Going back to Longbourn
I'm rereading "Pride and Prejudice" and I'm constantly surprised at being surprised. :D It's been a long, long time since my last reread. And while I've seen both the miniseries (several times ♥) and the movie, and read the zombie book and various articles and meta containing various quotes from the book -- the book itself is... well very much itself!
Scenes made familiar from repeat viewing are actually much longer in the book. (Oh, the length of the after-dinner scene at Netherfield... ♥) It's like getting a directors cut! :) And Darcy smiles! Like, a lot! Relatively! (Especially when talking to either Elizabeth or Bingley or, to his great delight, both of them at once.) And Elizabeth herself isn't as practically perfect as I tended to paint her. She's adorable, of course -- but awfully gullible in some ways.
For some reason reading her first conversation with Wickham is much more squirm inducing than watching it. Maybe because in the book we have time for a getting-to-know-you scene, whereas you expect things to move a little faster on film. So the fact that Wickham just spews out all this vitriol towards Darcy and his sister to a girl he's literally just met really makes me blush for Elizabeth. She's smarter than that, usually, and it's embarrassing to watch her get charmed by someone she'd otherwise recognize as untrustworthy. (Of course, it's also perfectly in character for a girl her age, brought up in such a protected place, and already inclined to dislike Darcy.)
Anyway, I've really only just begun (Collins has yet to propose), but I'm once more captivated by the world Jane Austin built. :)
Scenes made familiar from repeat viewing are actually much longer in the book. (Oh, the length of the after-dinner scene at Netherfield... ♥) It's like getting a directors cut! :) And Darcy smiles! Like, a lot! Relatively! (Especially when talking to either Elizabeth or Bingley or, to his great delight, both of them at once.) And Elizabeth herself isn't as practically perfect as I tended to paint her. She's adorable, of course -- but awfully gullible in some ways.
For some reason reading her first conversation with Wickham is much more squirm inducing than watching it. Maybe because in the book we have time for a getting-to-know-you scene, whereas you expect things to move a little faster on film. So the fact that Wickham just spews out all this vitriol towards Darcy and his sister to a girl he's literally just met really makes me blush for Elizabeth. She's smarter than that, usually, and it's embarrassing to watch her get charmed by someone she'd otherwise recognize as untrustworthy. (Of course, it's also perfectly in character for a girl her age, brought up in such a protected place, and already inclined to dislike Darcy.)
Anyway, I've really only just begun (Collins has yet to propose), but I'm once more captivated by the world Jane Austin built. :)