Pride and Prejudice: a load of Balls
Last summer, frankie_ecap and coughingbear signed me up for the blog a Penguin classic scheme: I had to read a book, write a review of it, and post it on the Penguin classic blog.
It took me many months to get around to finishing it; and now the blog refuses to recognise me. Maybe it will be working tomorrow.
Edit: I have now submitted it - only to find that once posted, reviews are selected at random to be displayed. So I can't even direct you to it!
This book was so familiar that I found it hard to read. Everyone knows the story - they have either read it before, heard it adapted on the radio, seen on big or little screen in several different versions - that I found it hard to get past the baggage: when I imagined the characters, I saw Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, not Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. I wasn't reading a book by Jane Austen, I was envisaging an adaptation by Andrew Davies.
I found it hard to get beyond this history - this says more about me than the book, true. I can't remember if I read Pride and Prejudice before, or if I simply absorbed so much about it that it felt like I had read it. If I had, it was a long time ago - thirty years or so.
It was strange to approach it afresh, then: everything about it was so familiar, I was waiting for things to happen.
It wasn't helped by the edition, either: the blurb by Meera Syal telling me it was the “funniest book ever written” (she's read them all, then?), and others on the back dropping it clearly into the territory of romantic comedy - “the DNA of all romantic comedy” (Syal again). I know I shouldn't, but it was hard not to hold her 21st century publisher's blurb against the early 19th century Ms Austen. This wasn't helped by the complete lack of context in the book: this is a world famous classic - about as classic as classic can be - but there was no introduction, nothing to help set the book in the social or political milieu of the time.
And this was what I wanted to know: I was intrigued by the economics of romance two hundred years ago, how the game was played - I found it hard to follow the rules of what was allowed, things that readers of the time would have taken for granted. (I took other things for granted - such Darcy walking from the lake in slow motion. I am surprised Ms Austen omitted that scene.)
To start with, I therefore struggled to make much progress; no number of reminder emails from Penguin urging me to post my review could get me back to finish the book. It was a long train ride that did that, and coming back to it made it a lot easier. Maybe I hadn't been in the mood for a costume drama before; coming back to it, I was able to let it was over me.
Few of the characters have much to commend them, aside from Elizabeth, her father and her aunt and uncle. Her mother and younger sisters irritate (that must be the comedy, then), Darcy is so pompous and snobbish that he is hard to warm to when he does cheer up. Her father has the best lines, although aside from appearing as dance partners or foils for female chatter, the men are generally silent or bounders.
The women are more closely observed - the clear focus of the book: women dominate, although they have little power: if married, they are at the whim of their husbands, if not, they are eager to find one. But they are also resourceful and political: unable to inherit, they need men to see them through the world: they connive and plot, the men merely pawns in their plots. Men appear to have the power - if only because they have the money - but it is women who rule the roost, whether it's Bingley's scheming sisters or the deeply irritating Lady de Bourgh (who has plans of her own for Darcy).
Much of the action happens at balls: dances are the centre of the Bennet's social world, Mrs Bennet trying to marry off her many daughters. Dancing seems to be the only way these nineteenth century women could meet men; one wonders how the species survived. Suitable men were rare: their finances played heavier than their looks or personalities (especially if you were Mrs Bennet).
The deeper I got, the more I warmed to Elizabeth, Darcy and their plight: unable to speak out for themselves, they tied themselves in knots, trapped behind assumptions and misunderstandings. I ended up enjoying it a lot, although I could never leave my own baggage - my own prejudice, perhaps - behind.
It took me many months to get around to finishing it; and now the blog refuses to recognise me. Maybe it will be working tomorrow.
Edit: I have now submitted it - only to find that once posted, reviews are selected at random to be displayed. So I can't even direct you to it!
This book was so familiar that I found it hard to read. Everyone knows the story - they have either read it before, heard it adapted on the radio, seen on big or little screen in several different versions - that I found it hard to get past the baggage: when I imagined the characters, I saw Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, not Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. I wasn't reading a book by Jane Austen, I was envisaging an adaptation by Andrew Davies.
I found it hard to get beyond this history - this says more about me than the book, true. I can't remember if I read Pride and Prejudice before, or if I simply absorbed so much about it that it felt like I had read it. If I had, it was a long time ago - thirty years or so.
It was strange to approach it afresh, then: everything about it was so familiar, I was waiting for things to happen.
It wasn't helped by the edition, either: the blurb by Meera Syal telling me it was the “funniest book ever written” (she's read them all, then?), and others on the back dropping it clearly into the territory of romantic comedy - “the DNA of all romantic comedy” (Syal again). I know I shouldn't, but it was hard not to hold her 21st century publisher's blurb against the early 19th century Ms Austen. This wasn't helped by the complete lack of context in the book: this is a world famous classic - about as classic as classic can be - but there was no introduction, nothing to help set the book in the social or political milieu of the time.
And this was what I wanted to know: I was intrigued by the economics of romance two hundred years ago, how the game was played - I found it hard to follow the rules of what was allowed, things that readers of the time would have taken for granted. (I took other things for granted - such Darcy walking from the lake in slow motion. I am surprised Ms Austen omitted that scene.)
To start with, I therefore struggled to make much progress; no number of reminder emails from Penguin urging me to post my review could get me back to finish the book. It was a long train ride that did that, and coming back to it made it a lot easier. Maybe I hadn't been in the mood for a costume drama before; coming back to it, I was able to let it was over me.
Few of the characters have much to commend them, aside from Elizabeth, her father and her aunt and uncle. Her mother and younger sisters irritate (that must be the comedy, then), Darcy is so pompous and snobbish that he is hard to warm to when he does cheer up. Her father has the best lines, although aside from appearing as dance partners or foils for female chatter, the men are generally silent or bounders.
The women are more closely observed - the clear focus of the book: women dominate, although they have little power: if married, they are at the whim of their husbands, if not, they are eager to find one. But they are also resourceful and political: unable to inherit, they need men to see them through the world: they connive and plot, the men merely pawns in their plots. Men appear to have the power - if only because they have the money - but it is women who rule the roost, whether it's Bingley's scheming sisters or the deeply irritating Lady de Bourgh (who has plans of her own for Darcy).
Much of the action happens at balls: dances are the centre of the Bennet's social world, Mrs Bennet trying to marry off her many daughters. Dancing seems to be the only way these nineteenth century women could meet men; one wonders how the species survived. Suitable men were rare: their finances played heavier than their looks or personalities (especially if you were Mrs Bennet).
The deeper I got, the more I warmed to Elizabeth, Darcy and their plight: unable to speak out for themselves, they tied themselves in knots, trapped behind assumptions and misunderstandings. I ended up enjoying it a lot, although I could never leave my own baggage - my own prejudice, perhaps - behind.