The Wittiest Romance
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Just me on Friday, February 12, 2010 11:09 PM
I was in high school when I first saw the film You’ve Got Mail, and I remember being bewildered by the main character’s professed yearly rereading of Pride and Prejudice. Why, I wondered, would anyone want to read that book more than once? I’d slogged through it because I had an idea that every well-read person should be familiar with Austen, but my fifteen-year-old self had not been impressed. I found the book at best mildly interesting, and mostly crashingly boring.
At some point during college, encouraged by friends who were Pride and Prejudice lovers, I picked up the book again. Only a few chapters in, I was hooked, and surprised to find that Kathleen Kelly’s love of Pride and Prejudice suddenly made sense to me. The beauty of the language, the complexity of the characters - she’s right about all of it.
Where my fifteen-year-old self read endless yawn-inducing dialogue, my twenty-something self sees page after page of delightful hilarity. My young self wondered why the romances in the story took such an incredibly long time to resolve; my older self loves Austen’s careful characterization and her pitch-perfect plotting.
In honor of Valentine’s Day I’m indulging in the restrained romance of Pride and Prejudice for the umpteenth time, and enjoying it all - the language, the wit, the story - more than ever. I might have to pull Persuasion or Sense and Sensibility from my bookshelf next.
I know Austen is not for everyone. Many people probably feel about her the way I feel about my mom’s beloved Robert Heinlein: I can appreciate the skill of the author, but I’m uninterested in the genre.
The adventures of Elizabeth Bennet and Elinor Dashwood and their counterparts, on the other hand, will always hold great appeal for me.
How do you feel about Jane Austen’s works?
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