The Pride & Prejudice You Haven't Seen...

As you're probably well aware I've been rereading Pride & Prejudice as part of The Book Rat's Jane in June read-a-long. Well, last week my roommate and I got to talking - what versions of Pride & Prejudice need to happen. I mean, of course the A&E Colin Firth miniseries is a favorite, and I'm also a huge fan of the more resent Kiera Knightly film, so what other versions would become instant favorites?

We decided the best way to do this was to take directors who have favorite actors use in most of their films, as well as a specific style of filmmaking. The first cast's we came up with were for a Wes Anderson and a Judd Apatow.  If you have other suggestions for directors/styles/teams let me know!

My awesome roommate Jasmyn made the charts since I'm terrible with Photoshop. In case you're interested we also posted about our casting project on Camp or Crap (our bad movie blog).

Is this what normal people in their 20's do with their nights? Wait, maybe I don't want the answer to that.

One last thing: Wes, Judd, If you're reading this you should totally make these movies. I'd see them a bazillion times. 

Pride & Prejudice Read-a-Long Part 2

Keeping up with my I'm-not-in-school-so-scheduling-has-gone-out-the-window period that's been going on for the past couple weeks I bring you Part 2 of my thoughts of Pride & Prejudice for the Book Rats Jane in June Read-a-Long. Instead of answering the questions I decided I was just going to go over some of my broader thoughts of this section.

Oskar Wild is not as big a fan of Jane Austen as I am.

Now, if you'll remember back to Part 1, I was minding my own business reading Pride & Prejudice and BAM Elizabeth Bennett was just annoying the pants off of me. She was all judgmental and mean to Mr. Darcy, who was making me swoon with his timely placed eye comments and quiet disposition. I was very confused. I liked Elizabeth in my previous reads? She was the everyone! I was discouraged, I put my paperback down, went to the library, started On the Road and thought fondly about Colin Firth. I needed time. 

Okay, I didn't need that much time. I was back to P&P within a few days and found my feelings completely changed. Elizabeth was the love-able heroine I remembered from several years back. She was poised and confident and completely awesome! The ball at Netherfield left me cringing, but in a good way, since I know that not all hope is lost. I was also starting to appreciate the roles of the umm... sillier...characters. Lydia drives me up the wall, but she certainly has her purpose and while I can't stand Mr. Collin's I love how oblivious to real customs Austen made him.  Even Wickham's true character starts to show at the end of this section. Masterfully done, Jane, masterfully done. 

I was also really thinking about marriage during these chapters. Okay, that isn't a surprising fact. Mrs. Bennett is always talking about marriage. If you think about it, Jane was living in a time where you needed a husband to have any sort of comfortable living, otherwise you were a burden on your family and that sad person people talked about at balls who is now the crazy spinster down the lane. So what does Jane do? She has good ol' sensible Elizabeth turn down the marriage proposal that could keep her family in their home because Mr. Collins is crazy irritating. Wow. That's a huge gamble girl! I feel like the reason Pride & Prejudice has remained a favorite so long is that Elizabeth is more of a 21st century girl than a 19th century one. She has her own thoughts and opinions and doesn't want to end up in some forced, loveless marriage just because it's expected of her and I think that's awesome. It also lead me to believe there needs to be a Doctor Who episode where the Doctor visits Jane Austen and tells her about feminism and then whoever his companion is inspires Emma. 

Oh, last thing. I was right, the pages are starting to fall out of my crappy paperback, anyone have suggestions for good Pride & Prejudice editions?

Pride & Prejudice Read-a-Long Part 1

So I'm doing the Pride & Prejudice read-a-long as part of Book Rat's Jane in June event. I'm a little behind though, so my post is a little late. Regardless, I'm crazy  happy to be rereading Pride & Prejudice for the first time and spreading the Jane Austen love.

This is me with my beaten up copy of P&P. I'm not entirely sure it will survive the reread. 

Tell us a little about your experience with Jane: is this your first time reading Pride and Prejudice/Austen? If so, What were you expecting going in? If this is not your first Jane, what makes you want to read this again?

