Book Review: Pride and Prejudice is a brilliant example of reading diversely; I don't know of any world like this, but I enjoy it. Much more than reading about the sex trade or natural disasters. Maybe this is what it's like for people who enjoy reading fantasy, about magic and fanciful kingdoms. Jane Austen describes a very insular world (not necessarily her own), where the characters come into contact with a limited number of people who are mostly just like them, generally stay, or are made to stay, within their class, and do little work, which also shrinks their world. This narrow life makes the smallest issues large, and maintaining the way of life is all consuming. Everything is rules and codes of conduct, people know what is expected of them and what they should say or do in any situation. Except in Pride and Prejudice one daughter willingly flouts the rules in a way that would have been scandalous to the middle class in early 1960's America. But all the rules, codes, and predictability are a reassuring blanket for those of us in the chaotic 21st Century. I enjoy fiction written in earlier times as a kind of time machine, here showing us an early feminism for women of a certain class in a certain place, making their own choices when they can. Here are women doing, or not doing, what they need to do to survive and maintain. The aging Charlotte Lucas makes a choice that will enable her to survive; the fearless Elizabeth and Lydia make choices that should've led to disaster. Later Elizabeth can joke that her love for Darcy began upon seeing the magnificence of his estate; which is Austen enjoying herself. Although Austen's defenders point to her as a satirist, long stretches of Pride and Prejudice are not satirical, showing genuine efforts to hold onto one's place, and genuine emotions understandable to anyone anywhere. Although the classism is strong (servants are barely seen and rarely named), Lady Catherine is just as silly in her way as Mrs. Bennet, and Wickham is just as silly as Mr. Collins. To a degree Austen invented the rom com and modern romance: how many times have these themes and plots been repeated in any number of novels and films? Even something as current as Gail Carriger's steampunk Parasol Protectorate series owes a debt to Austen's wit and humor. In this well-plotted and surprisingly complex book, Austen created rounded, flawed characters, most caught being unkind at some point (except Jane, of course), and all just like someone you might meet or know, though perhaps not of the 19th Century, white, hetero, or English. For those capable of reading diversely, Pride and Prejudice is an enjoyable escape to another place and time, whether it truly existed or not. [5★]
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