Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen!

Elektra

Don't Call Me Sweetheart
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 11, 2006
Messages
894
Reaction score
166
I searched through the threads, and couldn't find a one specifically for this greatest work. So, voila! Here it is!
 

PattiTheWicked

Unleashing Hell.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 15, 2005
Messages
3,999
Reaction score
1,249
Website
www.pattiwigington.com
I love P&P! I think we had a thread related to it when the Keira Knightley movie version came out, over in Movies & TV, but I'm not sure we've had a book thread on it.

I heart Mr. Darcy.
 

Stew21

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 2, 2006
Messages
27,651
Reaction score
9,136
Location
lost in headspace
One of my very favorite books. (And I love the A&E movie much more than the Kiera one.)
I wonder if Jane Austen knew the depth of her characters--even the minor ones--how they were complex and flawed (as it should be).

I read it about once a year. I just get a craving for it, and have to.
 

PattiTheWicked

Unleashing Hell.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 15, 2005
Messages
3,999
Reaction score
1,249
Website
www.pattiwigington.com
Same here -- I'm actually working my way through my annual re-read of Sense & Sensibility, having just redone P&P back in March. Austen's work can't be read just once.

Every time I read P&P I catch on to subtle nuances that I missed the last 48 times around.
 

ink wench

ray of motherf#%&ing sunshine
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 11, 2007
Messages
3,764
Reaction score
5,952
Location
the winter of my discontent
Ooh, so I'm not the only one who's reads it about once a year? :) Whew! I feel better now. I love Elizabeth, and have this recurring urge to write a modern update of her character. (Not anything like Bridget Jones though.) One of my friends from college described our university as a "snob sleepover party" and that's the setting I envision. Maybe one day....
 

Britchik

Registered
Joined
Jul 5, 2007
Messages
33
Reaction score
3
Location
England
Okay, so I was required to read Pride and Prejudice for school when I was 16. I couldn't get past the first five pages. I later watched the movie (original BBC production, with Colin Firth!!!!) out of interest, and loved it. I went back to the book, but only managed about 50 pages before giving up again. I simply couldn't get into the prose, I guess. Am I the only one?
 

Deleted member 42

I am very very fond of Jane Austen; I'd hate to choose between P and P, Sense and Sensibility, or Northanger Abbey.

Her letters are fabulous as well.
 

wyntermoon

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 6, 2006
Messages
4,633
Reaction score
2,237
Website
threeseasagency.com
My most favorite book, followed closely by Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion. My husband and I have P&P weekends where we'll watch the A&E version and discuss (geek alert) the characters and how they play off each other. While not a fan of the newest version, I did think the cinematography was lovely. Now if they could have only found a better Elizabeth...

Anyone planning to see Becoming Jane this weekend?
 

Elektra

Don't Call Me Sweetheart
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 11, 2006
Messages
894
Reaction score
166
Perhaps there hasn't been a thread because of Pemberley.com? I used to be a fairly frequent poster over there, but they're so rigid about what can go in which thread that it became too much. Maybe we could do a group read of P&P?
 

PattiTheWicked

Unleashing Hell.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 15, 2005
Messages
3,999
Reaction score
1,249
Website
www.pattiwigington.com
Ooh, my parents are coming to visit next week and I'm going to kidnap mom and make her go see Becoming Jane with me. Otherwise I'll have to go alone, and that just makes me feel sad.
 

Elektra

Don't Call Me Sweetheart
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 11, 2006
Messages
894
Reaction score
166
Ooh, my parents are coming to visit next week and I'm going to kidnap mom and make her go see Becoming Jane with me. Otherwise I'll have to go alone, and that just makes me feel sad.

I'm a bit worried about the way they're maketing Becoming Jane. They're advertising it as a traditional HEA romance, and it seems like a lot of people are going to be disappointed when the heroine doesn't get the guy.
 

JBI

Banned
Joined
Oct 8, 2006
Messages
606
Reaction score
63
Location
Toronto Ontario
Becoming Jane got torn apart by my local paper. Generally I am a big fan of Austen. Her prose style is perhaps the greatest I have ever seen, though the predictability of her plots throws me off of her slightly (I know there will be a happy ending, therefore I don't feel any suspense).
 

pdr

Banned
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
4,259
Reaction score
832
Location
Home - but for how long?
I think...

that 'Persuasion' is my favourite of the books . If you can get the Penguin version which has both endings that she wrote, it is a wonderful insight into her writing skills.

