osprey_archer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer) wrote2022-10-01 03:23 pm
osprey_archer) wrote2022-10-01 03:23 pm
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Book Review: Pride & Prejudice
I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time in high school, and hadn’t reread it until now. However, I’ve seen a bunch of adaptations, not least my beloved Lizzie Bennet Diaries, the modern-day vlog retelling over which I obsessed for a year. So it’s interesting to see how both the passage of time and the new light shed on the story by adaptations has changed my opinions over time.
Of course in some cases, I mean that my opinion has come full circle. In high school, I shared Elizabeth’s horror when her friend Charlotte agreed to marry that rat Mr. Collins. Later on, I grew more sympathetic to Charlotte: surely marrying Collins would be better than being a spinster in Regency England! (My recollection is that the 2005 adaptation makes this point with particular force.)
Rereading it now, it occurred to me that Jane Austen, Regency Spinster, probably has a better idea than I do what fates would be worse than being a Regency spinster, and she is absolutely right that being married to Mr. Collins would be on the list, at least for sensible, level-headed Charlotte Lucas. Moralistic Mary Bennet and Mr. Collins might have been well-suited, although they would have encouraged each other’s worst tendencies and become utterly unbearable to everyone else. Compare their reactions to Lydia’s elopement: Mary reflects piously how easily a woman’s precious reputation can be stained, while Mr. Collins writes to the Bennets to state that he’s shocked, shocked that they received Lydia at their house after the way she behaved! A match made in heaven. Pity Mr. Collins didn’t think of it.
Speaking of Lydia. Modern adaptations often seem troubled by Austen’s unsparing portrayal: she is gleefully unrepentant when she returns from her elopement with Wickham which would have destroyed her own reputation and severely injured her sisters’ future prospects, and continues just as “untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy, and fearless” as ever.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, in particular, makes it one of its main projects to rehabilitate Lydia both with viewers and with her exasperated sister Lizzie. (And, let it be said, it succeeded, at least with me: Lydia is my favorite character in LBD, although it pains me to say so because I love them alllllll.) For the most part she displays that same noisy, unabashed character, although with a strain of vulnerability that Austen’s Lydia never shows… right up until the Wickham debacle, which in this version takes the form of a sex tape that Wickham intends to sell online for cash. LBD Lydia collapses like a house of cards.
Now of course this is an extremely understandable reaction, and given that aforementioned streak of vulnerability it follows naturally from Lydia’s character in the adaptation. But the adaptation would have been closer to the original if Lydia had yelled, “Woo hoo! If this sex tape goes well, I’m going to start a career as a camgirl, and then I’ll be financially independent LONG before Jane and Lizzie move out of the house!”
…actually that would be a fantastic adaptation choice, but it would definitely have alienated a lot of viewers (probably including my 2013 self) and therefore undermined LBD’s “reconcile the sisters” project.
Jane Austen hasn’t any intention of reconciling Lydia with her despairing elder sisters. She has no more sentimental investment in sisterhood than she has in marriage, or friendship, or parent-child relationships, or indeed any other human relationship that you can name. None of these relationships are either good or bad by nature: they are good or bad entirely as the individuals within them make them so. And from that point of view, there's no reason for Jane and Elizabeth to try to reconcile with Lydia: she is what she is and they are what they are, and the mere fact that they are sisters will not make them mix.
Of course in some cases, I mean that my opinion has come full circle. In high school, I shared Elizabeth’s horror when her friend Charlotte agreed to marry that rat Mr. Collins. Later on, I grew more sympathetic to Charlotte: surely marrying Collins would be better than being a spinster in Regency England! (My recollection is that the 2005 adaptation makes this point with particular force.)
Rereading it now, it occurred to me that Jane Austen, Regency Spinster, probably has a better idea than I do what fates would be worse than being a Regency spinster, and she is absolutely right that being married to Mr. Collins would be on the list, at least for sensible, level-headed Charlotte Lucas. Moralistic Mary Bennet and Mr. Collins might have been well-suited, although they would have encouraged each other’s worst tendencies and become utterly unbearable to everyone else. Compare their reactions to Lydia’s elopement: Mary reflects piously how easily a woman’s precious reputation can be stained, while Mr. Collins writes to the Bennets to state that he’s shocked, shocked that they received Lydia at their house after the way she behaved! A match made in heaven. Pity Mr. Collins didn’t think of it.
