Thoughts on Pride & Prejudice
I just finished Pride & Prejudice today, and I loved it. I have seen various P&P interpretations, and perhaps even the original BBC mini-series (if so, it was a long time ago). Once I realized, about a year ago, that P&P was the foundation of a lot of movies I enjoyed (Bridget Jones' Diary, Bride & Prejudice, etc), I decided I should read the source material, but I didn't expect to enjoy it so much. I am intrigued by how my impressions of the characters and events in P&P (as filtered through the many remakes and interpretations I've seen) were very different than the original. I am next going to watch the BBC mini-series, so I want to record my thoughts before they are sullied.
1. Lizzie is AWESOME. Wow, (for Victorian England) she is such a modern woman. Snarky and confident and not submitting to men or people in a higher class than herself.
2. This book really makes the actual modern woman appreciate how woman used to have to be primarily passive - BUT still active enough in showing her interest, lest a man think her uninterested. It was a fine balance, and as we see, many woman can't do it nearly so elegantly. I wonder if this is (partly) where passive aggression comes from, and (to be incredibly stereotypical but with a sliver of truth) how women learned to be so good at it. I have come across similar dynamics in my historical research (1920s jokes where we learn that women could not be forward, but often dropped subtle hints, so that men spent their time looking for and acting on these hints; this shed light on a lot of contemporary sexual aggression to me, since in general many men still look for "hints" and some men trust those more than direct interaction with the woman. i.e. We've had years of these sorts of social conditioning, and it's damn hard to shake even if times have changed - and that causes a lot of confusion and very real damage). You see similar themes on Mad Men.
3. Darcy is nice and all, but he's no Edward Cullen. (HA, by which I mean the female protagonist isn't swooning over him the whole book and he isn't presented as some dipped-in-gold demi-god.) I was about halfway through the book when I realized that Darcy, though intriguing, wasn't really that interesting. At this point the reader, through Lizzie, does not have a crush on him, fawning over or lusting after him. He's just a man. Rich, sure, but kind of a jerk at first. It's really his love for Lizzie that makes the reader take another look.
4. Even by the end of the book, Lizzie isn't swooning over Darcy, and the reader isn't necessarily either. She certainly loves him, but as an equal and a partner, not in a "Oh you are too good for me, how can I ever make it up to you, I will die if you do not have me!" which we've seen in a certain sect of literature as of late. (Funny that this nineteenth century work of fiction is so much more feminist, it seems, than many recent books and movies.)
5. Despite the lack of swooning, I can see the now common tropes that would make this storyline attractive to swoony women: a man who initially appears cold and indifferent, and a jerk, suddenly becomes a Good Man due to his love for you (i.e. you can change a man, oh girl go ahead, yes you can!); in fact, he was pretty much a Good Man all this time, just a little judgmental (pride and prejudice!), but you taught him otherwise; a middle-class woman can be "rescued" by a rich, attractive man who will be so swept away by her beauty and personality he won't care about her horrid relations, her lower station in life, etc. But these are the tropes that have come out of the book and its imitators; I don't think the book is insincere in itself. These are all genuine and (as they say in the book!) unaffected, and it comes across charming and fresh.
6. Finally, I must say, I LOVE the language. The turns of phrase, the subtle insults, the tongue-in-cheek wit. I just love how they talked. Ending letters with "Yours, etcetera." Again, very charming and a good historical lesson in how (some) people used to talk and interact. I speak as someone trained in history but without much experience in reading older fiction, so this is a bit of a new world for me. Fascinating.
I am downloading the BBC mini-series now, and I want to track down Bride and Prejudice and the other P&P movies to watch them again and see what changed they have wreaked made and how they have interpreted the story. I want to check out Sense & Sensibility and other Jane Austen books, now. Maybe even other authors from that era. Actually, immediately after P&P stopped playing, my iPod started on The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe - another classic I haven't read yet. I rather like reading classics through audiobooks. I must confess, I am also falling in love with hearing the British accent in my ear every day on my way to work and back. I may never go back to North American audiobooks again. ;)
1. Lizzie is AWESOME. Wow, (for Victorian England) she is such a modern woman. Snarky and confident and not submitting to men or people in a higher class than herself.
2. This book really makes the actual modern woman appreciate how woman used to have to be primarily passive - BUT still active enough in showing her interest, lest a man think her uninterested. It was a fine balance, and as we see, many woman can't do it nearly so elegantly. I wonder if this is (partly) where passive aggression comes from, and (to be incredibly stereotypical but with a sliver of truth) how women learned to be so good at it. I have come across similar dynamics in my historical research (1920s jokes where we learn that women could not be forward, but often dropped subtle hints, so that men spent their time looking for and acting on these hints; this shed light on a lot of contemporary sexual aggression to me, since in general many men still look for "hints" and some men trust those more than direct interaction with the woman. i.e. We've had years of these sorts of social conditioning, and it's damn hard to shake even if times have changed - and that causes a lot of confusion and very real damage). You see similar themes on Mad Men.
3. Darcy is nice and all, but he's no Edward Cullen. (HA, by which I mean the female protagonist isn't swooning over him the whole book and he isn't presented as some dipped-in-gold demi-god.) I was about halfway through the book when I realized that Darcy, though intriguing, wasn't really that interesting. At this point the reader, through Lizzie, does not have a crush on him, fawning over or lusting after him. He's just a man. Rich, sure, but kind of a jerk at first. It's really his love for Lizzie that makes the reader take another look.
4. Even by the end of the book, Lizzie isn't swooning over Darcy, and the reader isn't necessarily either. She certainly loves him, but as an equal and a partner, not in a "Oh you are too good for me, how can I ever make it up to you, I will die if you do not have me!" which we've seen in a certain sect of literature as of late. (Funny that this nineteenth century work of fiction is so much more feminist, it seems, than many recent books and movies.)
5. Despite the lack of swooning, I can see the now common tropes that would make this storyline attractive to swoony women: a man who initially appears cold and indifferent, and a jerk, suddenly becomes a Good Man due to his love for you (i.e. you can change a man, oh girl go ahead, yes you can!); in fact, he was pretty much a Good Man all this time, just a little judgmental (pride and prejudice!), but you taught him otherwise; a middle-class woman can be "rescued" by a rich, attractive man who will be so swept away by her beauty and personality he won't care about her horrid relations, her lower station in life, etc. But these are the tropes that have come out of the book and its imitators; I don't think the book is insincere in itself. These are all genuine and (as they say in the book!) unaffected, and it comes across charming and fresh.
6. Finally, I must say, I LOVE the language. The turns of phrase, the subtle insults, the tongue-in-cheek wit. I just love how they talked. Ending letters with "Yours, etcetera." Again, very charming and a good historical lesson in how (some) people used to talk and interact. I speak as someone trained in history but without much experience in reading older fiction, so this is a bit of a new world for me. Fascinating.
I am downloading the BBC mini-series now, and I want to track down Bride and Prejudice and the other P&P movies to watch them again and see what changed they have wreaked made and how they have interpreted the story. I want to check out Sense & Sensibility and other Jane Austen books, now. Maybe even other authors from that era. Actually, immediately after P&P stopped playing, my iPod started on The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe - another classic I haven't read yet. I rather like reading classics through audiobooks. I must confess, I am also falling in love with hearing the British accent in my ear every day on my way to work and back. I may never go back to North American audiobooks again. ;)