![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Accomplished
I finished reading Pride and Prejudice today. As a result, I can no longer say that I've never read a book by Jane Austen. Somehow I never managed to have Austen assigned in a class, and I don't tend to pick up classics on my own unless prodded. Nothing particularly prodded me this time, though; really, I just decided I ought to finish it. I made an attempt to read P&P several years back but didn't make it very far. This time I was determined to get through, and it went much more easily. What made the difference? It's possible this edit was more readable than the other, but I think the real answer is my recent understanding that the book is meant to be comic. Maybe "comic" is the wrong word... satire? Ironic commentary? Anyway, it's not a straight romance. So I picked it up with Austen's intentions in mind and I found it, overall, quite delightful.
I found the story very engaging. Of course, it's common knowledge in Western culture that Elizabeth and Darcy end up together, so some things that were perhaps meant to be suspenseful -- Wickham's true character, the machinations of Miss Bingley, Darcy's engagement to whats-her-name, the daughter of Lady Catherine -- were foregone conclusions, but I found myself drawn in anyway, wondering exactly how it would all resolve itself. Elizabeth and Darcy are both excellent characters, flawed but sympathetic and ultimately feeling real. Some of the others seemed too much like caricatures to me -- Mrs. Bennett, Lydia, and Mr. Collins all drove me insane in their own individual ways -- but given the age and influence of this novel, I am fully willing to accept that this may be where the archetypes come from. In particular, I spent most of the book passionately hating Mrs. Bennett. She struck me as shallow and stupid, and I just couldn't work up any sympathy for her. The secondary character I enjoyed the most was probably Jane. In some respects I found myself identifying with her, notably her attempts to think the best of everyone she meets, warranted or not, which is something I catch myself doing quite often!
The first time I tried reading this book, I had difficulty getting past the language. That went more smoothly for me this time -- as when I read Shakespeare, it took me a little while to get the cadence of it in my ear, but once I was used to it, I had no trouble following. However, I do think it's safe to say that I prefer modern novels, particularly dialog. So many conversations were described rather than transcribed, and I really dislike indirect quotation in narrative fiction. I would much rather see the words of dialog written out than summarized. I've read so little from this time period that I don't know whether this trait is peculiar to Austen or simply the way books were written in those days, but either way I think I prefer how things are done now. Still, I would read more Austen, and at some point probably will do so.
I found the story very engaging. Of course, it's common knowledge in Western culture that Elizabeth and Darcy end up together, so some things that were perhaps meant to be suspenseful -- Wickham's true character, the machinations of Miss Bingley, Darcy's engagement to whats-her-name, the daughter of Lady Catherine -- were foregone conclusions, but I found myself drawn in anyway, wondering exactly how it would all resolve itself. Elizabeth and Darcy are both excellent characters, flawed but sympathetic and ultimately feeling real. Some of the others seemed too much like caricatures to me -- Mrs. Bennett, Lydia, and Mr. Collins all drove me insane in their own individual ways -- but given the age and influence of this novel, I am fully willing to accept that this may be where the archetypes come from. In particular, I spent most of the book passionately hating Mrs. Bennett. She struck me as shallow and stupid, and I just couldn't work up any sympathy for her. The secondary character I enjoyed the most was probably Jane. In some respects I found myself identifying with her, notably her attempts to think the best of everyone she meets, warranted or not, which is something I catch myself doing quite often!
The first time I tried reading this book, I had difficulty getting past the language. That went more smoothly for me this time -- as when I read Shakespeare, it took me a little while to get the cadence of it in my ear, but once I was used to it, I had no trouble following. However, I do think it's safe to say that I prefer modern novels, particularly dialog. So many conversations were described rather than transcribed, and I really dislike indirect quotation in narrative fiction. I would much rather see the words of dialog written out than summarized. I've read so little from this time period that I don't know whether this trait is peculiar to Austen or simply the way books were written in those days, but either way I think I prefer how things are done now. Still, I would read more Austen, and at some point probably will do so.
no subject
I always wondered about the shallow vs deep characters in that book. Re: Mrs Bennett: How did Mr Bennett ever manage to be with her? There was a sentence somewhere about her youthful enthusiasm or somesuch, which of course had passed by rather quickly. (Something like a Lydia Senior?)
no subject
That's rather what I was thinking, and it fits with what
Since I haven't read any gothic romance novels, it makes sense that I wouldn't have seen P&P as a satire on my own. :)
no subject
The book explains how Mrs Bennett captured Mr. Bennett with her youthful enthusiasm and beauty. Understated but also a factor in the breakdown of their marriage was the huge disappointment that no son was produced and the strain of the entailment. Jane was never married nor a mother. Although she tried to portray the social and economic pressures, a mother of five unmarried daughters would face trying to marry them all, I think this doesn't translate well now, because women can earn money now. People in Jane Austen's time would sympathize with Mrs Bennett's machinations, because each individual daughter could choose to marry someone with no money, but in order to survive, at least one of the daughters had to marry a man with enough money to support the others. Lydia is literally saved from ruin, because the other daughter/s are involved with men with money who give Wickham money to marry Lydia. At the end of the book, it states how both Bingley and Darcy support the rest of the family economically.
no subject
I was talking to my boss about this, actually, and she made this same point, that novels were often written as letters in this time period, and perhaps Austen was writing in a transitional phase between that and modern dialogue.
Everything you say about Mrs. Bennett being a product of her time makes sense, although I wonder she was even extreme for that culture -- there's the bit in Darcy's letter about how her behavior was an embarrassment to the Bennett family and part of the reason he interviened between Bingley and Jane. So I wonder if contemporary audiences would have agreed with Darcy there.
no subject
I think the closet modern equivalent is nowadays a lot of people expect a wedding gift to be relatively expensive and have lists of expensive gifts they want to receive aka a registry. However it crosses the line if I say "Kathleen, it would be so nice if you gave me that fuzzy rice cooker for my wedding gift."