Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

It's been a while, so you would think I've read all sorts of fun stuff, which is true. However, I don't want to get into all the crap when I can gush over great literature.

Pride and Prejudice is one of those books that everyone has read at one point in their academic careers, I think. Austen is a great writer, and Pride is probably her best known work. I know I had to read it once in high school, and while I liked it, it didn't leave that much of an impression on me.

That's not true for other people, judging from the mountain of profession fanfiction in the market today. You could read the entire thing from Darcy's perspective. (the cleverly titled Darcy's Story) You could read what happens if the book's timeline was changed. (Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy: The Last Man in the World is just one example.) You could even see Elizabeth fight against the zombie hordes. (the nerd-ification masterpiece Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) There are literally dozens of books that try to continue, alter, and play with Austen's original story, at least according to Wikipedia, and we should always trust Wikipedia.


My reasons for rereading Pride are a bit.. murky. All I really remember about it was that I enjoyed it, and the reason why I bought a copy in the first place was to see if I can enjoy it now as an old maid an adult. The second reason is a bit harder to explain and largely has to do with Mr. Darcy.

Darcy is one of those male leads that romance writers try desperately to write, at least that's the impression I get. He's tall, dark, handsome... rich. A lot of Austen fans love him and consider him a romantic ideal. (Austenland and Bridget Jones's Diary come to mind.)

Fangirls cannot be trusted, however, especially when it comes to overly romanticized characters. Take Wuthering Heights' Heathcliff for example. He is considered by many of his fangirls to be a romantic figure, but after reading that book last year, all I got from it was that Heathcliff is a monster. He does horrible things to everyone around him, and yet there's still people saying that he's wonderful. (I blame Laurence Olivier for this.)

I also blame Colin Firth for a lot of the love Mr. Darcy gets nowadays, but in this case I do think the character deserves it. He's cold and and sometimes cruel, but he doesn't stay that way and becomes a very likeable guy by the end. Hell, I wouldn't mind a Mr. Darcy of my own, especially if he's as rich as the original.

For fun, you should do what I did: read the book, then watch the 1995 BBC miniseries, and follow that with the ITV series Lost in Austen, because why not? The BBC miniseries really does a wonderful job in bringing the book to life (and it cemented for me just how annoying/irredeemable some of the characters are.)

And I do think following that with Lost in Austen should be mandatory, only because that series takes as many cues from the BBC adaptation as it does from the books themselves. (The main character's ringtone is the opening them to the BBC adaptation for Darcy's sake...) It also provides a different side to the characters (not the least of which being Mrs. Bennet as a hard-as-nails Mama Bear and Wickham as an honorable rogue.) There are even lesbians involved. (This show must be seen by everyone!)

Overall, I liked it, just like I did when I was in high school. I think I enjoyed more this time around, however. It stayed with me this time, and the BBC adaptation helped a lot, too. I'm not inclined to read any of the continuations, alternate universe tales, and other bastardizations of the original story (except for maybe Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), but I won't say I never will. Hell, I might even write my own. I think the world needs more Darcy (and if I 'accidentally' add some sexual tension between Darcy and Wickham, would anyone really notice?)

Next time, I gush a bit over Gaiman's "Study in Emerald" and probably return with yet another terrible Star Trek novel.