Pride and Prejudice: a load of Balls

[rhythmaning]

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

Comments

[fiendish_cat]

I had read lots of other Austen before I came to read P&P (not till my early twenties I think - though luckily before the TV series) and whilst I do love P&P I still prefer some of her other work.

(Bride and Bollywood is the best adaptation if you ask me!)

[rhythmaning]

Did you mean Bride and Prejudice?

Are you still in India? Surpised you were keeping up with LJ ... I hope you are going to post about your trip!

[white_hart]

I just noticed your review on the Penguin Classics site, and thought I'd come and comment here rather than there (somehow I missed it when you first posted).

I'm rather surprised that you've come away with the idea that women "rule the roost", though. To me it's the exact opposite. Yes, a woman may exercise power in her own household, but the whole point of the novel is that the single most important thing in a woman's life is making a good marriage, because there is no way for her to exercise any power outside it. At the time, women were treated as their husbands' chattels; life for a woman in a bad marriage would be unpleasant and inescapable, while an ummarried woman was seen as a charity case at best and an unpaid skivvy at worst.

Yes, the world Austen writes about seems narrow and closeted in domesticity, but that was the only world available to women then. The scheming and manipulation in the attempt to make a good match is rather like a Regency version of The Apprentice...

[rhythmaning]

I meant to post that my review had finally been published - they sent me an email. I must go and look at it!

You are of course right that within the book, a woman's power is vested through men - husband, brother, cousin (I can't remember any sons!) - but the story is driven by decisions women make: they decide that there is going to be a ball, that they have to go to London, that their brother can't see Elizabeth.

Aside from Darcy and Wickham making thier own good and bad decisions, men actually feature very little. The story may be about the effort to get a man, but men themselves didn't seem particularly important. The society depicted seemed to me to be defined by women, and men were their tools.

[white_hart]

Well, it's true that the domestic arena which is the focus of Austen's novels is very much a female space, but only because it's the only space the women have; the men occupy a different world, where there are politics, and war (despite the references to soldiers and sailors in most of the novels it would be easy for a casual reader to completely overlook the fact that there was a war taking place), and business, all of which the women are completely excluded from. Men only ever interact with women in the women's space, and they are far less present in it because they have other choices; the women have to be there.

To me, saying that the men don't seem important because they're less present is a bit like saying Godot isn't important because he never actually appears...

[rhythmaning]

Btw some of the comments on the Penguin blog very much reflect your views.