Speaking of Lydia. Modern adaptations often seem troubled by Austen’s unsparing portrayal: she is gleefully unrepentant when she returns from her elopement with Wickham which would have destroyed her own reputation and severely injured her sisters’ future prospects, and continues just as “untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy, and fearless” as ever.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, in particular, makes it one of its main projects to rehabilitate Lydia both with viewers and with her exasperated sister Lizzie. (And, let it be said, it succeeded, at least with me: Lydia is my favorite character in LBD, although it pains me to say so because I love them alllllll.) For the most part she displays that same noisy, unabashed character, although with a strain of vulnerability that Austen’s Lydia never shows… right up until the Wickham debacle, which in this version takes the form of a sex tape that Wickham intends to sell online for cash. LBD Lydia collapses like a house of cards.
Now of course this is an extremely understandable reaction, and given that aforementioned streak of vulnerability it follows naturally from Lydia’s character in the adaptation. But the adaptation would have been closer to the original if Lydia had yelled, “Woo hoo! If this sex tape goes well, I’m going to start a career as a camgirl, and then I’ll be financially independent LONG before Jane and Lizzie move out of the house!”
…actually that would be a fantastic adaptation choice, but it would definitely have alienated a lot of viewers (probably including my 2013 self) and therefore undermined LBD’s “reconcile the sisters” project.
Jane Austen hasn’t any intention of reconciling Lydia with her despairing elder sisters. She has no more sentimental investment in sisterhood than she has in marriage, or friendship, or parent-child relationships, or indeed any other human relationship that you can name. None of these relationships are either good or bad by nature: they are good or bad entirely as the individuals within them make them so. And from that point of view, there's no reason for Jane and Elizabeth to try to reconcile with Lydia: she is what she is and they are what they are, and the mere fact that they are sisters will not make them mix.
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The letter was to this effect:
“My dear Lizzy,
“I wish you joy. If you love Mr. Darcy half as well as I do my dear Wickham, you must be very happy. It is a great comfort to have you so rich, and when you have nothing else to do, I hope you will think of us. I am sure Wickham would like a place at court very much, and I do not think we shall have quite money enough to live upon without some help. Any place would do, of about three or four hundred a year; but however, do not speak to Mr. Darcy about it, if you had rather not.
“Yours, etc.”
As it happened that Elizabeth had much rather not, she endeavoured in her answer to put an end to every entreaty and expectation of the kind. Such relief, however, as it was in her power to afford, by the practice of what might be called economy in her own private expences, she frequently sent them. It had always been evident to her that such an income as theirs, under the direction of two persons so extravagant in their wants, and heedless of the future, must be very insufficient to their support; and whenever they changed their quarters, either Jane or herself were sure of being applied to for some little assistance towards discharging their bills. Their manner of living, even when the restoration of peace dismissed them to a home, was unsettled in the extreme. They were always moving from place to place in quest of a cheap situation, and always spending more than they ought. His affection for her soon sunk into indifference; hers lasted a little longer; and in spite of her youth and her manners, she retained all the claims to reputation which her marriage had given her.
Though Darcy could never receive him at Pemberley, yet, for Elizabeth’s sake, he assisted him further in his profession. Lydia was occasionally a visitor there, when her husband was gone to enjoy himself in London or Bath; and with the Bingleys they both of them frequently staid so long, that even Bingley’s good humour was overcome, and he proceeded so far as to talk of giving them a hint to be gone.
BINGLEY TALKS OF GIVING THEM A HINT TO BE GONE. That is pretty fucking far to push Bingley! But my impression from that is Elizabeth saves up pocket money or whatever to send Lydia, and Jane and Elizabeth are probably both soft touches when Lydia sends up "we're about to be run out of town for not paying the bills including the rent" flares. Only Lydia occasionally visits Elizabeth, but Jane and Bingley are total pushovers (and we love them for it).
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*googles frantically*
Am I reading this right? Did Lydia straight up ask for a full-on income of about $20k in modern USD? I know that exchanging currency in two dimensions - different countries, vastly different eras - is a tricky business, but seriously.
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She's probably asking for more than that! but I suck at math.
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I'm grateful to everyone for reminding me of how the story actually went!
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