Pride and Prejudice Book Review

 

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 

*Warning: This review contains spoilers*

Introduction

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. 

Oh wait, that's the wrong piece of classic literature. However, my sentiment while reading this book is much the same. 

This is going to be a rather controversial review given how beloved this novel is and has been over the course of decades. Though I'm not slamming it or giving it 2 stars, I'm also not going to be giving it a perfect 5 star rating either. So, if you are a Jane Austen die-hard, I would recommend perhaps turning back now. That being said, for those who stayed, I want to make a few things quite clear: I didn't dislike Pride and Prejudice, and I don't think it is a bad book at all. It aged better than a lot of old classics did, and I do understand why so many people hold it in such high regard. I think maybe it just wasn't for me. 

Summary and Review

The hardest thing about reading this novel is what I find to be the hardest thing about reading all 1800s literature, which is that the general structure and mechanics of the writing are much different from how most English-speakers construct and phrase sentences in modern times. So while it's not impossible to understand, sometimes certain sentences or even entire sections can be difficult to grasp if you're not reading intensely. Then once you do fully understand what is being said, you're still left to decipher the deeper context, the tone that Austen is trying to set. 

This is not a flaw in Austen's literary skills by any means. Most people reading Pride and Prejudice at the time of its publication wouldn't struggle this way to understand and fully grasp the layers of what they were reading because it would sound relatively the same as how everyday spoke dialogue sounded to them. This is more an issue of the passage of time. Since most people no longer speak this way, it is harder for me to pick up on the unwritten implications of the text, the read-between-the-lines aspect of novels that I usually adore so much because it's further removed from how we currently covey the subtle deeper meanings of what we say, currently, in the 2020s. 

It's because of this reason that I feel some of the best aspects of the novel--characterization, mood, tone, and aesthetic--are a bit lost in the translation of time for me. 

That all being said, I don't dislike the plot of the novel at all. It's the original slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers book. Some readers of strictly modern books may disagree. After all, most of the book has to do with upper-class English families and the arranged marrying-off of daughters, and inheritance, and all of the drama that comes with such. Again, modern readers may yawn, say this is boring, and turn towards books with female assassins and smut by current popular authors like Colleen Hoover and Sarah J. Maas, and if that's your taste, I am not telling you not to read what you enjoy. What I am saying, though, is that it's unfair to expect Austen's work to be on that same caliber or to disregard the importance of her work in women's literature. Modern SJM and CoHo books couldn't even exist if writers like Austen hadn't broken through the barrier of the literary world first. Is her work perfect? No, but it is a product of it's time, and the time period itself is quite imperfect. But it did what it needed to do in order for women's writing to truly evolve and come into its own in the decades that followed. 

One of the best things that this novel did was play with the idea of women being able to choose who they wanted to marry. In a society rife with arranged marriages, we see the main character of the novel, Elizabeth, resist marrying Mr. Collins, despite the interest such a prospect brings to her family, and instead ends up betrothed to Mr. Darcy, who she grew to fall in love with. We also see Elizabeth's sister Jane actively pursue and then wed Mr. Bingley. As these are the two main love stories within Pride and Prejudice, much of the novel is spent watching women gain agency in their futures by getting to pursue the husbands they choose rather than being pawned off on anyone by their father. 

Of course, again, from a 2023 perspective, this isn't revolutionary, and it's not what most people think of when they think of feminism. Obviously, it's still a story about women needing to get married in order to have prospects for their futures. But for 1813 when this novel was published, it is quite groundbreaking in the thematic concern of giving women agency in their lives. So, I wouldn't consider it a flaw of the novel but rather just the natural aging process of the story over time. 

Another portion of the story that maybe didn't quite pass the test of time, and which has been the subject of much literary debate over the years, is the story of Elizabeth's sister Lydia. 

Is her story groundbreaking for thematic reasons, or is it a step backward in Austen's rather progressive views about women? 

Towards the end of the novel, Lydia runs away with the devious George Wickham, who has no intention of marrying her after their planned tryst. Lydia is shown to have no regard for the way her "scandalous" behavior reflects poorly on her family, and it eventually comes down to Mr. Darcy to fix the situation by convincing Wickham to wed Lydia, so the entire situation can eventually be swept under the rug. 

Thematically, this plot point does raise a lot of interesting questions about society's ideas of morale at the time. After all, it was Wickham who whisked away a fifteen-year-old girl for reasons that can only be assumed as sexual intentions (though it is never explicitly stated this way in the novel), and doesn't intend to wed her, just use her. However, it is the naive child he whisked off who suffers the consequences, whose family will look bad for it, who is considered frivolous for having done it in the first place. From a modern perspective, most readers will understand that in this situation, Lydia is just a child and Wickham is the adult man who has taken advantage of her. Certainly we should see Wickham as the villain in this situation. And while Austen makes it quite clear across the novel that Wickham is despicable, the part of this story that doesn't seem to age well is that Lydia also seems to be villainized for her actions here as well. And, of course, if they hadn't gotten married, only Lydia would have suffered the social consequences, not Wickham. 

So was Austen intentionally trying to showcase the double standards placed on men and women at the time with Lydia's story, or is she trying to actually imply that Lydia is frivolous? Is she trying to say that Lydia is worse than Elizabeth and Jane because while they are pursuing engagements, Lydia is engaged in trysts with men with no promises of marriage? Is this a complex depiction of the flaws in how society treated women, or is Austen trying to imply that sex is scandalous for an unmarried woman and that marriage should be a woman's goal?

Obviously, I know which way I lean in this debate, but I have seen it go both ways. This sticking point could be the breaking point of whether you love or hate Pride and Prejudice. 

However, Lydia's story is only one small portion of Pride and Prejudice. The main draw of this book, for most, is the slow-burn budding romance between Elizabeth and Darcy. Like I said earlier, the original enemies to lovers. No, there's no smut and sexual tension, if that's what you're looking for in a slow-burn romance novel, but I personally still feel it's very entertaining watching these two rivals who once despised each other come to terms with how strong their feelings for each other are. Plus, the guy falls first, which is also quite fun to read about in a period piece. 

Final Thoughts

This book may not be as exciting and spicy as modern romance novels, but I think that for any person interested in seeing one of the first building blocks in the romance genre, it's worth a read. It also has a lot of great literary points that can be analyzed, discussed, and debated. 

If I had been alive in 1813 and read this book when it first came out, I probably would have rated it 4 or 5 stars. If this had been published in 2023, I'd probably give it a 2.5. However, I'm choosing to take Pride and Prejudice for the product of its time that it is, as well as listening to my 21st-century gut feelings on it, and rating it a 3.5 out of 5 stars. Great ideas, but also some places that didn't age perfectly. Entertaining, but difficult language to read in places.