carlin
I enjoy having read Pride and Prejudice more than I enjoyed reading it
The book is well structured, there's lots going on, the chapters are short, it's unpredictable and so forth, however there is something about the style of writing which I found generally quite dry and unengaging. Given all it's qualities, it seems to lie mostly in the manner in which it is written due to it being over two centuries old.
However saying this, I found it very enlightening regarding the life and times of the period, and I would say that this really is a must-read for (British) people for that reason alone if you are unfamiliar with them.
As an example of both the difficulty and the enlightenment, the practice of referring to people exclusively as Mr, Mrs, Miss, etc is unfamiliar to me, such that I tend to pay attention more to the *name* than the *M.*, and so I frequently had to re-read which M. it was. However, at the same time, this is also revealing of what marriage is and its function (historically perhaps) which is not something which I had really thought much about.
Maybe surprising, but my favourite characters by far were Mr and Mrs Bennet! Also, there's that book The Other Bennet Sister and she really is the other one
--- spoilers ---
In terms of the plot/romance, I was really pleasantly surprised that the declaration of Darcy's love happens around halfway through! I was also surprised how much this isn't really about their romance though, but again was Jane Austen writing a "romance"? Maybe classically it is romantic but not what we would consider one to be nowadays. Anyways, I do ship them and they both feel very realistic. I especially loved "A man who had felt less, might"
I also must mention that I really was waiting for Darcy to profess his love in the rain. Which is also to say that I did read this fully spoiled, which I don't think is really possible to avoid
I very much see how suited this is for education as the title itself provides the breadcrumbs for you. It's almost distracting every time the words appear, but it was satisfying when I pieced together the foil of Wickham and Darcy in regards to prejudice (and to a lesser extent pride).
I went against my usual practice and around a fifth of the way through, I read the two appendices regarding Entail and Dancing. During the former, I got the idea that Mr Bennet dies during the book and so I read much of it trying to figure out when he would die π . Of course once Mr Collins is married, I knew that the clock was ticking, and when he kept living I was more curious. I decided though, once he had gone to town in search of Lydia that this would be the perfect moment! I imagined that roughly concurrently Darcy would propose to Lizzie and that Pemberly would be the life-raft for the Bennet's after they lose Longbourn. Alas Mr Bennet survives his trip to London in the end.
I enjoy having read Pride and Prejudice more than I enjoyed reading it
The book is well structured, there's lots going on, the chapters are short, it's unpredictable and so forth, however there is something about the style of writing which I found generally quite dry and unengaging. Given all it's qualities, it seems to lie mostly in the manner in which it is written due to it being over two centuries old.
However saying this, I found it very enlightening regarding the life and times of the period, and I would say that this really is a must-read for (British) people for that reason alone if you are unfamiliar with them.
As an example of both the difficulty and the enlightenment, the practice of referring to people exclusively as Mr, Mrs, Miss, etc is unfamiliar to me, such that I tend to pay attention more to the *name* than the *M.*, and so I frequently had to re-read which M. it was. However, at the same time, this is also revealing of what marriage is and its function (historically perhaps) which is not something which I had really thought much about.
Maybe surprising, but my favourite characters by far were Mr and Mrs Bennet! Also, there's that book The Other Bennet Sister and she really is the other one
--- spoilers ---
In terms of the plot/romance, I was really pleasantly surprised that the declaration of Darcy's love happens around halfway through! I was also surprised how much this isn't really about their romance though, but again was Jane Austen writing a "romance"? Maybe classically it is romantic but not what we would consider one to be nowadays. Anyways, I do ship them and they both feel very realistic. I especially loved "A man who had felt less, might"
I also must mention that I really was waiting for Darcy to profess his love in the rain. Which is also to say that I did read this fully spoiled, which I don't think is really possible to avoid
I very much see how suited this is for education as the title itself provides the breadcrumbs for you. It's almost distracting every time the words appear, but it was satisfying when I pieced together the foil of Wickham and Darcy in regards to prejudice (and to a lesser extent pride).
I went against my usual practice and around a fifth of the way through, I read the two appendices regarding Entail and Dancing. During the former, I got the idea that Mr Bennet dies during the book and so I read much of it trying to figure out when he would die π . Of course once Mr Collins is married, I knew that the clock was ticking, and when he kept living I was more curious. I decided though, once he had gone to town in search of Lydia that this would be the perfect moment! I imagined that roughly concurrently Darcy would propose to Lizzie and that Pemberly would be the life-raft for the Bennet's after they lose Longbourn. Alas Mr Bennet survives his trip to London in the end.