Lastly, but certainly not leastly (is that a word?...) is her classic masterpiece Pride and Prejudice. If you have never heard of this one, you need to crawl out from under the rock you live under and stand still while I beat you repeatedly with my tennis shoes. It is one of the single most romantic stories of our time.
We are introduced right away to the Bennet family, who would drive any person mad. Mrs. Bennet is insane, Mr. Bennet is droll and slightly clueless, and the five Bennet girls are...interesting. Jane is the oldest and the most beautiful. Lizzy, our heroine, is bright and spunky. Mary is plain and preachy. Kitty and Lydia, the youngest, were "ignorant, idle, and vain". Anyway, the Bennet's are poor and their house is entailed to a cousin (meaning when Mr. Bennet kicks the bucket, the girls and ma gotta go), so Mrs. Bennet is obsessed with getting those girls hitched to rich men. Opportunity knocks when a Mr. Bingley of 5,000 a year comes to the area and starts putting the moves on Jane. Problem is his sisters are snobs and his friend Mr. Darcy (flutter in the heart) is disapproving and proud. And hugely wealthy. Mrs. Bennet tries to set him up with Lizzy, and so does Bingley, but it doesn't work. The only thing that happens is that Lizzy decides to hate Darcy, which sets up the rest of the book.
Ok, so then we meet Wickham and Collins. Wickham is a charming rogue, but don't trust him. Collins is a slime ball. Feel free to hate him. Then Bingley suddenly up and leaves and Jane is heartbroken because he's prolly gonna go marry Darcy's sister. Then we meet Lady Catherine DeBurgh....hate her. She happens to be Darcy's aunt, tho, so we get to see him again. And he proposes....to Lizzy. He's been in love with her forever. Well, Lizzy just shoots him down, breaking his heart (no really, you can see it in his eyes), and sending him on his way. He writes her a letter (oh, it's so good), and vanishes.
Lizzy suddenly realizes that she's lost a good man after all. While travelling with her aunt and uncle, she stumbles upon Darcy again...and finds he is not so disagreeable as she thought. But disaster from home threatens any chance of blossoming romance, and they must part...never to meet again.
What will happen??? What happy ending could possibly come from this??? I'm not telling.
The 2005 version with Matthew McFadyen......yeah.....it's amazing.
The 1945 version with Lawrence Olivier....it's very funny...and he's cute.
The BBC version with Colin Firth.....(BIG flutter of the heart). It's long, but SOOOOO worth it. Three words: Wet. Linen. Shirt. That's all I'm gonna say.
There are other versions, TONS of parodies, and fun-ness. Just look for it. You'll be hard pressed NOT to find something based off of this one.
Pride and Prejudice...my very favorite and truly an amazing gift to the world.
The End.
No comments:
Post a Comment