I've pretended, for years, to like her writing. I read "Pride and Prejudice" with gusto, and dutifully saw the Colin Firth version. When Hollywood released a more accessible one in 2005, I even dragged my poor husband there - and scolded him for falling asleep during the moment when dashing Mr. Darcy confesses his love to Elizabeth in the rain (despite my true feelings about Jane Austin's stories, I really did feel his slumber was inexcusable! It was, after all, a very moving scene). And it's not that I disliked the movies. They were… fine. I'd go so far as to say I loved some of the scenes (like the aforementioned one. And the one pictured above). But that was the problem. I only loved some of the scenes. The scenes in between those few I'd describe as "okay" or even "forgettable."I also read, and watched, Sense and Sensibility. And Emma? Yes. Emma too. Oh, and I endured Persuasion for a book club study, and practiced my acting ability as I - I think quite convincingly - portrayed a reader who was enthralled with the love story and beautiful sense of setting Ms. Austen created for her readers.
Truly, I can't fault her writing. It's finely crafted, with breathtaking moments of sheer emotional brilliance. But there is something about the majority of her characters that repel me, and something about the style that is off-putting. Maybe it's the nuances of class relations that get to me. Maybe it's her propensity to include the texts of the letters characters write to one another. Maybe it is simply the number of uninteresting words between the exceptional ones. Whatever it is, it defeats me at every turn.
It's not that I don't enjoy literature from different time periods, nor that I somehow dislike romance. Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre is, I think, my favourite book of all times. I've read and re-read and re-read it, and have tearfully watched every film version I can find. Shakespeare's The Twelfth Night and his Much Ado About Nothing are glorious in play, film, and written formats. And I absolutely love Charles Dickens' Great Expectations (although to be perfectly honest, I much prefer his second more "hopeful" resolution to his dreary original one and I believe it to be far superior - judge me as you will!)Even as I write this post, I feel a sense of trepidation. Can I still call myself a lover of true literature - and a romantic - without a love of Jane Austen? Is there something about her writing that I'm missing? And is there one book out there that she's written that will make her writing click for me? If you have the answers, dear readers, do tell. Please, do.
After all, as Jane Austen herself writes, "The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." Ouch indeed.
