So, as it turns out, Pride and Prejudice (you know, the novel by Jane Austen) is TOTALLY HILARIOUS. WHO KNEW??? I certainly didn't. I really think this book should not be read in high school because that's what I was first required to read it, and I didn't realize it was funny AT ALL, and it was deathly boring, and I only made it through about 70 pages. Anyway, as a result of that experience, I didn't try that book again for a long time. Until now, even. And it is great!!!Other books I failed to read in high school? Most that were assigned. My junior English class was supposed to read Pride and Prejudice, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and Wuthering Heights for some British lit unit. Well, I got through 70 pages of the first, the cliffnotes of the second, and not a word of the third. I did awesome on the exam, though, for real. And one time we each had to go to the white board to write a "thesis statement" for Wuthering Heights, and mine was totally the best, something about the conflict between Romanticism and Rationalism, and my teacher L-O-V-E-D it. I totally learned so much about catering toward teachers' painfully transparent expectations in high school, and that served me equally well in law school. But in college, I did actually have to think sometimes.
I *did* read MacBeth in that English class, cause I had to write an actual paper on it. I watched the movie for Hamlet, but it was the Kenneth Branagh movie, so really that wasn't too cheatish. Also, I'll have you know that on my own, I read books like Towards a Feminist Theory of the State by Catharine MacKinnon, and The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, and various other books that strike me as potentially far more boring than Jane Austen. But I had an axe to grind back then, I guess.
I *did* read MacBeth in that English class, cause I had to write an actual paper on it. I watched the movie for Hamlet, but it was the Kenneth Branagh movie, so really that wasn't too cheatish. Also, I'll have you know that on my own, I read books like Towards a Feminist Theory of the State by Catharine MacKinnon, and The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, and various other books that strike me as potentially far more boring than Jane Austen. But I had an axe to grind back then, I guess.
I read Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park for college classes, and liked them, but I still held a grudge against Pride and Prejudice (how ironic). I also read Tess finally in college and loved it. So perhaps I shall one day get around to reading Wuthering Heights, since, it turns out, those books we were supposed to read in high school really *were* good books.
But seriously, thanks for turning me off to Jane Austen before I had enough of a clue to appreciate it! Not nice. I think they should only assign Stephenie Meyer in high school, and leave the real books for college. Otherwise they are just going to turn everyone off to reading. Honestly, I have J.K. Rowling to thank for getting me back on.
I'll close with this (which I totally stole from my sister's awesome blog):
5 comments:
I thought Pride and Prejudice was a pretty good read. I just wish she hadn't killed off the dad at the end. That was a little over the top in my view.
Why I am not surprised Erin did really well on a test for a book she didn't even read? Has there ever been a test you didn't do well on? This from the girl who would come back from a final swearing she did horrible and would get an A.
Pride and Prejudice is super funny. I can't believe you've never read it.
What I think is funny is that people think anything Austen is literature just because it's old. Dude, they're romances. And class novels. But really, just romances.
Read Northanger Abbey - it's hysterical. Seriously, I just discovered it and I laughed out loud, the whole time I was reading it. (Get an annotated version where they explain all the references to the gothic romances of the time... makes it that much more enjoyable.)
I LOVE Pride and Prejudice. My mom and I have marathons anytime we get together - oh yeah, baby, six tape A&E version!
Jane Austen is an insanely witty novelist! I love all the verbal interplay between her characters. That's what makes the old movie so much better than the new one. They stuck to the basics and focused more on the dialogue than on soundtrack, location and romance. It is, in the end, extremely romantic, but it's the word play that makes the journey to the happy ending so worth reading/watching.
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