me: i have trouble remembering and keeping characters apart when there are more than like ... three

jane: no problem! here have this cast of twenty. also this one is Charles. that one is also Charles. oh and that one over there is also Charles. and before i forget, this is Charles :)

me, crying: okay thanks, i love you


There is nothing I can say that hasn't been said before.

Jane's writing is as always exquisite. Her main characters perfectly crafted. Her male love interests truly the definition of "man written by a woman". Her stories always leave my heart so full. They don't write romance like this anymore - and that's truly the tragedy of our time.


I mean look at this:

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you."


...and that's not even his whole love letter!!! I literally stopped breathing.

Is that on Amazon, Jane??? Where can I get myself a man like this??


Ahem. Anyway. Second chance romances are arguably the best romances. And I will never find one that will compare to this. This has ruined me forever. 4.5 stars

Dear Miss Austen,

Ummm... Anne Elliot is past her youth and bloom??? Heh? She is MY AGE! Scratch that - she is n  youngern than me.

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..........Basically, get off my lawn, kids. I mean it..............

In all seriousness, this is the first Jane Austen book that does not feature a pretty and charming teenager looking for a perfect match in a cultured and rich gentleman. Instead, her protagonist Anne Elliot is well into the respectable age of seven-and-twenty, equipped with composure and maturity that only age can bring. (Hey, maybe advanced age is not so bad, after all! But I happily maintain that mentally I'm still eleven. Oh, and as I said, get off my lawn!)

Anne finds herself in a quite uncomfortable situation. Years ago, she was engaged to a dashing young sailor whom she subsequently rejected on the well-meaning but ultimately flawed advice of a trusted friend. Now that sailor, having transformed into a respectable and well-to-do, and still dashing Captain Wentworth, reenters Anne's circle of acquaintances, clearly still resenting Anne, and appears to be actively looking for a younger prettier future spouse. All that while Anne, ruined by age (just kidding, she is still quite pretty, as it turns out) realizes she still harbors her old affection for him but needs (of course!) to maintain all the necessary societal proprieties.

On top of all of that, Anne has the most rotten family! Her father is a pathetic handsome gentleman unhealthily obsessed with his own good looks (I mean, the man has a bedroom full of mirrors! Puh-lease.) Her younger sister will claw your eyes out if she were to think you'd eclipse her as a center of attention even for a minute (this is a woman who feels slighted if her dying son gets more attention than she does), and will spend hours sending little verbal put-downs in Anne's direction while shamelessly using her help for anything imaginable. And yet, this pathetic creature is still "not so repulsive and unsisterly as Elizabeth", the older sister.

"To be claimed as a good, though in an improper style, is at least better than being rejected as no good at all."

And all of Anne's family members seem to compete with each other in how to best put down Anne - the treatment that she easily sees but tolerates without complaining and in good spirits. Oh, and they have to downsize because all the vain and shallow family members are quite rotten at preserving the family fortune.

Basically, to sum up: .

Anne Elliot is a well-mannered, reasonable, proper, and sensible heroine. Good thing she is NOT the one narrating this story, or it would have been quite bland. Instead, we are treated to a quite snarky (albeit within strict early-19th-century British sensibilities) narrative voice, picking apart all of our characters and their environment with a lovely and a bit sarcastic commentary. Ah, Miss Austen, you were really getting fed up with your well-mannered society, weren't you? And I love it.

I love how delightfully drama-free this story is. No huge events, no shocking twists, nothing except for reasonable behavior and not-too-exciting provincial life (well, in all honesty, excepting two near-fatal falls, at least one of which was getting me all worried about epidural vs. subdural hematoma, which is no joke). The only hint of strong passion is in a short letter from Wentworth to Anne, and even then the declaration of love is done in a subdued epistolary form. And it is precisely this quiet flow of the story that creates an enjoyable atmosphere, strangely.
...........................

"But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days."

