Pride and Prejudice

I wanted to see what all the fuss was about (and it’s free on the Kindle), so I started reading it.

It’s so very…

…alien.

I mean that it’s almost like reading a science fiction novel. More specifically, a speculative fiction novel, like one of those books that contemplates a radically different society in the far distant future. I suppose that living in 21st century America makes the idea of an organized courtship system inscrutably bizarre.

I am surprised at the intense dislike Elizabeth has inspired in me. She’s supposed to be the heroine, right? Yet she is an emotional solipsist of the first order.

Mr. Collins was pretty pathetic, though. He needed someone to sit him down and explain a few of the harsher truths of human nature.

I do like Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bennett. Especially Mr. Bennett’s effortless handling of his scatterbrained wife.

Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth are supposed to end up together, right? I strongly suspect he could have done better, much better, but perhaps I’ll change my mind by the time I finish the book.

-JM