I want to start recording some thoughts I have when reading books. Don’t want to mull over these thoughts too much. Just want to present them as they are immediately after reading them.
So I just finished the quintessential English novel, “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen, for the first time. Here are my thoughts:
- It’s not bad. I’d be lying if I said it was exciting, or a page-turner. To be fair, it is entertaining, but the formal, verbose style with which it was written (classic 18th-century-slash-19th-century upper-class-speak) does take a lot of getting used to. Doesn’t help that I alternate PnP with reading Instagram captions or news headlines.
- Austen’s insight into character is impressive. Being able to write beautifully and stylistically does come in handy when you want to create distinct characters, and Austen does create some really distinguishable characters. Even if I don’t pay attention to every single sentence, I am able to visualize different characters easily.
- I want to go back to my previous comment about PnP not being a page-turner. It still isn’t. But, in its defense, it does care a lot more about the reader’s attention than novels from the centuries after, when authors can ramble on about philosophy and ethical dilemmas and all that grand stuff (think George Eliot, Woolf, Proust. They can really go to town with character exploration). In PnP, a lot of character exploration is done through plot.
- Mr Collins is such a dickhead. He really is. He is so vain as to believe that whoever he turns to will fall in love with him, all because of his stupid patron Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who is also a proud piece of shit. He even rejects Elizabeth’s rejection, thinking she does not in all her good sense know what she’s doing! That scene really gets me. Unfortunately, men like that can still be found everywhere nowadays. Their wealth and power and standing boost their ego so much they’re literally incapable of understanding when women reject them. Their capacity for feeling is shallow, and in return Austen paints Mr Collins as a caricature himself, worshipping Lady Catherine’s toes and looking down on everyone else. Still more unfortunate is that society will continue to breed more characters like this, because women like Charlotte Lucas will take what Mr Collins has to offer (financial stability) even if she feels no love for him.
I know it to be the established custom of your sex to reject a man on the first application, and perhaps you have even now said as much to encourage my suit as would be consistent with the true delicacy of the female character
Mr Collins to Elizabeth, Chapter 19, Pride and Prejudice
- Elizabeth is quite a revolutionary. Yes, she is sensible as hell, but she really stands her ground when she feels she is in the right. That meeting with Lady Catherine near the end of the novel when Lady Catherine, using all her power and might, attempts to verbally reduce Elizabeth to nothing, and Elizabeth just throws sass all over the woman–oof! That was nice to see but it must’ve taken a hell of a lot of guts to say such a thing against such a powerful senior back in those days. But although I say she’s a revolutionary, I feel like Elizabeth is still very much operating within the system which writes the moral guidelines. She’s not transgressive in that sense.
- She’s also quite proud. The amount of awkward silences between Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam (yes, that is Darcy’s first name, don’t you ever forget that) is down to the fact that Elizabeth feels very indignant towards him. She hates him for being such a snob and being so up his own arse, and we as readers can definitely feel that (because most of the narration indirectly evokes her sentiments), so she imitates him in being silent on their infinite number of walks (something we can relate to living in Covid times!). Just as well for her, because apparently that (i.e. being angry at him) made her more attractive in Darcy’s eyes:
You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused, and interested you, because I was so unlike them.
Elizabeth speaking to Fitzwilliam, Chapter 60, Pride and Prejudice
- Marriage means so much more for women than for men. No wonder women are “educated” for marriage since the day they were born. For men in PnP, marriage is a matter of solidifying social reputation, or, in Wickham’s case, to get some money before his bad reputation is discovered. Of course, men such as Bingley and Darcy marry for love and respect, but in those cases they have much to offer and little to lose. They have a choice for women, is what I’m trying to say, and if one rejects them they can find another. If it weren’t for Elizabeth’s character being able to touch Darcy’s heart, Bingley would’ve married someone else of higher social standing and he would have nothing to lose. On the other hand, Mrs Bennet’s hope of connecting Longbourn with Netherfield would be dashed to pieces. It is therefore understandable why Mrs Bennet holds no strong morals, but only those that allow her to marry her daughters to rich men of great reputation. Women in PnP, on the other hand, risk everything they have in a marriage, and not every one of the marriages in the novel are successful or necessarily happy ones. Charlotte Lucas is the perfect example of why a woman would want to marry not out of love, but simply for financial stability. For women, simply falling in love is not enough. Look what happens to Lydia, who believes in falling passionately in love in the blink of an eye. She manages to pull her whole family name down with her. It’s no wonder Jane and Elizabeth, the more mature ones, have to temper themselves, tempering their hopes and dreams, observing the rules of courting and all that jazz. Reminds me of the first episode of Bridgerton, when Daphne’s brother rules out every potential suitor at the ball for Daphne because they’re either a fraud or a cheat or in debt. So yeah, the world of marriage is a tough one for women, and once you’re in it, you’re in it for good.
