READ: JAN 15 - FEB 08, 2012
RATING: 7 OUT OF 10
REASON: REQUIRED READING FOR ENGLISH LIT. CLASS
FORMAT: AUDIOBOOK FROM LIBRIVOX.ORG
Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love—and its threatened loss—the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.
I was really enjoying this to begin with but I got a bit bored halfway through and while it did pick up again, the ending was so sudden and everyone was happily married off in a way that didn't seem in keeping with the tone of the story. I was really hoping that Elinor would get together with someone else, who had been constant throughout the story and seemed like a good match, so I was surprised and a bit disappointed with how the book ended. This is Austen's first published work, but I'd have to say that I probably even prefer Northanger Abbey to this, and that's the first novel she ever optioned to a publisher and was not in a finished state when it was eventually published in 1817. I'm still not sure how I feel about this story. I loved the social satire, which was even more prevalent in S&S than it had been in P&P. But Elinor was the typical cardboard-cut-out Austen heroine who had no flaws and reformed everyone around her. Marianne was much more interesting, mainly because she was so inherently flawed, but even she was reformed in the end, along with Willoughby. If everything hadn't been so perfect and if there had been different pairings I would have enjoyed this book more, but as it is, I'm giving it 7/10.
READ: SEPTEMBER 04 - NOVEMBER 25, 2011
RATING: 8 OUT OF 10
If you're looking for a free and well-read audiobook of this novel I'd definitely recommend this one from LibriVox. The reader, Karen Savage, does an excellent English accent, doesn't read too fast or two slow and manages to give each of the characters a slightly different voice so as to avoid confusion when listening.
My aim for 2011 was to read Pride and Prejudice, as I felt like I'd failed as a woman and an English Literature student since I hadn't read Jane Austen's most famous novel by now. While I read Northanger Abbey in my first year of university, it isn't exactly representative of her typical work. But it came to September and I hadn't yet read P&P as I'd planned, so I started reading on my Kindle. Sadly, this didn't get very far as I had a lot of work to do for university in September and I completely forgot that I'd been reading P&P. Eventually, in November, I checked out LibriVox.org and found an audiobook that sounded nice and downloaded it to my Blackberry, determined to listen to the entirety of the book before the end of 2011.
I'd enjoyed Northanger Abbey back when I read it in February 2010, but that was it; I didn't love it. Since I'm a fan of romance novels I feel like I should adore Austen, but I don't. But there's nothing wrong with simply enjoying listening to a nice, easy story while you do the ironing or wash dishes, is there? I know that most of my romance-reading or even just classic-reading friends on GoodReads have loved this book and given it five-stars, but I'm afraid P&P is getting a solid but slightly lower 8 out of 10 from me.
One of the things I enjoyed about NA was the witty dialogue and banter between the characters, and I was not disappointed in this when I started P&P, particularly with the hilarity of all the things that Mrs Bennett and Caroline Bingley came out with. That said, nothing really seemed to happen in the first twenty chapters of the novel and I found myself thinking that if I'd been reading the book and not listening to it then I might have put the book down and moved on to something else. As it was, I kept listening and around a third of the way into the book it began to pick up, particularly as Elizabeth and Mr Darcy actually interacted with each other during this part of the story! For a book that is generally regarded as a "classic romance" there was surprisingly little interaction between the hero and heroine, and while Darcy later proved himself to be a rather admirable gentleman, Elizabeth was rather passive, except on the few occasions when she became quite judgemental. I found that the book got far more interesting when Lydia ran off. As immature and flighty as Lydia is, she seemed to have a bit more personality than Elizabeth, dare I say it? I just wish I'd got inside Elizabeth's head more, as there were a few times when she really showed her personality around the middle of the story and then again at the conclusion of the novel, but to begin with she was too passive for my liking.
All in all, I was satisfied with the ending of the novel and enjoyed the direction that it took after Lydia's escapades. There isn't a distinct plot structure in this book, so perhaps this explains my difficulty with it and why I was slightly uninterested to begin with. This has in no way become one of my favourite classics but it did provide entertainment and after the initial slow start I truly came to enjoy it. I have to read Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion next semester for English so I'm looking forward to seeing how those compare. I've not become a die-hard Janeite, nor am I pining for my own Darcy (my Simon will do just fine, thank you very much) but I'll admit that Jane Austen does write an engaging story and provides entertaining insight into the lives of the early nineteenth century nobility and privileged classes.
Pride and Prejudice was my Challenge Book for 2011. Did you challenge yourself to read a certain novel in 2011? Did you succeed? I still need to decide what to challenge myself to read in 2012...
