One of the nifty things about being friend with Lady Pole, among myriads, is her excellent taste in literature, and her openness about discussing books. So a little while ago, we came up with the idea of a book discussion here at the Free For All where we could air our real views about some of those “classic” books that everyone is “supposed to read”…and supposed to value/treasure/enjoy.
The truth of the matter is that even when two people read the same book…no two people read the same book. They bring their lives with them into the text, and that totally influences how they perceive, digest, and remember the book. And this was something Lady Pole and I discovered as we chatted about some of those classics that we had encountered in our lives. So here is a much more mature, adultish version of that discussion for you to enjoy. While we are very pleased with our own opinions, what we really hope you, dear readers, take away from these discussions is the realization that: 1) Reading “classics” can be really fun and meaningful and significant (that’s part of what makes them “classics” after all!), 2) That you are under no obligation whatsoever to enjoy the classics that you read, as you’ll soon see, and 3) That your own story is critically important to how you read any book. So here is our chat–we sincerely hope it encourages you to have a conversation of your own!
First Encounter
Lady Pole: I was in high school the first time I read Pride and Prejudice; I think it was sophomore or junior year. A friend of mine had read it and told me I would love it. It also helped that we were working together on finding material for a speech competition (yup, I was one of those kids) and the amount of dialog in the book lent itself to being a good option. We qualified for the state competition with our hand-picked excerpt, so this book brings back good memories, as well.
Arabella: I was in college, taking a course on The Early English Novel, which looked at novels from the 18th- and early 19th-centuries not only in terms of their stories, but in terms of their printing and distribution history. It was one of my favorite classes that year, even though (and this is the mark of a good professor, dear readers, none of the books were particularly enjoyable for me. Pride and Prejudice came towards the end of the semester, after Clarissa, The Mysteries of Udolpho, and Northanger Abbey, among others.
First Impressions
Lady Pole: I fell in love. This was one of the first classics I read on my own that wasn’t part of assigned reading, so that may have also heightened my enjoyment of the text, but for me, Elizabeth Bennet was the be-all-end-all of literary heroines. In a lot of ways, she still is. She is flawed, but strong. Level-headed and yet somehow headstrong at the same time. She wants love and she wants it on her own terms. She was exactly what my teenaged-self was looking for at the time and continues to be a pretty high standard for my adult self when it comes to literary heroines by comparison. I also enjoyed Austen’s writing-style. The comedy of manners remains as one of my favorite types of books to read and Austen’s wit is a large part of why this book resonated with me.
Arabella: It took me a really, really long time to get into this book. I think some of that had to do with end-of-the-semester burnout, but I also think that Austen’s writing style and I just didn’t (and still don’t, to a large extent) get along. I appreciate her arch observations immensely, but I really didn’t enjoy her technique of stating characters’ opinions as if they were fact, as in the opening line of the book (“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”). I felt it put distance between me and the characters, which made it difficult to really get to know them. I also had a hard time liking Elizabeth…what stood out to me was how much she derided other women in the book, which is something Miss Bingley notes. She cares for Jane, who is very quiet, and Georgiana, who is very quiet, but is very scornful of all the other women around her–which made me think that she wouldn’t like me very much (and since I really appreciated her strength, this made me sad). As we see throughout the book, her kneejerk reactions are often wrong (Wickham, Darcy…), which she sort-of realizes at the end, but not in so thorough a manner as I was hoping to see.
Outside Influences
Lady Pole: I went into my first reading fairly uninfluenced, which is rare for me with a classic. I have since read this book numerous times, including during a freshman English class in college with one of my favorite professors, where I learned just how funny Austen could really be (particularly through Mr. Collins’ absurdities) and on a cruise where it was a refreshing change to visit an old favorite after reading about the ill-fated cruise passengers in Kurt Vonnegut’s Galapagos. I know what everyone is probably thinking at this point: what about the BBC adaptation with Colin Firth??? That adaptation made me love Mr. Darcy. I had my trepidations about the character even after Lizzy got her happily ever after with him, but Firth brought a level of tenderness and depth to Mr. Darcy that went previously unnoticed by me in the text. Pride and Prejudice also helped me appreciate the humor of Bridget Jones’s Diary (book and movie, though less so the sequels), which in turn helped me to appreciate re-imaginings of classic texts more.
Arabella: I had seen the BBC adaptation before reading the book, and I think I was looking for the same level of accessibility in the text, which, as I mentioned, I certainly didn’t find. But it did help me understand some of the subtext in the book that I wasn’t getting from Austen’s narrative. The group of historical re-enactors that I worked with also had constant debates over the immortal “Darcy or Rochester” question, which meant I was definitely holding Darcy to a much higher standard than I think I otherwise might have done.
Recent Reflections
Lady Pole: I’ve never stopped loving Pride and Prejudice and still return to the text in whole or in part when I need a literary pick-me-up. While I don’t consider myself a Jane-ite, dressing in Regency costume and going to conventions, I’m still (and I think always will be) a huge fan, not just of P&P, but of Austen in general. Pride and Prejudice is one of those books that made a strong emotional impression on me because it was a book that I read at just the right time. I know it isn’t that way for everyone, but even more discerning opinions have never wavered my enthusiasm.