And another thing that I came to appreciate is the attempt to decry the classism of English society. The most admirable people in this book are not the gentlemen by birth, unlike the proverbial Mr. Darcy (ughh) but the naval officers and their circles - Wentworth and the Crofts especially. It's like Austen was finally acknowledging that it's not only the birth into the gentry class that makes you a decent person. Way to go, Miss Austen! Congratulations on succeeding in making all your hypocritical gentlemen with overblown feeling of self-importance appear to be total idiots like they should be:

"A man is in greater danger in the navy of being insulted by the rise of one whose father, his father might have disdained to speak to, and of becoming prematurely an object of disgust himself, than in any other line."

A lovely 3.5-star book. It does not quite reach the 4-star enjoyment of Jane Eyre, but it is a delightful book with which to spend an overcast day filled with bronchitis cough.

"Anne wondered whether it ever occurred to him now, to question the justness of his own previous opinion as to the universal felicity and advantage of firmness of character; and whether it might not strike him that, like all other qualities of the mind, it should have its proportions and limits. She thought it could scarcely escape him to feel that a persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness as a very resolute character."

I really REALLY loved this a lot. It's probably my third favorite Jane Austen book. It stands pretty heavily on a lot of miscommunication tropes which can be annoying if done wrong, but these are done SO RIGHT. I more loved the characters than the actual story. It was interesting enough but the characters were what made it amazing. ANNE ❤️❤️❤️

Definitely not as good as Pride & Prejudice in my opinion. I felt like I didn't know Captain Wentworth as well as I got to know Mr Darcy and I wasn't as pulled in by the story. The writing is still beautiful and I loved getting an insight into the 1800's, but it wasn't my favourite.

Around the Year in 52 Books Challenge Notes:
- 15. A book set in the past (more than 100 years ago)

Depois de muito ensaiar, finalmente li meu primeiro livro de um dos nomes mais importantes da literatura mundial. Jane Austen é conhecida por seus romances "mais românticos", escritos no final do século XVIII e início do século XIX, e que trazem consigo uma visão feminista muito à frente do seu tempo.

Apesar de “Orgulho e preconceito” figurar como sua obra mais conhecida, resolvi começar por um dos seus outros romances. Em “Persuasão”, conhecemos Anne Elliot, uma inteligente personagem feminina que vive em uma Inglaterra mais rural e se apaixona por um capitão da marinha, Frederick Wentworth.

O mais interessante é a ironia que Austen se vale para construir os pensamentos da personagem, de forma que a complexidade de Anne vai muito além de sua paixão por um homem. A garota é uma jovem aristocrata que vive rodada de convenções sociais, em que o papel da mulher deve se limitar ao cuidado do marido e da casa, sempre se atentando à sua imagem perante à alta sociedade. Mas Anne sabe que a sua felicidade vai de encontro com essas convenções… É um questionamento constante (e sutil) que encontramos na escrita da autora.

No entanto, apesar de eu ter gostado bastante dessa característica da obra, senti que a experiência não foi tão boa quanto esperava. Ao longo da leitura, não consegui entrar muito na narrativa ou me conectar com os demais personagens (que não fossem Anne). A leitura ficava truncada em alguns momentos… Por conta do número alto de personagens e nomes de lugares e famílias, talvez teria sido melhor ler esse livro de uma só, sem ficar alternando com outras obras como fiz na época dessa leitura.

De toda forma, é sempre bom lembrar: se não gostei tanto da leitura, isso não quer dizer que você também não irá gostar! Tanto isso é verdade que, nesse caso, o livro é adorado por muitos leitores. Inclusive, terminei “Persuasão" com vontade de conhecer outros livros de Austen, confiando em melhores experiências com as futuras leituras!

Nota 6,5/10

Leia mais resenhas em https://www.instagram.com/book.ster/

"Anybody who has had the temerity to write about Jane Austen is aware of two facts: First, that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness; second, that there are 25 elderly gentlemen living in the neighborhood of London who resent any slight upon her genius as if it were an insult offered to the chastity of their aunts." Virginia Woolf


"Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn--that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness--that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling."

Autumn is the time for intro- and retrospection & these characteristics are exploited to the full in Anne Elliot.

