So, while working in my workshop, I needed something I could listen to, so I found a YouTube “audiobook” of Mansfield Park, one of the most frustrating, but subtly-layered of Austen’s novels.
Listening to the book read forced me to realize how many pages must be taken up by people sitting around arguing in the drawing room. Arguing over who’s going to ride in the carriage on their trip to Rushworth’s estate, who’s going to play the cook in the play, etc. Mary saying something witty, Mrs. Norris sounding officious, Fanny pretending her opinions and feelings don’t matter, Edmund equivocating, Lady Bertram speaking entirely in non-sequiturs, and so on.
When I’ve read the book, I must have “speed-read” those parts, because, while I remember them, I don’t remember them as all that tedious.
But in the first third of the book at least, each of those long drawn-out scenes leads gradually, by almost imperceptible degrees to awkward situations that are only resolved with some crisis that contributes to the arc of the story. If you’re not paying attention, you might go “Wait, how did things get this complicated?” But the answer is, Austen has led you like a lamb to the slaughter, and because you just thought all that bickering seemed pointless, the inevitable outcome catches you almost by surprise.
Not my favorite book, or even my favorite Austen novel, but a cleverly-written tale nonetheless.
