It’s a romance novel! No, it’s a dessert topping!
(The Editrix is showing her age with the title reference…she saw that particular show when it was broadcast live and remembers the silly skit very well.)
Alert Janeite Carmen sent a link to a post from about a year ago from Abigail Nussbaum’s weblog, Asking the Wrong Questions, in which she discusses popular misconceptions about Pride and Prejudice, including the constant claim that it is a shallow sort of romance novel. Carmen thought that the post was quite thought-provoking, and we agree.
But these are only the most recent examples–it seems that every few months some journalist with more free time than sense dredges Pride and Prejudice up as a prop to a theory that has absolutely nothing to do with the book itself. The burden of enduring popularity, I suppose, but to a devoted Austen reader since the age of 12, it’s getting a little tiring.
Hear, hear!
Look, I feel for the authors and readers of chick-lit. The amount of crap they put up with is completely out of proportion to the cheesiness of their genre. When books like The Da Vinci Code and the Left Behind series get treated seriously in major newspapers, and Michael Crichton testifies before Congress on environmental issues, it really does seem churlish to dump on this new evolution of the romance novel
Hear, hear! (Sorry for repetitiveness, but there’s really nothing more to say here)
In light of some recent discussions on this very blog, we thought this bit was quite interesting:
Elizabeth Bennet is a ‘modern’ woman
Why? Because she refuses to marry an odious man simply for the comfort of financial security? Because she won’t degrade herself by accepting Darcy’s parsimonious and grudging first marriage proposal? Because she’s intelligent and strong-willed? All of these qualities make Elizabeth a remarkable woman, but no more in Austen’s era than she would be today. As far as her desires and dreams are concerned, Elizabeth is firmly and steadfastly a woman of her own time. She wants to marry a good, honorable man, hopefully for love, but at the very least out of mutual respect. Her refusal of the obsequious Mr. Collins is anything but modern–it is the only correct action, Austen tells us, for an intelligent woman when faced with the prospect of being ruled, her entire life, by a fool. Elizabeth is dismayed by her friend Charlotte’s decision to accept Mr. Collins not because she has romantic notions of marrying for love, but because she has a clear-eyed image of what their marriage would be like.
Yes–going back to our question of a few days ago about whether Elizabeth Bennet would let a man tell her what to do–the thing about Darcy is, he won’t do it, any more than Mr. Bennet did, and for the same reasons. He’ll trust Elizabeth to make good decisions. He respects his wife, and she respects her husband.
Mr. Darcy is a reformed rake
I came across this one in an especially insipid article in the Guardian a few years ago, which trotted Darcy out as an example of how women like to fix men. Which is true, but not about Darcy. It’s what makes Pride and Prejudice such a singular novel–for maybe the only time in the history of the romance, the guy fixes himself.
Because he respected her enough to make himself attractive as husband material. He loved Elizabeth and nothing less would do. Now THAT’S romantic. 
The commenters in the original post make excellent counterpoints as well. Do go read it.
September 14th, 2006 at 8:32 am
Well, Darcy changed himself *not* for Elizabeth, but because he saw and accepted his faults.
He had *no* idea that Elizabeth would come ajaunting in his gardens and home, and back into his life, - but she did and by then he was already reformed
September 14th, 2006 at 9:27 am
I couldn’t have said it better.
Darcy did say, “My object then, was to shew you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes introduced themselves I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an hour after I had seen you.”
He did say, “HAD BEEN attended to”, so I suppose it’s possible he had been working on his faults. I still think, though, that the possibility of getting Lizzy would be his most powerful motivation for reform.
I suspect in the back of his mind he would have a reasonable hope to see her again. After all, in all likelihood she would sooner or later make another visit to Hunsford to visit her best friend, and Darcy would hear about it through Lady Catherine; and wouldn’t THAT be an interesting situation….
September 14th, 2006 at 11:33 am
But Darcy says that within half an hour IIRC, he began to hope again.
Which would mean he really didn’t have any further hopes.
September 14th, 2006 at 11:55 am
But don’t you still think he changed himself so that he would be acceptable to her–even without hope that he would have an opportunity to try again? That’s even better! He would think, “What would Elizabeth think of me now?” before acting.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
Reeba’s conclusion may be valid. But there is another possible explanation for the “half an hour” line.
Darcy was obviously upset when he left Rosings. His problem was obviously not his enchantment for Rosings. His rejection certainly mattered – he still cared for her. And, since it seems he did not get suddenly “unproud” when she appeared before his eyes, he probably had worked on it during the time that followed. But it is a truth, not always universally acknowledged, that men do not think about women all the time. At the moment he climbed off his horse at Pemberley, his mind would be on the business with his steward that he had to leave his friends a day early to take care of. At that moment, he was not thinking of Elizabeth.
When he saw her, he obviously went into panic mode. (Oh my God, what do I do now?) His conversation with her was on automatic pilot.
He then excused himself; he decided he needed to let her know he had changed, and proceeded to come back, find her, and demonstrate that he had changed in action and attitude, that her “reproofs had been attended to”. He was thinking about damage control, at proving he wasn’t as bad as she thought. What she thought obviously still mattered, but things were not at a point where he could not allow himself to realistically think about marriage. After that was accomplished, his original wishes re-introduced themselves.
September 14th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
It seems to me that Curt B and Reeba are arguing the same side of the issue, just in different ways. No woman can ever make a man change, he has to choose to change. Which is one of the reasons P&P is so great and so realistic. Besides, Wickham was the rake.
Had to smile at that headline, Mags. I didn’t get to watch it live, but it is one of my all-time favorite SNL commercials.
September 14th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
I always thought that Elizabeth had been so forceful and frank in her rejection, that Darcy would not have risked a second proposal without some encouragemente. From what she tells Mr Collins, I think second proposals were rather unusual, and Darcy himself says that he came to Longbourn really to judge if he could ever hope to win her hand. After Elizabeth reads the explanatory letter, she feels sorry for having misjudged Darcy, but has no desire to see him again, and I can easily ascribe those feelings to him as well. Lizzy expected him to avoid her as his greatest enemy.
I always wonder if the half hour “after I had seen you” starts from the moment he met Elizabeth on the lawn (and then the half hour would have elapsed by the time he caught up with them by the river). Sometimes I am inclined to think so, because Darcy’s wish of introducing Georgiana to Lizzy speaks to me of his wanting to “preserve the acquaintance”. I don’t think he would have initiated further socializing if he didn’t have something in mind by then.
But I do think Darcy improved himself because Elizabeth made him see himself in a different light, without necessarily wishing to ask her again to marry him. I think he still loved her and cared about what she thought of him and that is why he was so eager to make her see he had changed.
September 14th, 2006 at 4:58 pm
LOL!!! Ina!!!
Well, I absolutely refuse to accept that Darcy changed so that he could be good husband material for Elizabeth, or to please her.
That would be too chicklitty for me.
I believe that it was his own right thinking which made him see that he certainly needed a change.
Of course it was Elizabeth who made him see that he needed it. That I don’t deny