I went into this with literally no expectations. I kind of viewed Jane Austen as old timey romance novels, and contrary to the normal stereotype of males in their 30’s, this is not my typical fare. The copy I got was the Fall River Press Illustrated Edition complete with pen and ink illustrations by Charles Edmund Brock from the 1895 edition, and color illustrations by Hugh Thomson from the 1894 edition. Let me tell you, based on these illustrations, British aristocracy took being super pompous very seriously. Pretty early on I instantly saw the potential for total mockery. I mean, just look at the absolute Britishness of Mr. Collins. Makes me want to go get a cuppa and oppress peasants.
The aristocratic elite portrayed in the book seemed so out of touch with reality and obsessed with triviality that they were just asking to be ridiculed. One of my summaries early on, when they were all debating penmanship, my summary was “super boring.” My aunt, who has loved it from the start, set me straight and pointed out that the reality of their situation was essentially a requirement to play the game. Unless they wanted to die in squalor, they had to keep up with the social elite and not be ostracized. That meant dealing with lively debates about what fabric was used to make a dress and other….totally interesting things. It also explains, at least in part, why Mrs. Bennet was so super extra all the time when it came to trying to get her daughters married. She was still obnoxious AF, but I guess I could see why she employed her single brain cell in the effort of getting them hitched.
With this newfound perspective, I definitely continued to mock literally everyone aspect of the book, but with more understanding of their motives. As much as I hate to say it, the book actually kind of grew on me. The closed third-person narrative had an annoying tendency of molding my emotions throughout. Went from strongly disliking Darcy to grudgingly admitting he was a solid dude.
At first Colleen (my wife) and others were like “No hate Darcy! I love me some Darcy! I want his babies!” Well, maybe not that last part, but still. They were telling me he was not a pompous ass, he was just shy, and I would see. But here’s the thing, he WAS a pompous ass. He even admitted it. It took Elizabeth rejecting him and verbally tearing him a new one for him to realize how stuck up he was. Sure, maybe she didn’t have all the facts about Wickham, but everything else was spot on. Dude was struttin’ around all “None so handsome as to tempt ME!” The whole time everyone could could all see his nose hairs he was turning his nose up at them so hard core.
Also, Colleen pointed out that it was satire, but still, I have met people like Mrs. Bennet and Lydia and UUUGGGGHHHHHHH. THEY ARE THE WORST.
Would I read it again? Probably not. Was it worth a read? Yes, if for nothing else than now I can turn my nose up at people who haven’t read it. “WhAaAaAtTtT!?!?!!? YoU’vE nEvEr ReAd JaNe AuStEn!?!?!” and then proceed to tell them how uncultured they are. That’s a win in my book. By the way, I find that phrase to be super annoying. When someone finds out you haven’t seen a movie/read a book/listened to an artist and respond with “You’ve NEVER read/heard/seen ____?!?!?” Like, is there an echo in here? Don’t be that guy.
Speaking of seeing things, I guess now I will be required to watch the 1995 miniseries and the 2005 movie. That’ll be kind of annoying though since I will spend the whole time being all snobby about how the book was different. I try not to do that since I know that books and movies/TV series are different by necessity, but I still find myself doing it. That is why I am much more interested in watching Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, since I have a guarantee they will be closer to the source material. If I do watch any of those things, I will post a review.