Book: Pride & Prejudice

[narcasse]

I come from the generation that seems to have the 1995 BBC TV adaptation of Pride & Prejudice so firmly fixed in its mind that Colin Firth more or less obliterates any recognition of the character of Fitzwilliam Darcy. I remember the furore about it at school and encountering women years later who were by their own admission ‘searching for their own Mr Darcy’. I did catch the majority of the series at the time and my overriding impression was that Darcy was obnoxious and that Jennifer Ehle was quite amply endowed and that really was about it. I’d never read the novel but from what I could grasp from the TV adaptation the entire story didn’t seem half as wonderful as many people seemed to be making out, especially when the recommendations I heard seemed to be more about Colin Firth’s looks than anything else. But, years later, having heard that the novel wasn’t all that bad from a friend whose opinion I actually trusted and with enough mooch points to pick up a free copy I decided to give it a try. And as it turns out the novel isn’t bad at all and was actually a rather good way to pass a day or two.

The major point of contention was the beginning of the entire saga between Elizabeth and Darcy where he insults her quite blatantly. It was something that all those very many individuals seeking their own Darcy seemed to conveniently miss out. I’d wondered how that would be handled in the novel or how its impact might be reduced and was pleasantly surprised to discover that while Darcy does quite plainly intend to cause insult there does seem to be a daft logic to it. He’s certainly not justified in what he says and decidedly ought not to have said it but the rationale leading up to it does make sense: quite simply he’s trapped at a social gathering that he doesn’t want to attend and is being forced to associate with individuals that he has no desire to spend time with, to the point of having eligible ladies more or less presented to him constantly, so he makes the deliberately move of being visibly insulting to one of them in the hopes that it will cause all the others to shun him for the duration. It’s not a pleasant ploy but it is one that ill-judgement and youth might reasonably presume would be effective. And it is very effective. Unfortunately for him it soon transpires that he’s insulted the girl he’s developing a liking to, though they do seem to be on the brink of working past that at one stage until Wickham turns up and spreads false rumours. From that point onwards it’s Elizabeth who is horribly biased though she does later on realise just how obvious a ploy those lies were after the fact, after which the novel moves on to it’s happy resolution with Darcy seeking to correct his ungentlemanly behaviour as a result of Elizabeth’s explosive admonishment and Elizabeth realising that she’s been unfairly prejudiced towards him.

The novel itself takes perfectly expected actions, that most people have seen or indulged in at one time or another and puts so many of those incidences together as to make them seem fantastical, which isn’t actually a bad thing. Everything does make sense in context and the story is nicely paced and elegantly told. The end result of this being that I’ve mooched a copy of Sense & Sensibility and may have to rewatch the BBC adaptation as well. Though there’s no danger of my being won over by Colin Firth’s acting at the end of the day: he stared in Valmont which was an absolute abomination and a good example of how not to adapt Les Liaisons Dangereuses after all.

Comments

[lanithro.livejournal.com]

Upon reading your post, I have realized that I do not actually dislike Pride and Prejudice for what it says, but for what it ignores.

You’ll know that at the time it was written, Europe was on the brink of the Napoleonic Wars and by the time it was published, I believe the fighting had been going on for about a decade and as such, poverty and deprivation struck England hard, especially the working classes. If Austen wants to ignore that, in favour of writing about genteel parties and blushing middle-class virgins, then that is just fine. I’m sure everyone at the time was sick to death of hearing about the war, and had seen enough starving orphans and war-wounded hobbling the streets of London to last themselves several lifetimes.

The problem for me is that she doesn’t ignore it. She instead peppers her novels with soldiers who are soldiers for the sole purpose of being uniformed bad-boy fetish-fuel.

At least she ignores the economic distress and hardship of the common man instead of trying to make that all sexy and romantic too.

I swear, I do not condone Percy Bysshe Shelley drunkenly punching Austen at that posh society gathering in Bath shortly before he sailed for Switzerland, but I can fully understand why he was so upset.

[reichsfreiherr.livejournal.com]

She instead peppers her novels with soldiers who are soldiers for the sole purpose of being uniformed bad-boy fetish-fuel.

I can’t say that I was aware of that but then I’ve only read Pride & Prejudice which seemed to feature one unsavoury individual who only seems to have enlisted because no one else would take him. And I’m not really sure that counts. He digs himself into a ditch and ends up wed to an idiot as penance which doesn’t strike me much as lauding his behaviour.

From my decidedly uninformed position, in this one novel at least there don’t seem to be any characters who’d be capable of social commentary on the economic situation since Austin seems to keep the story well and truly confined to the middle classes so I don’t know what to say to the rest of it.

[lanithro.livejournal.com]

Okay, I typed out a reply to this, but I deleted it because when I read over it, it seemed too much like Austen-bashing. And you like her. So I shouldn't. So here's to doing better the second time around.

one unsavoury individual who only seems to have enlisted because no one else would take him. And I’m not really sure that counts

I remember in Sense and Sensibility there was a Colonel love interest, and in Persuasion, Austen's "gritty" novel, there were lots of navy sailors all over the place. They're generally portrayed as handsome, dashing types, even if Wickham is a subversion of this- being superficially charming but a bit rubbish once the charm wears out.

I personally- and it is just my opinion- find the world that Austen fabricates to be an escapist fantasy from the reality of early 19thC England. Either that, or she was aiming for realism and her scope is sorely small and shallow. When I was at Cardiff, I used to swap essays with a friend for beta reading purposes. She did the Austen module, and she said that Austen did not delve into the economic or political situation because that wasn't where her focus was. She said that Austen was much more interested in gender relations, and she wrote smart, capable but flawed heroines who weren't particularly edgy like the Bronte girls wrote a few decades later, but who were definitely not the perfect feminine ideal. In Pride and Prejudice she brought that into sharp effect with the juxtaposition of Elizabeth and Jane.

I guess Jane is the 19th Century Honda Tohru.

Anyway, I don't know how far I agree with the essays I read, but I suppose I just favour the Romantic Poets and even the Brontes. (Claustrophobic, feral hysteria aside.)

More importantly, there's a fascinating new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice in the works that I read about in the Guardian: Pride and Predator