So who is she? An introvert spinster of 27 who - in that day and age - is considered almos too old to have any chances in the marriage market and destined to be sidelined by society (spinsterhood meant lower social standing, even if you are a daughter of a baronet) and in Anne's case: by her family as well.
At the age of nineteen she met the "love of her life", but due to the persuasion of her friend, Lady Russel ("you are too young, he has no social position, no fortune to support a wife, PLUS he is a naval officer, whose life is always in danger" - this is during the Napoleonic wars with France) & the cold disregard of her family, she gave up the engagement. The rejected lover, Frederic Wentworth, thinking her weak-minded and entirely too persuadable, left her for good & Anne, with only a memory of their love, realises -too late- that she made the wrong decision.

"She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning."

This summary may sound quite melodramatic and very unlike any of Jane Austen's former novels, but her genius is at work, and the book is anything but.

Anne is the most isolated of all Austen's heroines. She is to all intents and purposes a "nobody" to her family & to society, with the exception of Lady Russel. Nobody sees her, nobody hears her, her whole existence does not count (curiously, we do not even meet her until the end of chapter 3) and yet it takes Austen's genius to put her in the centre at the same time. We see through her eyes and mind what is happening. She is not noticed, but she notices everything.

In addition, she is also forced into a passivity that not even Fanny Price can surpass. In the first part of the novel, JA barely allows her to speak. Her replies/thoughts are always reported (that famous invention of free indirect speech), but we cannot hear her.

After 8 years of separation Captain Wentworth (a now successful, rich & high-ranking officer) reappears on the scene - vowing, of course, to have nothing to do with Anne Elliot - and this seems to liberate Anne's repressed energy (which is natural in a way as he was the only one who understood her completely). From that point on, slowly, but gradually Anne's presence becomes stronger: she talks more, she acts more, and she is capable to show the qualities of resoluteness and independence which he thought she totally lacked.

This is an amazingly powerful novel and though the notion of "Romantic Love" seems to be much more pronounced, Jane Austen is Jane Austen still -thank Heaven! For the romance is the result of realism (money makes the world go round): when Capt. Wentworth first proposed, he had nothing to offer socially or financially. When he proposes again he has high social standing / fortune through his own merits; and for Jane Austen -always acutely aware of social expectations & pecuniary realities of life - this is necessary for a happy ending.

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." - Albert Camus

همراه با خواندن این کتاب، "پروژه ی جین آستن" رو پیگیری کردم، که به منظور خوندن یا دیدن فیلم های اقتباسی تمام آثار مهم جین آستن طراحی شد. برای تکمیل این پروژه ضروریه که فیلم "جین شدن" هم دیده بشه، که برگرفته از زندگی جین آستنه. فیلم هر چند کاملاً منطبق بر واقعیت نیست، واقعیتی از زندگی جین آستن رو روایت می کنه که دونستنش برای فهم کامل داستان هاش بسیار مهمه: عشق ناکام جین در بیست سالگی.

ردّ پای این عشق ناکام در تمام آثار جین آستن باقیه. این که به خاطر بی فکری خانواده های دو طرف، و به خاطر حفظ منافع مادی، دو جوان دلباخته از هم دور شدن و عشق شون به ثمر نرسید. رمان های جین آستن از اون به بعد شروع شد و همه با مضمونی مشابه: دو جوان دلباخته، به رغم بی فکری خانواده های دو طرف، و بر خلاف منافع مادی، به هم می رسن.

اما حس می کردم این کتاب در بین باقی آثار، بیشتر به خود جین آستن نزدیک بود، و این، جدای از شخصیت پردازی های پخته تر به نسبت غرور و تعصب (که ضعف شخصیت پردازیش رو قبلاً در این ریویو توضیح دادم) باعث شد خوندن ترغیب لذت بخش تر بشه.


از کتاب

«خدا نكند كه من احساسات صادقانه ى مردها را انكار كنم. نه، من مى دانم كه شما برای زندگى زناشویی تان هر كار از دست تان بربيايد مى كنيد، البته تا موقعى كه هدفى در مقابل تان باشد، تا موقعى كه زن محبوب تان زندگى مى كند و براى شما زندگى مى كند.