For me I've always felt I like Jane Austen more in theory than in practice. I read Pride & Prejudice for the first time a few years ago and was really happy to have loved it, but my next few attempts with Sense and Sensibility and Emma (which I didn't finish) left sometime to be desired from my Jane Austen experience. When I started this reread I was really looking forward to rediscovering the things I loved about Austen from my first experience with her so maybe I could be motivated to finish her other novels.

Share your first impression of the book so far. What have the highlights been for you? Any favorite parts so far? Least favorite parts? Things you found confusing?

I remember the first time I read Pride & Prejudice thinking "Where's Lizzy?" for the first two chapters. Having seen parts of the movie and, you know, just existing in a literate world I knew she was the protagonist of the story, yet she isn't really important in the beginning of the book. Now that I know to expect all this Jane business everything read much smoother, and I was generally surprised at how fast P&P reads.

Jane Austen is known for her memorable characters. What do you think so far of the characterization? Do any stand out to you? If this is a reread for you, do you notice new things in the characters with each reread? Do your favorite characters change with each reread?

I use to really love Elizabeth. She was like the everygirl:  smart, funny, easily misguided but with her heart in the right place. During this read I'm loving her less. She's still smart and witty, but she just isn't sparkling for me right now. However I am really enjoying Mr. Darcy in the beginnings of the novel. He's sweeter than I remember and it seems obvious now that he only had the best (if slightly misguided) intentions at heart.

What do you make of the principle characters so far? Do you relate to any particular one?

i feel like there is a lot of set up in these first 80 something pages. We're just learning the basic traits of each of the characters. Lizzy's smart and sassy, Jane's calm and sweet, Mrs Bennet is a crazy person (not really crazy just crazy irritating) and Mr. Darcy's kind of proud.


Discuss the eligible men of Pride & Prejudice: Impressiosn of Mr Bingley, Mr Darcy, Wickham and Mr Colins.

As far as eligible men go, the only two I think are worthy of my attention are Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy. Bingley's terribly sweet, and recognizes his own faults and is just all kinds of adorable. And Darcy's just Darcy. He's that men guy in class you had a crush on because he said stuff like "Hey Stupid! You're holding up the line!" and  you laughed and laughed because he was cute and if he was cute he obviously deserved your attention...That's probably a really bad way to think about Darcy. Oh well.

Also. I hate Mr. Collins with a passion.

Discuss the Bennet girls stay at Netherfield.

Elizabeth and Jane's time at Netherfield is one of my favorite parts of the book. We learn so much about the Bingley's and Darcy while there. Plus it's really funny. Living in the 21st century intstead of the beginning of the 19th it's easily to see Elizabeth as a sensible and normal modern girl, but in reality she's kind of odd for her own time period. The time at Netherfield really plays off that.  Caroline is irritating, but really kind of funny and it's interesting to see the Bennet's from someone else's perspective.

Discuss Wickham's revelation of Darcy's character: Judging solely on the text so far do you believe the things Wickham tells Lizzie? what impressions do you have of Wickham, Lizzie and Darcy after this?

Jane really got this part right. Wickham's Darcy tale is, in my opinion, completely believable. He's nonchalant about it and doesn't spend very much time dwelling on Darcy's "wrong doings". More so he convinces Lizzie that Darcy could actually be the type of man that would disregard his fathers wishes, and so far Lizzies opinions have been fairly accurate. I still don't particularly like Wickham as a character, but that could just be because I think he's kind of dull.

Discuss the humor in the book so far: There are a lot of different types of humor on display throughout the book, from Mr. Bennet's dry indifference, Lizzie's witty banter, Mr Collins ridiculousness, etc.

My thing with Pride & Prejudice is that it's funny, but it's not really HaHa funny. I really love Mr. Bennet's dry humor though. During my reread I've found several of his passages underlined with little "lol"s next to them. He's the insider that realizes his world is pretty trivial and kind of insane. Lydia's blatant disregard for manners makes me laugh too. She's just so, so silly. The one person who is probably suppose to be comic relief that I don't find funny is Mr. Collins. He just irritates me so much and It's all I can do to not picture to disgusting man that plays him in the movie whenever I see his name. It's like his words are nails on a chalkboard. They're not funny, they're irritating.