Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. 1813. Ed. Pamela Norris. London: Everyman, 1996.
I am glad that books are no longer made in the manner of and on the same material as Jane Austen novels. Chick-lit fans may disagree now, but while the marriage plot might still be in full form, let’s hope the writers of chick-lit have learned from the 20th-century to show rather than tell. Yes, I’m telling Austen to show and not to tell and such a thing is wildly unfair, to read her 18th/19th-century text (finished in 1797 [at age 22!] but not published until 1813) with my 21st-century demands, but not a single action or plot point is dramatized in this novel. Everything is heard about through gossip and correspondence. Indeed, the falling action is little more than an explosion of letters.
Briefly, for those who haven’t read it, he is prideful and she is prejudiced against him. Will it work out in the end for the two? You already know the answer, and I suppose the one credit I have to give Austen is that the intricacies undertaken in the plot of getting them together are admirable in their intricacy. But see above re execution.
I think my professor wants us to read this as a comedy of manners, which "is principally concerned with the manners and conventions of an artificial and )at least apparently) highly sophisticated society [from an handout]. Here it’s the English aristocracy and its courtship rituals. Taming of the Shrew and Wilde’s Earnest are other examples, neither of which I cared for when I read them. What makes me dislike comedies of manners so much (and I’ve really only read these three) is foremost that they’re humorous without ever being really funny (Wilde being only sometimes an exception), and but more so that the societies they set up for ridicule are by now inherently ridiculous, and I don’t think it’s thanks to these comedies. Time itself has enabled this to happed. And then because the comedy of manners must recreate with exacting detail the customs and minutiae of their culture in order to work, I see them as more accepting of this culture than critical of it. It’s like Bushism calendars and Dilbert strips. Laughing with them seems to me an act of complicity. You can agree that our president or one’s office is stupid, but on some level you’re accepting their existence. You’re deeming them acceptable. Dilbert gives people a way to temporarily alleviate the agony of loathing one’s job or feeling powerless in one’s work. What it doesn’t give are any real ideas of what someone is supposed to do about it.
One good thing: Austen refers to the piano (or, rather, the pianoforte), at all times, as simply “the instrument.”
Briefly, for those who haven’t read it, he is prideful and she is prejudiced against him. Will it work out in the end for the two? You already know the answer, and I suppose the one credit I have to give Austen is that the intricacies undertaken in the plot of getting them together are admirable in their intricacy. But see above re execution.
I think my professor wants us to read this as a comedy of manners, which "is principally concerned with the manners and conventions of an artificial and )at least apparently) highly sophisticated society [from an handout]. Here it’s the English aristocracy and its courtship rituals. Taming of the Shrew and Wilde’s Earnest are other examples, neither of which I cared for when I read them. What makes me dislike comedies of manners so much (and I’ve really only read these three) is foremost that they’re humorous without ever being really funny (Wilde being only sometimes an exception), and but more so that the societies they set up for ridicule are by now inherently ridiculous, and I don’t think it’s thanks to these comedies. Time itself has enabled this to happed. And then because the comedy of manners must recreate with exacting detail the customs and minutiae of their culture in order to work, I see them as more accepting of this culture than critical of it. It’s like Bushism calendars and Dilbert strips. Laughing with them seems to me an act of complicity. You can agree that our president or one’s office is stupid, but on some level you’re accepting their existence. You’re deeming them acceptable. Dilbert gives people a way to temporarily alleviate the agony of loathing one’s job or feeling powerless in one’s work. What it doesn’t give are any real ideas of what someone is supposed to do about it.
One good thing: Austen refers to the piano (or, rather, the pianoforte), at all times, as simply “the instrument.”
posted by Dusty at 11:40 AM
2 Comments:
No, yer totally right. The major characters in the novel aren't war heroes or men of action. They aren't, most of them, men at all, so it makes total perfect sense for them to receive news, and for the action to be based more on reaction, emotional or otherwise.
Like I said, I'm throwing 21st-century demands on the book, which is unfair, but I still think it's frustrating to read.
I'm probably just being snooty. I think what I'm trying to do is say why these things aren't my taste, aren't my "bag" as A. Powers says. Clearly it's stupid for me to say why Austen or Dilbert are "bad" or "don't work", because duh they do and, in one case at least, have for centuries. They don't work for me.
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