My reasons for marrying are, first, that I think it a right thing for every clergyman in easy circumstances (like myself) to set the example of matrimony in his parish. Secondly, that I am convinced it will add very greatly to my happiness; and thirdly–which perhaps I ought to have mentioned earlier, that it is the particular advice and recommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling patroness.
Mr Collins to Elizabeth, Chapter 19, Pride and Prejudice
Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her [Charlotte’s] object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want.
Elizabeth speaking of Charlotte, Chapter 22, Pride and Prejudice
- Lydia would’ve done much better if she were born in 19th century France. She’s the wild one in the family, partying in Brighton, checking out the hot officers and generals who arrive in town, flirting left and right not because she wants to find a worthy match but simply because she loves it. She’s the one who “falls in love” in the manner Flaubert would’ve loved; in a Flaubert novel she, and not Elizabeth, would be the heroine. But this is not France, it’s England, and in England you cannot behave the way Lydia behaves. So she becomes a lesson for posterity; she becomes the opposite of Elizabeth and Jane. She pitches the Bennet name into ruin and leaves it to the elder Bennets to bring its reputation back up.
- There is something Dickensian in Austen’s portrayal of society. Austen may be witty in her portrayal of society, but that doesn’t mean the characters she portrays are nice people. Apart from the four central characters (Bingley, Jane, Elizabeth, Darcy) the rest of the troupe are not that nice. It just goes to show that all the glamour in English high society does not amount to good characters or consciences.
- PnP is not simply a love story. It tells us so much more about the social structure that produces the phenomenon called “love” than simply being a tale of passion. That’s probably true for most great love stories anyways, but I think it’s particularly striking that Elizabeth spends more than half of the novel hating Darcy’s guts, and even as her attitude towards him starts to change, she remains pretty sensible about things. She is pretty insecure about whether he likes her back or not (understandably so, after her rejection of his proposal and him being cool as a cucumber as always); she keeps doubting herself, because everyone around her tells her Darcy isn’t interested in her: her dad, Jane etc. In fact, for most of the novel both Darcy and Elizabeth are second-guessing each other, trying to figure out each other’s thoughts. We don’t really get an idea of love blossoming in Elizabeth’s chest until the very end of the novel. No, love is hardly mentioned by Elizabeth. In fact, it is more often than not mocked by the moral characters of the novel. We mostly see how Elizabeth’s view of Darcy dramatically changes through her observation of his actions. I think it’s more about how both characters struggle against all the social forces which stop them from acting true to themselves, and in the end this victory on both sides end in a happy marriage. It’s not a love story as we now know it, but it shows two people with a common outlook and moral vision coming together, overcoming the obstacles society throws their way to hold them back.
But that expression of “violently in love” is so hackneyed, so doubtful, so indefinite, that it gives me very little idea. It is as often applied to feelings which arise from an half-hour’s acquaintance, as to a real, strong attachment
Jane to Elizabeth, Chapter 25, Pride and Prejudice
I’ll be interested to read this book again later in life, see how I think of it then. In the meantime, I definitely want to watch the adaptations of it, both the BBC one with Colin Firth and the movie with Keira Knightley. Would be interested to see whether my observations from the novel are retained on screen.
I’m going to have to give my brain a bit of a rest after this. Need to read something with language much easier to decipher.
What do you think I should read next?
Literally Left-handed 
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