Brimblewisp

Pride & Prejudice was good. I still don’t want to read it again.

That was pretty much my first thought when I finished Pride & Prejudice.

I read it for one of my classes, and if I’m being completely truthful, I probably never would have read it otherwise. Not because I thought it would be bad. I try not to go into books with too many expectations, especially ones I haven’t read before. I had seen the 2005 movie and liked it, even if I’ve never loved it quite as much as some people seem to. I like period pieces in general, but Pride & Prejudice was never a book I felt particularly drawn to picking up on my own.

Still, I’m glad school gave me a reason to finally read it because I did think it was a good book.

I just didn’t always enjoy the experience of reading it.

I Liked the Story More Than I Liked Reading It

There were parts I genuinely liked, particularly anything centered around Elizabeth and Darcy. I didn’t mind the slow burn between them, and I liked watching both of them grow throughout the story.

Darcy was already the character I found most interesting from the movie. He is a man who has trouble expressing his own emotions while also carrying the weight and expectations that come with his position and birth. There are layers to him that I appreciate, especially because male characters can sometimes feel one-dimensional when their main purpose in a story is to be the love interest.

Elizabeth had her own growing to do, too, which made their relationship more interesting to me. I like the idea of enemies to lovers, although Pride & Prejudice did occasionally leave me wondering how two people could fall so deeply in love when they seemed to barely know each other.

My bigger struggle was actually feeling what was happening between them.

There were several conversations where I found myself wondering: Are they bantering? Are they genuinely fighting? Is this supposed to be tense? Are they just having a normal conversation?

The first proposal is probably the best example.

This should have been one of the most emotionally intense moments in the entire book. Darcy is confessing his love while also managing to insult Elizabeth and her family, and Elizabeth is finally confronting him about everything she believes he has done. There is so much anger, hurt, pride, misunderstanding, and emotion packed into that moment.

But while I was reading it, I didn’t really feel any of that.

I understood what was happening. I knew Elizabeth was furious. I knew Darcy was being rejected. I knew this was a major turning point for both of them. But to me, it often felt like I was simply reading the words they said to each other without being able to hear how they were saying them.

Strangely, I felt more from Darcy’s letter afterward than I did from the actual confrontation.

I think that was ultimately my biggest struggle with Pride & Prejudice. I liked the story, but I often felt one step removed from the emotions of the people living inside it.

I Wanted More Than the Words

Part of that came from Jane Austen’s writing style itself. There isn’t a lot of physical description, either of the characters or the places around them. I knew the names of places, but I rarely had a strong picture of what those places actually looked like. The same was true for the characters. I knew who they were and what other people thought of them, but I didn’t necessarily have a clear image of them in my head.

That isn’t automatically a bad thing. Plenty of readers prefer being able to imagine those details for themselves. I just realized while reading Pride & Prejudice that I rely on those little details more than I thought I did.

The same thing happened with character behavior.

I wanted the pauses. The expressions. The person looking away before answering. The shift in someone’s voice that tells you a joke has suddenly stopped being a joke. Those little moments help me understand what is happening underneath the words.

Without them, I sometimes struggled to understand the tone of conversations. That became even harder when several characters were talking at once. There were scenes where I had to stop and figure out not only who was speaking, but what I was supposed to take away from what they were saying.

I even listened to the audiobook while following along with the book at times, hoping hearing the dialogue spoken aloud would help me find some of the emotion I was missing.

Sometimes it did.

Other times, I still felt disconnected from what was happening.

And Then There Were the Side Stories

There were a lot of them.

By the time I finished the book, I realized how much of what I remembered clearly was connected to Elizabeth and Darcy, Jane and Bingley, and Lydia’s elopement. Everything else had already started blending together.

There were times when I found myself wondering who the story was really about because it would wander away from the characters and relationships I was most invested in for what felt like a long time.

Lydia’s elopement in particular seemed to go on forever.

I understand why it matters. It affects the entire Bennet family, changes Elizabeth’s understanding of Darcy, and ultimately gives Darcy the opportunity to show who he is through what he does rather than what he says. I don’t think it should have been removed from the story.

I just wanted it to move faster.

That feeling came up several times while I was reading. There would be something I was interested in, and then the story would wander somewhere else before eventually making its way back.

Even Lady Catherine’s confrontation with Elizabeth, which should have been another wonderfully tense moment, didn’t hit me as strongly as I expected it to.

And then there’s Lydia herself.

I could not stand her.

She came across as an entitled, annoying, spoiled child who somehow managed to create an enormous problem for everyone around her while seemingly learning very little from the experience.

Mrs. Bennet wasn’t much better for me in the book. I actually found her considerably more likable in the 2005 movie, which is probably saying something.

Maybe This Is Why I Prefer the Movie

The 2005 movie is where I think I realized exactly what I had been missing while reading.

Movies obviously have to condense books. Characters disappear. Subplots get shortened. Scenes get combined. Normally, that can mean losing some of what makes the original story special.

With Pride & Prejudice, though, I personally think the 2005 movie benefits from some of that streamlining.

It focuses more tightly on the parts of the story I cared about, but more importantly, it gives me the emotion I struggled to find on the page.

I can see the expressions.

I can hear when someone’s voice changes.

I can feel when an argument is actually an argument.

The first proposal feels completely different when I can see Elizabeth’s anger and Darcy’s frustration. The words aren’t just words anymore. There is something happening underneath them.

That doesn’t mean I think the movie is automatically better than the book. They are two completely different ways of experiencing the same story, and there are obviously things a novel can do that a two-hour movie can’t.

I just know which experience worked better for me.

A Good Book Still Doesn’t Have to Be My Book

Maybe that’s the biggest thing I took away from finally reading Pride & Prejudice: I can recognize that a book is good without it necessarily being the kind of book I personally connect with.

I liked Elizabeth. I liked Darcy. I liked watching them realize how wrong they had been about each other and, more importantly, recognize the things they needed to change about themselves.

I can understand why their story has lasted for more than two hundred years.

I’m glad I finally read it.

Would I read it again?

If I had nothing else to read, maybe.

But given the choice?

I’m putting on the movie.

~CC