Falling for Jane Austen…..

I’m rereading Pride and Prejudice only to enjoy Austen’s witty prose and laugh at the dialogues she so skillfully creates. I marvel at the currency her prose has to this date, January 2011, even when this was the second novel she published in 1813. Due to the way reading her novels makes me feel, it doesn’t surprise me one bit to know that Prince Regent was her fan, the reason why she dedicated one of her novels to him, or that Sir Walter Scott was an ardent reader of her work.
Only Jane can write Mr. Collins’ response to Elizabeth “I know it to be the established custom of your sex to reject a man on the first application, and perhaps you have even now said as much to encourage my suit as would be consistent with the true delicacy of the female character” (82) These are Collins’ words when she refuses his marriage proposal. Those words could easily have been said today and I’m sure plenty of readers like myself, love how Pride and Prejudice give the impression that you’re listening to people talking in England’s 1800s; surprisingly, voicing the same relationships’ issues we’re dealing and talking about today. And the issue gets funnier when Elizabeth keeps on refusing him and he persists: “I shall choose to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females” (83).
The readers should forever be thankful to Jane for making us laugh with Mrs. Bennet complaining about how she is suffering from her nerves whenever things don’t go her way...........