اما ما زن ها پيوسته عشق مى ورزيم، حتى زمانى كه مردمان نباشد، يا حتى اميدى به بودنش نداشته باشيم.»

Oh my gosh people!

THE LETTER!

I’m still swooning.

Whilst Persuasion is a wonderful story, I love Jane’s other women more. I also felt that some of the other characters in Persuasion were a tad unlikeable. Still, I really enjoyed the intelligence and humour that are present in all of Jane Austen’s novels.

"There is hardly any personal defect which an agreeable manner might not gradually reconcile one to."

Wow, this is an amazing read - I'm not sure how it could get any better. I never imagined any of Austen's books coming any closer to the place I hold Pride and Prejudice, but Persuasion made me make more space in that place for one more book. I found, Persuasion to be just as good, if not better in almost all aspects. I loved every little bit of it and haven't skipped one word.

"To be claimed as a good, though in an improper style, is at least better than being rejected as no good at all;"

The striking difference, I found, while reading Persuasion - compared to author's other books - is that it seemed a lot more real. Persuasion's way of empathizing with the protagonist felt to be in a much deeper level, while most experiences of Anne Elliot are easily relatable for the reader - fore those were a lot real and less fictional. However, the majority of other characters does share the characteristics of pride, vanity and prejudice which all other books did have in common.

"It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be depended on."

As for how well written everything is: it is incredibly fulfilling. I don't understand how it was possible for the author to do so, but everything is narrated perfectly. In retrospect, had I disliked any part or even most of the story, even then, I sure would've loved this book, for, the way each sentence is written is amazing, and it will keep the reader immersed thoroughly. Now add it to the fact the story itself being great, and it is not a surprise that we have one of the best books of all time.

"My idea of good company, Mr. Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation;"

"There are so many who forget to think seriously till it is almost too late."

welcome to...PERSUAS(JULY)ON?

god, that was the worst attempt at a title/month pun yet. i'm so sorry. if it helps, i wish i never started this, but now here we are, all of us in a sisyphus situation at the start of every new project. except worse. the guy who's getting his guts eaten on the daily by a big bird. prometheus.

(isn't that kind of the most torturous part of that punishment - that he clearly has it so much worse than sisyphus and yet in comparison, zero household name recognition? tough stuff.) (like, prometheus is obviously famous, but you don't throw his example around like my boy sisyphus. sad.)

ANYWAY. welcome back to Project Long Classics, the series in which elle and i read a long classic over the course of the month, too make it less scary!

some updates here: 1) we're rereading, 2) this isn't long, and 3) it's not coming from a place of fear. but otherwise, we're all set.

we're also reading this for our book club -
join the discussion here
follow on instagram here

let's go!!!


DAY 1: CHAPTER ONE
we're immediately late (today is july 2), and yet that's fine, because i love this book and also i only have to read one chapter a day this time around. living the dream.

something i love about anne elliot is that she should be quite boring - a real fanny price, if you will - and yet she isn't.

and relatedly, i get why people are upset by what appears to be her fleabag-ification in the upcoming adaptation...but i am capable of separating the adaptation from the book (on rare and special occasions, like arbor day and half-birthdays) and i think it seems fun.


DAY 2: CHAPTER TWO
look at us, catching up!

i love how in old times you could just call people "unsuitable." i wish we still had that. "i find that acquaintance to be one well below your standing, and altogether unsuitable" (or something like that) sounds so much better than "you are my friend, and i like hanging out with you, but i find your friend very annoying."


DAY 3: CHAPTER THREE
WENTWORTH MENTION!!!!!!

genuinely...the yearning already...you gotta give it up for jane.


DAY 4: CHAPTER FOUR
a day behind because i was drinking to make it through our nation's birthday. bleh. escapist reading time!


