Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

I had my reservations about picking up this book, because I sometimes find the literature of the 18th and 19th centuries to be somewhat dry. Jane Eyre was decent enough, and Wuthering Heights just made me mad, but I found them both to be lacking in the "can't put the book down" factor.

Pride and Prejudice was a "can't put the book down" kind of book. I had to physically remove it from my sight during my test week and before my pathology project was due, so that I would actually get work done. The style of writing seemed very polite, as well as the characters' ways of treating each other, even those they didn't like. I felt that if we could treat everyone like that, there would be no more war. And yet, despite their "civility" towards one another (the way Jane Austen worded it), there was still an indication that the England in which the characters were living was at war.

To boil it down, and attempting not to give away the whole book, Elizabeth Bennett is an out-spoken woman, the sibling of four sisters, all single and of marriageable age. Their mother's one purpose for living is to facilitate getting her daughters married off. Mr. Darcy is a visitor to their area, and acts as he has been brought up to act- that he is higher in the hierarchy than many people. She finds him too prideful, and later discovers she also is guilty: of judging him without first examining all the facts (her prejudice). The plot is much more complicated than that, with several unexpected twists, and other character's stories woven into it, but the basics are a look at the effects of (go figure) pride, and prejudice.

One thing I found slightly implausible is the ability of the characters to run into each other in all different parts of England, as if they are the only ones inhabiting it. I realize England then was less populated than it is now, but while such coincidences have occurred, they don't happen regularly. But the book was good enough that I forgave it.

Bottom line, this book is great for anyone who likes a good love story or several, anyone who likes 18th century literature (actually more like 19th), anyone who likes to study human nature and anyone who likes good quotes or polite, poetic ways of speaking- almost making prose sound like poetry.