Beware Charming People
(A Colonel Brandon Appreciation Post)
If you’re new to this Substack, one of the things I’m offering subscribers in 2023 is A Year with Jane. We’re reading through Austen’s six novels this year and Sense & Sensibility is our read for August and September.
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Watch Out for Charming People
My first time encountering Sense & Sensibility was through Ang Lee’s film adaptation (screenplay by Dame Emma Thompson). I was too young to perceive upon my first watch that Marianne’s view of love was absurd. Who wouldn’t want to passionately fall in love at first sight while being rescued in a rainstorm? Colonel Brandon seemed old (he’s thirty five! practically ancient!) and boring in comparison to Willoughby.
But Elinor is wiser than Marianne. She isn’t romantically interested in Colonel Brandon, but she enjoys his company. He’s a man who has had fascinating experiences, traveled to interesting places, and can converse well on many topics. Elinor admires him and when he shares his history of lost love in order to lessen Marianne’s regrets over Willoughby, she begins to appreciate him, too.
Colonel Brandon is not charming. He is more concerned about other people than about how he might be perceived by them. (Note that he seemed unconcerned that many people thought that his ward, the daughter of the woman he loved, was his own child born out of wedlock. Protecting the privacy of the young woman and honoring her mother’s memory are more important to him than avoiding rumors.) As we learned from Mansfield Park and the Crawfords, Austen is very critical of charming people. Marianne is swept away by Willoughby’s charm and barely notices a much more worthwhile man, Colonel Brandon. Edward is taken in by Lucy Steele’s charm and finds himself obliged to marry a woman who is his inferior. Charm is deceitful, Austen warns.
For all of Willoughby’s dashing bravado, he is a selfish, superficial person. Colonel Brandon is the fellow with the romantic tragic backstory, cultivated taste for music, manly soldiering history, and traveler to exotic places. Isn’t he the real version of Marianne’s fantasy man? But what distinguishes him from Willoughby is that he does not put himself forward. He is always respectful of Marianne’s wishes. He doesn’t try to convince her to love him or share anything about Willoughby that might set him in a bad light (even though he has every incentive to share what he knows). He loves her by quietly making himself of use to her family, but not out of expectation that in the future he’ll be rewarded by her love. He’s simply the kind of guy who is thoughtful, discerning, and not self-serving. He is the kindest and best of men.
Marianne and Willoughby’s relationship was fueled by chemistry, by passion. Many relationships begin this way, of course. But they cannot be sustained by passion. Selfishness, cruelty, thoughtlessness, vice—these things can poison love until it withers away to nothing but pain. What fuels love longterm is not passion or excitement. It’s the quiet, faithful, daily care for another person that cultivates a strong, enduring affection. In my 18th year of marriage, I know there is nothing sexier than my husband’s dependability. I would say that he’s more of a Mr. Knightley in temperament, but the virtues that he shares with Colonel Brandon contribute to a happy marriage. And those virtues reveal themselves over a long acquaintance, not an afternoon in the rain. Whether Marianne will be able to recognize Colonel Brandon for the gem he is remains to be seen, but what a guy.
Discussion Question: Who is the best Colonel Brandon in any film adaptation and why is it Alan Rickman? Just kidding. Would Willoughby and Marianne have been happy together if they had gotten married?(Chime in by replying to this post.)
Reading schedule:
August 5th:
Gather your books. There are many editions out there, so just grab what’s on your shelf or at the local library. And if you enjoy audiobooks, this is an excellent novel to enjoy with a great narrator. My favorite for this novel is Juliet Stevenson’s audiobook version. Grab Jane Austen’s Genius Guide to Life from Ave Maria Press (use STEWART20 for 20% off) or from Amazon.
If you didn’t start reading with us in January, you may want to catch up by reading the Introduction and Chapters 1-4 of Jane Austen’s Genius Guide to Life to set the stage.
Read by August 13th:
Chapters 1-11 of Sense & Sensibility
Read by August 20th:
Chapters 12-22 of Sense & Sensibility
Read by August 27th:
Chapters 23-29 of Sense & Sensibility
Read by September 3rd:
Chapters 30-36 of Sense & Sensibility
Read by September 10th:
Chapters 37-43 of Sense & Sensibility
Read by September 17th:
Chapters 44-50 of Sense & Sensibility
Read by September 24th:
Chapter 4 of Jane Austen’s Genius Guide to Life
Caveat:
On the reading schedule I have suggested reading the chapter about Sense & Sensibility after finishing the novel. This is because as a reader I hate spoilers. But if you’ve already read the novel or are familiar with the story and want a resource to help you dive deeper as you re-read it, feel free to read Chapter 5 of Jane Austen’s Genius Guide to Life first.
I’ll be sending out weekly reflections and discussion questions to consider as you read. If you want to read faster or slower, go for it. This is fun, not homework.
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Enjoy reading the next few chapters of Sense & Sensibility!
Haley
(Editor of Word on Fire Spark, Author, Former Podcaster)
Haley’s Children’s Mystery Series about Mouse Nuns
Haley’s Book on Jane Austen’s Novels
Haley’s Book about Radical Simplicity
Haha love the Alan Rickman question. While I will always and forever be a huge Alan Rickman fan and will happily watch his performance in anything, I actually love David Morrissey’s Colonel Brandon in the 2008 BBC miniseries. This might be because my first exposure to Alan Rickman was as Professor Snape, but I also think the 2008 version spends a little more time on Colonel Brandon’s character (such as by showing him interacting with his ward and depicting the duel that is only mentioned in a lot of other versions).
I think it’s possible (though perhaps only a distant possibility) that Marianne and Willoughby could have been happy together. I think that they would both have to go through a lot of growth and heartache before getting to a point of being able to have a stable, happy marriage. There are definitely couples who start off in similar positions and mature into a healthy, dependable relationship, but for two rather self-absorbed people who have more high-flying emotion than virtue, I would say it’s a pretty risky gamble. Given his track record, I think it’s likely that Willoughby could prove to be unfaithful if the relationship went through a rocky period.
Marianne and Willoughby would have been MISERABLE together. Marianne would have been despondent the first time she caught him cheating (which you know he would do) and he would have used her emotional instability as another reason to (in the best case) ignore/avoid her even more. Bad news all around!!