DAY 5: CHAPTER FIVE
i just...left this blank yesterday.

read the chapter. added this to my update feed. didn't say a thing.

the first few chapters of this are (i think) even more uneventful than usual austen books. maybe because it's less funny? i don't know. it's a lot of past to establish, where we're usually picking up right in the swing of things relatively speaking.


DAY 6: CHAPTER SIX
i don't like, also, the pity-party we have to throw anne every other paragraph at the beginning. yes she is lonely and her sisters are annoying. let's get to the romance part!! or give her a hobby at least.

but here is some drama! another slay for miscommunication, a trope that endures through the centuries.

wait why did jane go this hard: "The real circumstances of this pathetic piece of family history were, that the Musgroves had had the ill fortune of a very troublesome, hopeless son; and the good fortune to lose him before he reached his twentieth year; that he had been sent to sea because he was stupid and unmanageable on shore; that he had been very little cared for at any time by his family, though quite as much as he deserved; seldom heard of, and scarcely at all regretted, when the intelligence of his death abroad had worked its way to Uppercross, two years before." like jane he's dead! take mercy you have already killed him!


DAY 7: CHAPTER SEVEN
wentworth!!! i'll kill you!!! poor anne. suddenly the pity party is working on me.


DAY 8: CHAPTER EIGHT
"But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days." slay mrs croft.

poor anne again!


DAY 9: CHAPTER NINE
well, folks. persuasion (2022) has debuted on rotten tomatoes with a score of 27%.

i can no longer pretend it's extremely likely that i'll watch it, but! onward.

all the best crushes come from one (1) completely inane moment.


DAY 10: CHAPTER TEN
catching up! (took another day off to be drunk. this is a tradition, at this point.)

there are so many Charleses in this. it seems to be a personal affront.


DAY 11: CHAPTER ELEVEN
lmao the whole gang is taking a road trip to visit wentworth's friend, who ol' captain thinks loved his dead wife more than any man has ever loved a woman, and anne NO JOKE thinks "he has not, perhaps, a more sorrowing heart than I have."

pull it together, girlfriend.


DAY 12: CHAPTER TWELVE
action chapter!!! i love immersing myself in a 19th century understanding of medicine. when you jump up and down too many times, you almost die, and them's the breaks.

one of anne's most relatable characteristics is being like "hopefully i'm too old to blush now" and then blushing constantly.


DAY 13: CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"Lady Russell had only to listen composedly, and wish them happy, but internally her heart revelled in angry pleasure, in pleased contempt, that the man who at twenty-three had seemed to understand somewhat of the value of an Anne Elliot, should, eight years afterwards, be charmed by a Louisa Musgrove." this rules. i cannot be a lady russell hater for this alone.


DAY 14: CHAPTER FOURTEEN
at the i-look-forward-to-my-daily-chapter-every-day phase of this :)

goddamn. anne can PULL.


DAY 15: CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"The worst of Bath was the number of its plain women. He did not mean to say that there were no pretty women, but the number of the plain was out of all proportion. He had frequently observed, as he walked, that one handsome face would be followed by thirty, or five-and-thirty frights; and once, as he had stood in a shop on Bond Street, he had counted eighty-seven women go by, one after another, without there being a tolerable face among them. It had been a frosty morning, to be sure, a sharp frost, which hardly one woman in a thousand could stand the test of. But still, there certainly were a dreadful multitude of ugly women in Bath; and as for the men! they were infinitely worse. Such scarecrows as the streets were full of!" this is the funniest and most relatable passage in the whole thing. as someone who has a rule that i should not be forced to view anyone ugly when watching television (a guideline continually broken by basketball coaches and the existence of most conservative politicians), i have to stan sir walter.


DAY 16: CHAPTER SIXTEEN
anne's life really seems like such a snooze, from one girl who is always right to another. but at least i have indoor plumbing. and refrigerated cookie dough.


DAY 17: CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
the thing about jane austen books that we can forget when it's adaptation time is that the love interest is often not the most handsome of the gang. wickham is probably handsomer than darcy. mr elliott is certainly more handsome than wentworth.

but still. how can we be expected, as a society, to root against henry golding??

anyway. a kinda boring Anne Is Perfect chapter.


