halfamoon | Story Rec: As The Starling Said (long version) (Mansfield Park, Mary/Maria, R)

I had plans to write and make icons and do other fun stuff for

halfamoon, but real life intervened in specatularly dramatic fashion. So, all I have time for is a story recommendation:

As The Starling Said (long version) by

mctabby
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Mary Crawford/Maria Bertram (Rushworth)

This story is the story I've been waiting for since I first read Mansfield Park ages ago. It is my opinion that Mansfield Park is Austen's greatest novel -- it's not her most brilliant, nor her most favored, it's not even my favorite. But it is wonderfully uncomfortable, her best writing (imo), and the must unvarnished and difficult of her novels. And no less so for her female characters, flawed in very real and honest ways, and incredibly shaped by their environment and society. I get into arguments with other women all time defending Mary Crawford and Maria Bertram, and to a lesser degree Fanny Price and Julia Bertram as well. People are bound and determined to dislike them, but I feel if you peel away the layers in Mansfield Park, one can find a wealth of information about what it means to have been a women in Regency England, how greatly our current society and female interactions are still influenced by the past, and also the quiet horror of having no real choice and no real say or control over one's life.

Anyway, I can go on and on about Mansfield Park, but instead I'll step back and let this really fabulous story do the work. :D If you want further reading, Minerva has a fabulous post about Mansfield Park here.