I wish I had her ability to turn an ironic phrase and her wicked ability to point out the social hypocrisies she observed.
 

gvm

Registered
Joined
Oct 5, 2006
Messages
16
Reaction score
1
Location
India
Website
gargic-ivil.tripod.com
Hey I love P & P too, and like inkwench I too read it once a year! Unfortunately it doesn't look like Becoming Jane is coming to India at all, so I guess will just have to wait till the video comes out.
I am now reading a biography of hers written by James Edward Austen-Leigh, and its pretty good, though I hear the one by Carol Shields is the best one.
 

Scribhneoir

Reinventing Myself
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 1, 2006
Messages
1,165
Reaction score
134
Location
Southern California
I'm a bit worried about the way they're maketing Becoming Jane. They're advertising it as a traditional HEA romance, and it seems like a lot of people are going to be disappointed when the heroine doesn't get the guy.

I saw Becoming Jane today and my fellow audience members weren't disappointed at all when the heroine didn't get the guy. I heard nothing but good comments as folks exited the theater. On the other hand, since it's playing only at the art houses, I have a feeling the audience all knew perfectly well that Jane Austen never married, and therefore didn't expect her and Tom to get together.
 

Elektra

Don't Call Me Sweetheart
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 11, 2006
Messages
894
Reaction score
166
that 'Persuasion' is my favourite of the books . If you can get the Penguin version which has both endings that she wrote, it is a wonderful insight into her writing skills.

I wish I had her ability to turn an ironic phrase and her wicked ability to point out the social hypocrisies she observed.

What? WHAT?!?!?! There's another ending? How long is it? Can you post it?
 

wyntermoon

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 6, 2006
Messages
4,633
Reaction score
2,237
Website
threeseasagency.com
I saw Becoming Jane today and my fellow audience members weren't disappointed at all when the heroine didn't get the guy. I heard nothing but good comments as folks exited the theater. On the other hand, since it's playing only at the art houses, I have a feeling the audience all knew perfectly well that Jane Austen never married, and therefore didn't expect her and Tom to get together.

Great to hear! I thought too that most of the people seeing the film would know her history and wouldn't expect a wedding so wouldn't be disappointed. I'm very pleased that it got lovely audience reviews!
 

pdr

Banned
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
4,259
Reaction score
832
Location
Home - but for how long?
Persuasion.

Yes, JA wrote an ending which she was not happy with and rewrote it. No, it's not postable as it's a lot more than a few pages and I'm bush in Canada, away from my books, which are in storage in NZ.

My version is the UK Penguin Classics series, the Jane Austin volumes. Lovely books with expert prefaces and real Janite experts (Do you know that Rudyard Kipling story?) talking about her work. I bought it in 1966 and do not know if they still publish it with both endings.

For a writer it is most useful to read both endings as an insight into what to put in and what to leave it and why as done by a writer of quality!
 

Higgins

Banned
Joined
Sep 1, 2006
Messages
4,302
Reaction score
414
Irony?

Okay, so I was required to read Pride and Prejudice for school when I was 16. I couldn't get past the first five pages. I later watched the movie (original BBC production, with Colin Firth!!!!) out of interest, and loved it. I went back to the book, but only managed about 50 pages before giving up again. I simply couldn't get into the prose, I guess. Am I the only one?

Hmmm...The narrative voice seems to be one of the better things about Austen's work. It might be hard to see how economical, dry and ironical her narrative voice is compared to say Fanny Burney (whom Jane seems to have taken as her model in many ways)...anyway, if you read late 18th century stuff, you'll see that Austen does a much better job of keeping all the narrative balls in the air and being very funny about it. Her touch is light and sure, but with a powerful grasp of narrative technique and her (implied, but rarely stated) reflections on human motivation are exquisitely reductive. It think few novelists other than George Meredith (of all people) and Elizabeth Gaskel and Margaret Drabble in the late 1960s manage to do as much with as much economy as Austen...these days the best writing is expected to avoid demonstrating an intrusive mastery of the plot and its elements...and of course, Austen does the opposite of that.
Another interesting side-light on Austen is the nautical adventure novels of O'Brian who immersed himself in the writings of Austen's time, but even he rarely attempts narrative moves that have as much going on at once as Austen generally does. Maturin (the doctor and spy in O'Brian) has some rather Austenian moments when he reflects on passion and loneliness as they happen in his thoughts and writings.
 
