The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 18 September 2012
by Jane Austen
How shall we talk about one of the most famous and beloved novels in all of English literature? Surely, this book is still required reading for countless high school students. Girls and women, certainly, adore the book, and its fantasy that a middle class girl can turn the heart of an upper class, prideful but soulful heart-throb. The landscape of film and spin-off literature (from Colin Firth's turn as Fitzwilliam Darcy in the famed BBC adaptation to Colin Firth's turn as Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones's Diary) has given us the images and voices with which to populate the book as we read it. So, Pride and Prejudice is laden with the prejudices that have attended its fame. And the story itself is well-known. We have the Bennett family, a well-to-do but not fabulously rich landed family with five daughters and no male heir to inherit the property. This makes marrying at least one of the daughters to some money key to the comfort of the sisters as they enter adulthood. Eventually, their home will fall to the obsequious Mr Collins, who makes an insipid proposal to Miss Elizabeth. Lizzy Bennett, the second-eldest daughter is the heroine of the story. She is smart, sharp, strong-willed and tolerably pretty, thought not as beautiful as her older sister Jane. A wealthy bachelor buys an estate nearby, and when he arrives, he brings his friend Mr. Darcy, who is very wealthy, marriagable, and also gives people the impression of pride and intolerable condescension. But, Darcy, also, is confined by the social rules of his class. Elizabeth is the daughter of a gentleman, yes, but the family has unfavorable connections. A complex dance of expectations and social requirements ensues.
The Bennett daughters carry the hopes of the family. In their world, they must plan well and marry well to assure their comfort and happiness. Jane Austen subtly and wittily critiques this aspect of her culture, that of landed families in the early 19th century. She knew whereof she wrote, having herself sprung from a moderately comfortable family with many siblings, though she never married, and died at 41. The needs of this comfort and social expectations seem to grate on the author, and she applies a modern-sounding critique. The book was also first titled "First Impressions". Austen looks at the expectations of the short courtship and engagements of her milieu. She tells a warm story of how first impressions are often false, and how love and attachment can grow over time. It is as if she is presenting a progressive view on love and marriage for her social set. One cannot but identify Lizzy Bennett, self-possessed and independent, with the author. Austen's writing is ornate, somewhat complex to the modern reader immersed in the complex expectations of language. She is witty, satirical and sharp. And she is compassionate to the women who must make uncomfortable choices in love to guarantee their material survival. Justifiably, this book is regarded as a landmark in the literature. And it is a quick-paced engaging read as well. But you probably didn't need anyone to tell you that already.
Also by Austen: [Sense and Sensibility] [Mansfield Park]