DAY 18: CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
come on, jane...give me some yearning today!

asked and answered.


DAY 19: CHAPTER NINETEEN
every day has to be a yearning day at this point.

WOO!!! things are picking up!

i will say i feel like anne's family lacks nuance compared to, say, the bennets or the woodhouses, who are flawed characters but have their arcs and their positive traits. elizabeth and mary and sir nobility what's his name feel a little black and white by comparison.

and speaking of things i will say... "the handsomest and best hung of any in Bath" is a great description. should have been used somewhere besides curtains.


DAY 20: CHAPTER TWENTY
"A man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman. He ought not; he does not." AHHHH!!!!!!

oh boy. yearning city. this whole section is everything. and the letter soon!!!


DAY 21: CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ahhhh!!! jane sure knows how to cancel a guy.


DAY 22: CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
the amount of drama in this chapter...my sister is watching below deck in the background as i write this and their screechy voices pale in comparison!!!


DAY 23: CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
the penultimate day!!! i'm going to miss this so much. should i do this all the time???

...no. the last thing i need is the excuse for yet another project.

THE LETTER!!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOD.

not only is this the most romantic love letter of all time (and it's not close! i openly read this out loud to someone i was with on the STREET!!! not as a declaration but just because it's really good and everyone should know about it), but the FRAMING. the conversation anne has with harville! her confusion at wentworth's dismissal! the yearning! her reaction to his coming back! and her feelings after! AHHHH.

jane, no one does it like you. it'd be five stars for this alone.


DAY 24: CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
the end of an era. i have so enjoyed our time together.

this is a cute kind of epilogue-y chapter, like at the end of movies that were Based On A True Story when they tell you what happened to all the goofballs you've gotten to know. i love it. every book should either have a chapter like this or a sequel.

unless i didn't like the book. then it shouldn't have anything.


OVERALL
this is still coming it at a close third in austen rankings for moi (after emma and pride & prejudice) but damn is it still good. that letter! that yearning! anne being a Nice Girl who isn't boring!

what a gift!
rating: 5

---------------
general update

NETFLIX ADAPTATION STARRING DAKOTA JOHNSON AND HENRY GOLDING THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!!

---------------
reread update

if you ever have the opportunity to spend an hour or so rereading this in a park on an unseasonably warm fall day, i recommend you take it

---------------
original review

find a long version of my original review + a review of sense & sensibility at https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.co...!

I started out listening to this one on audiobook, but I couldn't keep the plethora of characters straight so I switched over to an ebook version. Turns out that didn't really help me at all on the character front (is it just me or is everyone named Charles?!) but at least it was easier to stop reading and go look them up as needed.

But, anyway, Persuasion is a light and mostly enjoyable read. It's nowhere near the genius of Pride and Prejudice, but if you've read other Jane Austen novels you probably have a pretty good idea of what to expect from this one. There are a bunch of wealthy people flitting around Bath and the English countryside acting snobby but otherwise doing nothing much of note, while the two main characters have a love-hate relationship and bumble awkwardly around each other instead of just talking things out. There's some subtle humor that pokes fun at the members of upper class English society and their pretentiousness, which is perhaps the best part of the book.

My overall rating: 3.7 stars, rounded up. Persuasion is nothing terribly novel as far as Austen's works go, but it's still a largely enjoyable and untaxing read.

Pretty delightful, in the way that Austen is always delightful, but without the spiky friction of Emma or the delicious layered intrigue of Pride and Prejudice, it feels a bit like a march of inevitability. The beginning and last half are both great, but there's a confusing lag in the middle of the book, when our protagonist, Anne Elliot, is in a large group of travelers w/ a sequence of concerns that are only ever cleaned up in exposition. Once the plot shifts to Bath, it gains some clarity, but one wishes that more of the book had been set there, and that the doomed romance of Anne and Captain Wentworth has more fluctuation. I'm complaining about a good book, though - because it is Jane Austen, there is much to recommend it.