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

"You're a terrible book with a horrible ending that I didn't believe even for a second!"

[unicorndelamer.livejournal.com]

Quite a few comments on this one. I am relieved to read that there are others out there who stop reading a book if they really have come to feel they don't like the book...even if they haven't finished reading that book. This is something I've only recently come to, myself. I felt guilty for not reading a book all the way through. This guilt applied to books that I'd received for free and/or borrowed from the library. Craziness! I find that I can offset the guilt for not finishing a book that I own by donating it. I can recognize that while I may despise a book, someone else may love it. And the time I save in not finishing a book I hate can be applied to reading something that I really love.

I haven't felt any intense desire to read Jane Austen, though I have a few of her books because people find out I like to read and feel I need to own those "great classics". I know I'll have to be in a certain "mood" to attempt reading it, but am not sure if I'll enjoy the books. I think that one of the reasons some people may like the story of Pride & Prejudice is that it might be a story that teaches them something (I'm basing these opinions on the various film versions I've seen.). And I feel that you've progressed so much further beyond the lessons that it doesn't feel novel to you. I experienced this phenomenon when I read The Da Vinci Code. I loved Angels and Demons (which actually takes place before TDVC) and assumed all the hype surrounding TDVC meant it was even better. By the end of the book I was disgusted that I'd wasted my time reading it, but later understood that was because people were impressed by the big "ah-hah" moment at the end, and this was not news to me.

Re: "You're a terrible book with a horrible ending that I didn't believe even for a second!"

[qos.livejournal.com]

I felt the same way about "The DaVinci Code." Everything I heard other people ooh-ing and aah-ing about seemed to be ideas and themes I'd been aware of for years -- and much of it based on discredited "scholarship." I have better things to do!