Pride and Prejudice in A Book Walks Into a Bar

Feb 01, 2017 Travis rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

It's been over a decade since I last read Pride and Prejudice (maybe even as much as 15 years), so I looked forward with great anticipation to re-reading this classic, and I was not in the least disappointed. I knew that I loved this book, but I had forgotten what a sheer pleasure reading Pride and Prejudice is.

This novel is so good on so many levels. First, there are some of the most wonderful, beloved characters in literary history. We readers adore Lizzy (Elizabeth) and love her relationship It's been over a decade since I last read Pride and Prejudice (maybe even as much as 15 years), so I looked forward with great anticipation to re-reading this classic, and I was not in the least disappointed. I knew that I loved this book, but I had forgotten what a sheer pleasure reading Pride and Prejudice is.

This novel is so good on so many levels. First, there are some of the most wonderful, beloved characters in literary history. We readers adore Lizzy (Elizabeth) and love her relationship with her kind, reserved, sensible, long-suffering father (long-suffering because of all he endures from Lizzy's mother and her younger sisters, Kitty and Lydia). Jane is so sweet, so understanding, and so gentle: who could not love Jane or her fabulous relationship with Lizzy? Of course, Darcy, whom we initially find insufferable and arrogant slowly grows ever more likable as we learn more about him and see him in action (especially in his role in the Lydia-Wickham matter). Both of the Gardiners (Lizzy's maternal uncle and aunt) are also wonderful with their wisdom, their generosity, their calm sedateness in the face of disaster (the Lydia-Wickham matter), and their love for Lizzy.

Of course, not all the characters are so lovable, and we love to hate the unlikable characters nearly as much as we delight in our favorites. Collins is the epitome of a boor and a sniveling, obsequious prat. How marvelous it is to see Lizzy shoot down his proposal! And how much we despise him when he writes to Mr. Bennet to say that it would have been better for Lydia to have died (yes, he actually says that!) than for the scandal with Wickham to have arisen. Collins is so happy to have avoided disgracing himself by marrying into Mr. Bennet's family. Ughhhh! What a terrific jerk! Equally abominable is Collins's patroness (and Darcy's aunt), Lady Catherine. She is so vain, so proud, and so horrifically condescending. I don't think I've hated another character quite so much as I hated Lady Catherine when she, upon hearing from Collins that Darcy may be pursuing Lizzy, confronts Lizzy and demands to know if Darcy has proposed and, if so, demands that Lizzy reject him. Lady Catherine treats Lizzy with such undeserving contempt and indignation on the basis of her own class-based prejudices that I truly loathed her for her treatment of Lizzy, but Lizzy's refusal to be cowed by Lady Catherine and her bold replies to the pretentious Lady Catherine made me love Lizzy all the more. In fact, although I believe that the title primarily refers to Darcy (pride) and Lizzy (prejudice: Lizzy does have a tendency to unfairly pre-judge others, especially Bingley and Darcy), Lady Catherine, in the confrontational scene with Lizzy, is a perfect embodiment of both pride and prejudice.

Of course, not all the characters are adorable or hateful. Mrs. Bennet and Lydia are both utterly annoying and so selfish and self-centered that we can't really like them, but they are also, quite frankly, so dumb and unsophisticated that we more pity them and laugh at them than dislike them. And then there is poor Mary: the almost forgotten middle child. She has no fun escapades with the soldiers like her two younger sisters nor any romances like her two elder sisters. She's not vain or quarrelsome. She's just a quiet bookworm, observing the action from the shadows.

Beyond the characters, the plot of the novel is absolutely fantastic. Of course, we are engrossed by the main thrust of the novel, Lizzy and Darcy's rocky relationship and its eventual resolution in marriage, and the journey from mutual dislike--even, perhaps, animosity--to love between these two is literary perfection. Their romance is a model for so many subsequent novels and for many (possibly even a majority) of the films in the romantic comedy genre that it is hardly hyperbole to to judge Jane Austen as the mother of modern Western (especially British and American) conceptions of romance. The way in which the story of Lizzy and Darcy's romance is woven together with the intrigue of Bingley's courtship of Jane and the nearly disastrous affair of Wickham and Lydia is pure genius on the part of Austen. And in the end, everything turns out so wonderfully! As clichéd as happy endings can be, sometimes happy endings really are for the best from a narrative perspective, and such is the case with the resolution of Pride and Prejudice.

In Pride and Prejudice, we see the art of the novel reach its first truly great heights, and it remains to this day one of the finest and certainly most influential novels ever written. While some later novels (particularly Dostoevsky's novels) do rival Pride and Prejudice in terms of literary greatness, Pride and Prejudice is, on most days that one might ask me, going to rank as my all-time favorite novel. It's one of those classics that truly lives up to its reputation, and, even better, it's a classic that is a most enjoyable read. I'm usually not much of a re-reader, but re-reading this novel for the first time in many years was a genuine pleasure! ...more

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