Reading "Pride and Prejudice"

[qos]

I'm risking losing perhaps one-third of my friends list with this post. . .

Motivated entirely by the warm comments made by friends here over the past several years, I finally obtained a copy of Pride and Prejudice on Friday and started to read it. I've just finished reading Darcy's letter to Elizabeth and her reactions, so I'm about halfway through.

I've been reading attentively, open to the virtues expounded upon by so many people whose opinions I respect, wanting to like the story, to like Elizabeth, to like the writing style -- but I simply can not understand the passionate love and loyalty this book and its characters inspire. If it were any other book, I would not have kept reading beyond the first chapter.

If I read one more time about how a person's "amiable conversation" and fine manners obviously mean that he or she is person of good character, I shall choke. And maybe that's part of the point of the book, that Elizabeth and others learn that being a model member of society has little to do with a person's actual worth or quality, but it's not a storytelling journey I feel any need to take. Likewise, the sheer monotony of the characters' lives makes me skim over paragraphs at a time and send up countless prayers of thanksgiving that I do not live in a world where my primary entertainments are visiting and going to balls. What do these women have to talk about besides men, clothing, and marriage prospects?

It feels churlish to write such things about a book and characters that are so deeply beloved by others. . . and I feel like there must be some part of myself that is lacking in discernment since I can't even be engaged by the plot.

What am I missing? Do I need to read through to the end to appreciate the rest of the book? Or should I just give up now and admit myself a hopeless savage, incapable of appreciating the divine Austen?

Comments

[a-belletrist.livejournal.com]

Austen was written for another time entirely, and for a completely different audience. She wasn't groundbreaking for the genre of her works themselves, as the domestic novel was already well-represented in that time's literary scene, but she was groundbreaking because she was a woman, and did it so very well.

There are a ton of people I know who are completely bored with Austen and the whole genre of books that she was a part of. I'm not one of them ... but then I had my second major in Victorian Lit. ;) Maybe it is a past life connection, as jillwheezul wrote.

What I love about them is their ability to provide a snapshot of what life was like then, from a woman's perspective. Even if it is fiction, the details provided make her works rich with history on the drawing room scale. Beyond that, her heroines are women whose characters were often unconventional even while they struggled to stay well within the conventions. Her stories are always places where virtue, literally Virtue, triumphs, as does goodness, patience, and being true to one's self (as long as you were virtuous!). I am always comforted by that, as I am by a time when excellent manners counted for something. I miss manners.

No, Austen isn't for everyone. No more so than the Brontes, Dickens, Gaskell, Collins, etc. And not liking them is no more damning than me not liking the works of Stephen King. Which I don't. ;)

I'm glad you gave it a try, though. Because you'll never know until you do.

[qos.livejournal.com]

her heroines are women whose characters were often unconventional even while they struggled to stay well within the conventions

This is the part I wish came out a bit more strongly for me.

Or maybe, because of my own issues in this life, I'm simply more drawn to stories about heroines who are daringly unconventional.

I'm glad I gave it a try too.

And, in line with what blessed_harlot wrote above, I may give the miniseries a try as well. Mom was recently expressing a desire to get the DVD's.