A newfound love of Jane Austen

I recently finished reading Pride & Prejudice and am currently in the middle of reading Sense & Sensibility. I should have read them long ago. Back in jr. high and high school I didn't really read much except for the required school reading. I'm a slow reader and have a tendancy to switch words around sometimes and/or not comprehend something right away so I have to read it again. I wish I were a better reader though, because I love language. In high school I enjoyed a lot of the required reading because I had my choice of English classes, like Shakespeare studies.

I credit my 9th grade English Literature teacher for my love of Shakespeare, and of scripted works in general. My English Literature teacher loved reading plays that were currently playing at the local theater and then taking us to go see them. I had the pleasure of seeing a wonderful production of A Midsummer Night's Dream complete with fairies flying into the stage area from ziplines in the back of the theater, and even a production of A Doll's House starring Megan Follows (Anne of Green Gables) as Nora Torvald. Even though I struggled through the math and science classes, these experiences in high school really awakened my love of Shakespeare and of the English language. To this day my favorite movies are ones like State and Main which are written well with a lot of wit and wordplay.

...which brings us back to Jane Austen. Pride & Prejudice, starring Kierra Knightly, is playing at our local discount theater, so Brian and I went and saw it. I absolutely fell in love with it. I *had* to read the book. I loved the book even more. I had to read with a dictionary near by because I don't make a habit of using the elegnat and fanciful language of the Jane Austen novels, but even so I read it in less than a week. Considering what I said earlier about my being a slow reader, that is really saying something. After finishing Pride & Prejudice I started in on Sense & Sensibility. I'm not far into it yet, but so far I'm enjoying it almost as much.

I have yet to see the BBC miniseries with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, but I would certainly like to. I watched Bridget Jones' Diary the other day, in which Colin Firth plays another Mr. Darcy, and yet the same Mr. Darcy. The basic premise of Bridget Jones' Diary was taken from Pride & Prejudice. Mr. Darcy is a somewhat stoic character who does not posess the ease of conversing with people easily who he doesn't know. He takes a liking to the main female of the story, either Elizabeth or Bridget depending on which version you're reading or watching, but not before saying some negative remarks about her to someone else which she overhears. This makes the main female character despise Mr. Darcy. She meets another man who shows interest in her. As with Bridget this is her boss, played by Hugh Grant. In the case of Elizabeth Bennett, this is a Mr. Wickham. This new man is formerly aquainted with Mr. Darcy and tells our lead female a story of him that makes her despise him even more. Eventually the truth is revealed which proclaims Mr. Darcy to be innocent of what has been told of him and exposes the other man for what he really is. In the end Mr. Darcy wins the love of the lead female.

After re-watching Bridget Jones' Diary I was feeling in very much of a Colin Firth mood, and inspired by the recent indulgences in language, wit, and wordplay, I decided to follow it up with The Importance of Being Earnest. In high school when I was in the school play we did something called A Classic Festival. With narration between the scenes we went chronologically through scenes of classic plays throughout time. Mine was the last scene, and it was the scene between Gwendolyn Fairfax and Cecily Cardew in The Importance of Being Earnest, so that play holds a place in my heart. Oscar Wilde certainly did make use of that wit and wordplay which I've been talking about throughout this entire post. I enjoy Importance of Being Earnest immensely, and even more so on my re-viewing it the other night.

And that brings us full circle, back to Pride & Prejudice, via the exceptional Dame Judy Dench, who is in both films and turns in a phenomenal performance in each.

And now, to read another chapter or two of Sense & Sensibility before it's time to sleep. Maybe I'll write about my experience going with a gay friend of mine to see Brokeback Mountain later.