OMG! This is the most epic review of a Jane Austen novel ever. I'll have to rec your review over at my LJ XD
I must admit that I wasn't a fan of P&P the first time I read it. Then when I re-read it, I fell in love with it. It is just as you describe it - funny, witty, and well-written. Austen was a genius =]
re: 2005 film version Mr. Darcy's primary facial expression: I hate you all. Elizabeth Bennet's primary facial expression: FML.
Yeah, you pretty much summed it up. LOL Though, I'll admit it's my favorite version >.> What?!
It's like I said - many people who enjoy Jane Austen hate Charlotte Bronte, and vice versa. I like them both, but I find Austen the more refreshing read.
I also find it amusing how people seem to see their own sympathies in her. To CS Lewis (and Lewis, in addition to being a great writer, was a mighty scholar and one of the greatest critics ever) Jane was the bearer of an understated but strict and thoroughly Christian morality; you perceive a proto-feminist. In fact, I think that Jane would be disgusted - and bitingly satirical - at the Pankhursts and their likes, at their fanaticism, joylessness and heads-I-win-tails-you-lose reasoning. And Lewis had a point: when you read something like Mansfield Park, you will find that Jane could be not just stern but downright puritanical - a side of her that is not so much in evidence (though it could be found) in Pride And Prejudice.
Ooooh, I never watched the 1940s and 1980s versions. Now I must.
While I of course love the 1995 version, which has the advantage of having six hours instead of two, I do like the 2005 film. It's gorgeous- the music and the photography. It's just so pretty and shiny.
Proof that Austen was a genius lies, for me, in the fact that my dad- who won't usually watch anything that hasn't got a lot of explosions without falling asleep- is generally enthusiastic about any Austen adaptation. He liked BBC's 2009 Emma so much, he couldn't wait for the episodes to be aired and subtitled.
I had to read this in school and I HATED IT 'cause it's OOOOLD and there were no zombies!
anonymous
December 12 2010, 10:26:45 UTC
Yeah, um, I read this book in middle school, and while I think I liked it better than the other stuff they made me read in middle school, I still wasn't a big fan of it. Guess I'll have to give it a re-read.
Damn, why does school persist in ruining good books for us? It ruined To Kill a Mockingbird for me, too. Not to mention turned me off of Shakespeare for all time.
And people wonder why kids don't read books anymore...
Re: I had to read this in school and I HATED IT 'cause it's OOOOLD and there were no zombies!conulyDecember 12 2010, 18:42:53 UTC
I've actually seen this mindset spelled out by the people who think it:
If you don't make them read it as teens, then they'll never read it as adults. And whatever they like to read is just garbage, so we have to force them to read good books while we can.
Of course, one might ask what value there really is in a book nobody would ever pick up on their own to read, but one would be loudly ignored.
Re: I had to read this in school and I HATED IT 'cause it's OOOOLD and there were no zombies!inverarityDecember 12 2010, 19:05:27 UTC
Yeah, I agree that Pride and Prejudice isn't likely to appeal to many teens. There's a lot of cultural context you need to understand why the characters act the way they do, and the prose performs some real linguistic gymnastics unfamiliar to modern readers.
There is something to be said for exposing kids to "Great Literature" at a young age (because frankly, I see too many young people on reading lists now who say they never read anything outside of YA -- and to be fair, a lot of dudes my age who never read anything other than the same sort of sci-fi and not-written-by-girls fantasy they started reading as teens), but there has to be a better way to do it than by shoving a few arbitrarily-chosen books down kids' throats.
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I must admit that I wasn't a fan of P&P the first time I read it. Then when I re-read it, I fell in love with it. It is just as you describe it - funny, witty, and well-written. Austen was a genius =]
re: 2005 film version
Mr. Darcy's primary facial expression: I hate you all.
Elizabeth Bennet's primary facial expression: FML.
Yeah, you pretty much summed it up. LOL
Though, I'll admit it's my favorite version >.> What?!
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I suppose it will depend on whether I like Jane Eyre. (Which is another book I've never read, though I've seen a couple of the movie versions.)
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I also find it amusing how people seem to see their own sympathies in her. To CS Lewis (and Lewis, in addition to being a great writer, was a mighty scholar and one of the greatest critics ever) Jane was the bearer of an understated but strict and thoroughly Christian morality; you perceive a proto-feminist. In fact, I think that Jane would be disgusted - and bitingly satirical - at the Pankhursts and their likes, at their fanaticism, joylessness and heads-I-win-tails-you-lose reasoning. And Lewis had a point: when you read something like Mansfield Park, you will find that Jane could be not just stern but downright puritanical - a side of her that is not so much in evidence (though it could be found) in Pride And Prejudice.
Reply
While I of course love the 1995 version, which has the advantage of having six hours instead of two, I do like the 2005 film. It's gorgeous- the music and the photography. It's just so pretty and shiny.
Proof that Austen was a genius lies, for me, in the fact that my dad- who won't usually watch anything that hasn't got a lot of explosions without falling asleep- is generally enthusiastic about any Austen adaptation. He liked BBC's 2009 Emma so much, he couldn't wait for the episodes to be aired and subtitled.
Reply
Damn, why does school persist in ruining good books for us? It ruined To Kill a Mockingbird for me, too. Not to mention turned me off of Shakespeare for all time.
And people wonder why kids don't read books anymore...
-TealTerror
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
If you don't make them read it as teens, then they'll never read it as adults. And whatever they like to read is just garbage, so we have to force them to read good books while we can.
Of course, one might ask what value there really is in a book nobody would ever pick up on their own to read, but one would be loudly ignored.
Reply
There is something to be said for exposing kids to "Great Literature" at a young age (because frankly, I see too many young people on reading lists now who say they never read anything outside of YA -- and to be fair, a lot of dudes my age who never read anything other than the same sort of sci-fi and not-written-by-girls fantasy they started reading as teens), but there has to be a better way to do it than by shoving a few arbitrarily-chosen books down kids' throats.
Reply
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