the novel even more. Don't bother with it because if you are a fan of the book the movie will make you angry with the liberties it took.
Rating: 
Summary: Fanny is bland and insipid.
Review: With all of Ms. Austen's delightful, engaging heroines, couldn't she have done better with this one? WHAT a tiresome prig she is!
Rating:
Summary: Dissapointment
Review: Don't get me wrong- I love Jane Austen. And thats the reason I gave the book 3 stars. But this is not her best book. Is not because it's too long, Emma is longer, but is a lot of talking, and she doesnt develop Fanny and edmund relationship enough. they fall in love and get married in the last two paragraphs. I sincerely didnt like it. I only finish it because Jane Austen is my favorite author.
Rating:
Summary: Another Great Austen Book
Review: A MUST read for Jane Austen followers!
Rating:
Summary: First Rate Listening Experience!
Review: This audiocassette is one of the best books on tape I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. Maureen O'Brien just brings every character to life--even Mr. Rushworth, something of a blockheaded cipher in the novel, has a personality all his own! I cherished every word, every turn of phrase, so brilliantly written by Jane Austen, of course, but so delightfully emphasized by the amazing voice, diction and acting ability of Ms. O'Brien. Forgo that horrible movie made of Mansfield Park a couple years ago, and listen to this cassette instead, if you want a dramatic presentation.
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