Sunday, December 12, 2004
"It is a truth universally acknowledged..."
I decided recently that I had not read enough of the classics of literature, and that, before my brain atrophied completely from lack of stimulation, I would give some of those identified classics a good Aussie go.
Don't get me wrong - I've read a number of the classics. I've read Shakespeare, and gothic novels (Castle of Otranto, anyone?) and Shelley (Mary, not Percy Bysshe), and Stoker, and Conan Doyle, and Orwell, and Dostoevsky...
But I've never read Jane Austen.
I'm not completely sure why. I was just never exposed to it, I guess. And I'm not really sure where the impulse to read
every.
bloody.
Austen.
book.
I could find came from, but here I am.
In the last six weeks I have read Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice. I'm now reading Mansfield Park, and am going to find Emma and Persuasion to read next.
All of which has lead me to a couple of new discoveries.
1. Jane Austen is one of the bravest and funniest authors I have ever read. Whether it's the obvious parody that is Northanger Abbey, or the subtleties within Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, I haven't laughed so much in years. Wonderful.
2. Colin Firth.
Yup. I appreciate the satire, and the social commentary - the only option ever made available to women to ensure their social standing and acceptance is to be "well married", and every move and conversation and moment of thought is geared to achieving that end - and I admire the beautiful way that you can read the books either as pure romance or read between the lines and analyse them to your heart's content, but right now? Well. It's all about the romantic lead. What, me, a feminist? Nah, I think you're looking for someone else...
I'd really missed the whole Mr Darcy thing, due to having never watched the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice. I have this whole thing about not watching something I haven't read. But now, I've read it, and I can join the legions of women around the world with an unnatural obsession with Colin Firth.
I'm quite looking forward to that, really. In this upcoming week, most days after work, a friend and I will be watching the BBC series on a giant telly and sighing whenever Mr Darcy smoulders.
And that whole "emerging in wet shirt from pond" thing better live up to the hype, or I'm going to be one disappointed little neophyte Firth-ite.
Don't get me wrong - I've read a number of the classics. I've read Shakespeare, and gothic novels (Castle of Otranto, anyone?) and Shelley (Mary, not Percy Bysshe), and Stoker, and Conan Doyle, and Orwell, and Dostoevsky...
But I've never read Jane Austen.
I'm not completely sure why. I was just never exposed to it, I guess. And I'm not really sure where the impulse to read
every.
bloody.
Austen.
book.
I could find came from, but here I am.
In the last six weeks I have read Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice. I'm now reading Mansfield Park, and am going to find Emma and Persuasion to read next.
All of which has lead me to a couple of new discoveries.
1. Jane Austen is one of the bravest and funniest authors I have ever read. Whether it's the obvious parody that is Northanger Abbey, or the subtleties within Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, I haven't laughed so much in years. Wonderful.
2. Colin Firth.
Yup. I appreciate the satire, and the social commentary - the only option ever made available to women to ensure their social standing and acceptance is to be "well married", and every move and conversation and moment of thought is geared to achieving that end - and I admire the beautiful way that you can read the books either as pure romance or read between the lines and analyse them to your heart's content, but right now? Well. It's all about the romantic lead. What, me, a feminist? Nah, I think you're looking for someone else...
I'd really missed the whole Mr Darcy thing, due to having never watched the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice. I have this whole thing about not watching something I haven't read. But now, I've read it, and I can join the legions of women around the world with an unnatural obsession with Colin Firth.
I'm quite looking forward to that, really. In this upcoming week, most days after work, a friend and I will be watching the BBC series on a giant telly and sighing whenever Mr Darcy smoulders.
And that whole "emerging in wet shirt from pond" thing better live up to the hype, or I'm going to be one disappointed little neophyte Firth-ite.
