A riveting tale of class, illusions of society, and ultimately true love: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
“A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”
No matter how many times I read this, I fall in love with it. For all of Jane Austen's reputation as a romantic writer, what I took away from Pride and Prejudice was clever wit, social observations, and a sense of fun and enjoyment that so many books don't have. It's a novel where almost all of the stakes are of early judgment and social regulation, it's a romance, yes, but not your typical love story. No, Pride and Prejudice is the story of an intelligent girl who doesn't quite fit into her society and an arrogant man who doesn't like most of the people around him.
The characters were varied, well developed, and revealing of many ideas and personalities with which one, during the reading, might find occasion to perceive or examine one's character, motivations, and conceptions. For all the ills that were produced by misconception, misunderstanding, and lack of insight, the end brings the satisfaction of resolution.
The dialogue is where this novel shines, which is good since the novel is mostly dialogue. Austen can convey the personality of a character simply through the way the character speaks so that even though there are not a lot of descriptions of the characters, you have a clear idea of who each character is almost as soon as they open their mouth.
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