Last edited:

Scribhneoir

Reinventing Myself
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 1, 2006
Messages
1,165
Reaction score
134
Location
Southern California
that 'Persuasion' is my favourite of the books . If you can get the Penguin version which has both endings that she wrote, it is a wonderful insight into her writing skills.

Are you referring to "The Cancelled Chapter of Persuasion (for which Chapters 22 and 23 were substituted)"? My copy has that. It also includes J.E. Austen-Leigh's memoir of Jane.

It's been several years since I last read Persuasion ... maybe it's time to revisit it.
 

Elektra

Don't Call Me Sweetheart
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 11, 2006
Messages
894
Reaction score
166
Another interesting side-light on Austen is the nautical adventure novels of O'Brian who immersed himself in the writings of Austen's time, but even he rarely attempts narrative moves that have as much going on at once as Austen generally does. Maturin (the doctor and spy in O'Brian) has some rather Austenian moments when he reflects on passion and loneliness as they happen in his thoughts and writings.

Oh, goodness. O'Brian has a lovely style, but you tend to get a few hundred pages into the story and realize that nothing's really happened, plotwise. Or at least I do anyway. But Jack is a wonderful character.

I think you might have hit the best part of Austen--her light touch. That she can make hundreds of thousands of words fly by, and, what's more, make every one of those words seem indespensible.
 

Higgins

Banned
Joined
Sep 1, 2006
Messages
4,302
Reaction score
414
Oh, goodness. O'Brian has a lovely style, but you tend to get a few hundred pages into the story and realize that nothing's really happened, plotwise. Or at least I do anyway. But Jack is a wonderful character.

I think you might have hit the best part of Austen--her light touch. That she can make hundreds of thousands of words fly by, and, what's more, make every one of those words seem indespensible.

With O'Brian, of course, a little Austenian lightness goes a long, long way.
The rhythm of the way things happen in O'Brian varies a lot: many things happen off-stage and are narrated by characters in such a way as to bring out both the nature of the character and of the setting and of the different kinds of narrative that O'Brian provides. For example, at one point, Jack writes a letter to his wife describing a bloody knife fight in some small boats, but he carefully tones it down despite the fact that we the readers "witness" it all being replayed in Jack's mind. It's kind of like the Episode of Band of Brothers where Captain Winters writes his report while reliving his single-handed bayonet charge against an SS battalion...though (perhaps paradoxically) the cinematic narrative tends to distance us from Winters while Jack's attempts to avoid verbal bloodshed gives us the illusion of an incredibly intimate glimpse of his personality.
In Fay Weldon's screenplay for the 1979 BBC P&P (by far the best cinematic version of the book) a similar double play with reading and writing gives a great view of how Elizabeth operates...indeed how she changes her mind and says "I never knew myself until now"....ie when she reads Darcy's letter.
 

Elektra

Don't Call Me Sweetheart
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 11, 2006
Messages
894
Reaction score
166
In Fay Weldon's screenplay for the 1979 BBC P&P (by far the best cinematic version of the book)

Definitely. But don't you wish you could replace the BBC Mrs. Bennet with the one from last year? I thought the most recent Mrs. Bennet gave us more understanding of Mrs. Bennet's motives in trying to marry off her essentially homeless daughters.
 

Higgins

Banned
Joined
Sep 1, 2006
Messages
4,302
Reaction score
414
Shuffling the good and bad

Definitely. But don't you wish you could replace the BBC Mrs. Bennet with the one from last year? I thought the most recent Mrs. Bennet gave us more understanding of Mrs. Bennet's motives in trying to marry off her essentially homeless daughters.


I thought the recent film version (K. Knightly et ali) had a lot going for it cinematically. It basically reduced the story to an ordeal for Elizabeth, but in the space of one movie, what else can you do?

One of the fun things about the Fay Weldon screen play is that Elizabeth is shown in the process of learning a lot about herself. Since the 1979 BBC version is the longest screen version, it has a lot more time to do such things. This process is at least hinted at in the K. Knightly version.

It seems that if Elizabeth has to suffer more as a central element (in the most recent screen version), then her mother has to appear more rational and less nightmarish...though I prefer nearly everything else about the Fay Weldon version -- for example, giving parts of the narrative language to the characters....even if Mrs. Bennet remains a relatively flat creature.