Now don't get me wrong, I have read plenty of romance books, from my mum's condensed Reader's Digest set of Romance type books to some Mills and Boon. So the fact that I am a guy does not reflect on the fact I have spent nearly a month on this book.I read the first two chapters of Pride and Prejudice and gave up.
The writing reminded me of the literature novels from school I don't think anybody remembers them fondly although they are great classics and I even liked some such as To kill a Mockingbird. But I still hated them while studying them.
So I gave up and read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy instead. And I put Pride and Prejudice back further by pretending I had more important things to do.
By and By I found it was a great cure for my habit of staying up late reading. Pride and Prejudice set me off to sleep straight away.
About PG150 however, I realised that I had raced through the last two chapters in my usual manner. I finished the rest of the book within 3 nights of a couple of hours reading and I loved it.
I think that the problem was that Jane Austen does not compare at all to modern writing.
Most books I read would grip me within the first few chapters. The storyline would be unbroken and continuous or if it does break off, the break would be part of the main storyline or prove just as interesting.
In Pride and Prejudice, at the start anyway, the moment I became interested in the how the story was developing, it would come to some sort of abrupt end. Jane falls ill (which I found very much exaggerated) and maybe something could happen seeing the fuss that was going on (over a cold or something) but no it's just a long bit of tedious reading over her simple demise.
Jane falls in love with Mr Bingley who promptly moves away. End.
The first half of this book goes nowhere and is relatively a very long precursor (well far longer than modern literature) for a book this size.
The style of writing got on my nerves.
I hated the double, triple and maybe even quadruple negatives.
That all change however as I mentioned around Pg150. I had gotten used to the style of writing. It was still tedious as you have to read everything to actually understand the text and those double and triple negatives were still annoying but by this time I was working my way through them purposefully so that I didn't misunderstand some parts and get the story upside down.
From the time when Elizabeth meets Mr Darcy at his estate, through Lydia's folly to the ending, the book was captivating. Here was the storyline. The meat of the book.
The style of writing in the end does draw you in and now after finishing the book, I can come to appreciate it. Narrated from Elizabeth's point of view, it does sink you into her prejudices, I was convinced Mr Darcy was a proud, disagreeable man. I was convinced that Mr Wickham was good and handsome and all the wrong that had been done to him.
And the moment Elizabeth starts to change her mind over Mr Darcy I did too, at the same pace.
You could feel the character's emotions. An insight in her thoughts.It was the character's thoughts rearranged and narrated to this effect. It was how the mind would express itself if it had the words, the tone. And it was effective if tedious. Even the double and triple negatives were effective as they made sure you had to read everything.
As a conclusion, I would say I can now understand why Pride and Prejudice is so loved (the amount of movies based on it and no I have never seen any of them). I can understand why it would be used as literature in schools. Don't let the start put you off, you'll get drawn in in the end.
I loved it. (Note I am in keeping with the mindset and did not merely like it).
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