Top Shelf Books #9 – Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen

Been quite a while since I did one of these. The original idea was to read everything on The Bookcase and weed out the chaff, while the good books would be put on the top shelf. Never did manage to read everything so I have started again.

Therefore the first book on the current top shelf is:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, 1813

‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.’

So when I was growing up, there was a shelf in the living room that held some of The Parents’ old books (and like fifteen Bibles, which is odd since we were not an overtly religious family). One of these books was a dinky little edition of Pride and Prejudice, which in fact looked a bit like a Bible (similar super thin pages). I tried to read it once and couldn’t get much further than that famous opening line that was total gibberish to me at the time.

A while later, in the mid-to-late teens, possibly at The Father’s house or borrowed from there, I watched the infamous 1995 mini series starring Colin Firth as Mr Darcy, which started the nearest thing I have ever had to an actual crush. Although I will point out that while I do think Colin Firth must be what this ‘sexy’ thing is that people talk about, I still didn’t appreciate the pond scene.

Anyway, I loved the mini series so much that I watched all six hours of it again straight away. And then I read the book, which now made perfect sense to me. For a while there I absolutely loved Pride and Prejudice and even (and with hindsight, this baffles me) wasn’t sure which I liked more, Pride and Prejudice or Jane Eyre. (It’s Jane Eyre. By about a thousand miles.)

Anyway, for a few years I loved the mini series and I loved the novel. Later on The Father, I think, got me this nice modern-looking edition all of my own. I don’t like it when classics just have some generatic bit of a painting on the front. I think they should like ‘real’ books.

I’m really bad at summarising plots. I struggle to do this for my own writing and it’s just as difficult for someone else’s. So, Pride and Prejudice, in case you have just landed on this planet and haven’t heard of it, is about a young woman called Elizabeth Bennet. Her family home is entailed away to a male relative so she and her four sisters have to marry well in order to survive in the future. She meets two men, Mr Darcy, who is rude, and Mr Wickham, who is friendly, but maybe people aren’t as clear cut as they seem on the surface.

Will that do? I tried not to put in any spoilers. For PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, possibly the most famous book in history.

Now for an extract…

‘Oh! Mr Bennet, you are wanted immediately; we are all in an uproar. You must come and make Lizzy marry Mr Collins, for she vows she will not have him, and if you do not make haste he will change his mind and not have her.’

Mr Bennet raised his eyes from his book as she entered, and fixed them on her face with a calm unconcern which was not in the least altered by her communication.

‘I have not the pleasure of understanding you,’ said he, when she had finished her speech. ‘Of what are you talking?’

‘Of Mr Collins and Lizzy. Lizzy declares she will not have Mr Collins, and Mr Collins begins to say that he will not have Lizzy.’

‘And what am I to do on the occasion? – It seems an hopeless business.’

‘Speak to Lizzy about it yourself. Tell her that you insist upon her marrying him.’

‘Let her be called down. She shall hear my opinion.’

Mrs Bennet rang the bell, and Miss Elizabeth was summoned to the library.

‘Come here, child,’ cried her father as she appeared. ‘I have sent for you on an affair of importance. I understand that Mr Collins has made you an offer of marriage. Is it true?’ Elizabeth replied that it was. ‘Very well – and this offer of marriage you have refused?’

‘I have, sir.’

‘Very well. We now come to the point. Your mother insists upon your accepting it. Is not it so, Mrs Bennet?’

‘Yes, or I will never see her again.’

‘An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.’

These days, I’m kind of bored of the mini series and the book. Last time I watched the mini series, I found the pace to be rather dull, lots of going for walks and writing letters, and being more familiar with the novel, some of the cuts disappoint me. And the last couple of times I read or tried to read the novel, I found it had become SO famous, that I really struggled to concentrate on it. That's not the book's fault, of course. It deserves to be famous. But it is hard to appreciate the nuances of a story when you could probably read the page with your eyes shut.

It is definitely the best of Austen though.

If you are interested, here is my four star review on Goodreads.