Pride and Prejudice

They made me read Great Expectations and Silas Marner. I tried on my own to read Anna Karenina (and failed after 50 or so pages). I read The Great Gatsby one day when I had run out of what to read (turned out to be loads of fun though). But there was no drudgery at all to reading Pride and Prejudice. In my book, this is by far the easiest classic to read. And the funniest! You are bound to love Jane Austen's wit in Pride and Prejudice. Mr. Bennett's sardonicism is chuckle-inducing, Mrs. Bennett's dunceness could only be captured by a playful mind, and Lizzy's sassiness is not only entertaining, its inspiring, even now when women are all liberated and what not. Aside from the cleverness of it, the novel also has value as a sort of history, and a commentary on family life at the time (and not everything has changed since then!).



I read the novel after seeing the movie starring Kara Knightly and Matthew McFadyen. Judi Dench adds her usual vigor, as Lady Catherine de Bourgh.



I enjoyed the movie so much I had to read the novel; because I know how unfaithful Hollywood can be, I had to go read for myself. They didn't do badly this time. Except, I'm befuddled as to how they came to depict Mr. Collins as being ridiculously short, when Jane Austen clearly said he was tall and heavy. In the novel, the fantastic passion between Darcy and Lizzy is expressed only through the spoken word, which makes it even sexier, if you ask me. But you know Hollywood, sexual tension is expressed through, well... sex, so they exaggerated just a little, but the thing is, if decorum had allowed it back then, Austen might have served up a raunchy scene, so Hollywood taking a little liberty here or there, is not being unfaithful to the essence of the novel.

The long and short of this post is; Pride and Prejudice makes a fantastic read.