This is just outside the Pump Room at Bath. The Pump Room is part of the Kings and Queens Baths where people went to bathe and drink the mineral water. It was very healthy.
The baths were made by the Romans using the natural water sources and the ubiquitous Roman engineering to produce heated flooring, steam baths, pool sized public baths, etc. It was very awesome until the Romans left and the baths went to ruin because the natives didn't have the skill, or maybe even the desire to keep things working.
Anyway, later on the baths were rediscovered and restored, sort of, and Bath became a health resort. By the time Jane Austen lived there, it was a fashionable place to be unwell. Which brings me to the book I'm reading this very day! I have gotten sucked into Persuasion by Jane Austen. I'd seen the movie with Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root, and loved it. I also gave the book a try a while back, but wasn't in the right frame of mind for it. I'd been reading too many instant gratification novels to be able to settle down to the intricacy and quiet build up of intensity that makes Persuasion magic.
The main character, Anne Elliot, is disregarded and underestimated by almost all the characters in the book. She is voiceless and unwanted in her family. Austen seems to be illustrating Anne's invisibility in the first part of the book by using Anne only briefly here and there in the story. She seems to be scenery. We read what the other characters do and say, Anne is mentioned, but does not speak or take action herself. I wonder if we are meant to relate to Anne as fellow participants, without voice, in the story. Are we supposed to BE Anne, seeing, and understanding, but having no influence?
As the novel progresses, Anne becomes more visible and audible. She takes greater part, and receives some encouragement, which makes her begin to come to life. When Anne begins to be more involved, she becomes more visible and audible in the novel. We read more of her thoughts, and more of her conversation.
I love how this story is so intensely romantic. It's about feelings and convention, and which is more important. I particularly like the title the more I think about it. There are so many kinds of persuasion in this novel: Misguided persuasion, forceful persuasion, gentle persuasion. As I read, I see how persuasion is used by many of the characters, sometimes for good, and sometimes for ill. Some characters can only sometimes be persuaded to sensible behavior, if their pride is properly appealed to. Other times characters will not be persuaded, because they know what they know.
The more I read Jane Austen's novels, the more convinced I am that she was a very astute observer of human nature and I admire her courage in writing so clearly what she saw.
