Classic Inspiration: Pride and Prejudice

[Note: A seven-month-long hiatus isn’t easy to explain, but I’ve decided to pick up the trail of reviews I’ve left behind before I lose interest altogether. Special thanks to all those who took the time to drop a comment or two.]

Image via Goodreads

First Published on January 28, 1813

In a Nutshell: ‘his perfect indifference, and your pointed dislike, make it so delightfully absurd!’

Rating: 5/5

In the post-Austen age, popular culture is dominated by romance, but mainstream acceptance of the genre – all right hearty commendations and heated love scenes – has leached away remarkable ingenuity in devising plotlines imbued with realism and subtlety. Fictional relationships, which were set in stone centuries ago, simply won’t profit from the merits of literary classics. It’s like Pride and Prejudice has failed to influence novel-reading and our perception of it.

In one respect, it’s a pity debuting writers should be often slated as fakes. Drama-laden connotations and suggestions of verbal imagery can never be powerful unless they introduce a decisive perspective in which literary forms are illuminated by the truth of fiction, a truth evocative of the basic trends of our time and the many ways we relate to them. Not only that, readers are always selective and thus well-placed for the reinvention of the text, even whole scenes, to respond to something more revealing of their experiences as human beings.

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In Northanger Abbey, Austen herself engages with such controversies in the sophisticated parody of contemporary Gothic romance; for all the vagaries of romantic nature in which youthful frivolity seems to deal, Austen is rather content to acquaint her audience with the pleasures of reading after dinner. Pride and Prejudice is, in its turn, much less romantically skewed than can be credited with: the story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy dispenses with the sort of magic on which the Brontës and Dickens rely and forces us to ask whether love is just an enlightened calculation of financial advantage.

The plot of Pride and Prejudice is marked by an opening unique in Austen’s novels, a statement of fact that draws readers on and on until they can no longer determine whether the uncontested truth is qualified as such by silent observation or inference. This can be attributed to two causes: first, that narrative patterns are easy to overlook in the eagerness to see what happens next, and how the central characters might be affected; second, that as misjudgment is embodied in Elizabeth, so it’s also in readers of the novel.

While the subtle irony of Pride and Prejudice can be viewed as the pinnacle of its appeal, the reason we return again and again to the book years after its first publication is to appreciate the complexity of its narrative structure. If Elizabeth embarks on a quest to unlock the truth of Darcy’s letter, the reader is hardly equipped with any objectivity to verify the competing accounts of her suitors. The more patiently we bear with the process, however, the more swiftly erroneous perceptions will dissolve and clarity will triumph. At Pemberley, time falsifies itself; to assess the portrait on the wall the heroine must accept that her resolute disdain for its owner is rooted in earlier representations of him. In a matter of lines, an experiment is set up to test whether the straitjacket is finally coming off and whether, since pride as a quality inherent in Elizabeth is so eloquently attested by said missive, liberated readers are able to address the issue of prejudice in isolation, the implications of a visit to the picture gallery notwithstanding.

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By refusing to employ literary devices in a manner consistent with the traditional third-person narrative stance, Austen skirts the boundaries of omniscience and, instead, flirts with a technique which allows her to withhold information and to adopt a voice independent of aesthetics or impressions. Yet for both the characters and the reader, moving from one perspective to another amounts to a major turning-point in the text, where the narration is shaken from its well-laid path and the final confrontation between that which should stay and what should naturally give way is unavoidable.

To be sure, the channelling of the love story of Elizabeth and Darcy through the accents of a reluctant credulity is not only a means of forcing them to abandon their spoils, though that too is the direct result of subsequent reconciliation, but also one of the foremost treatments of exploring different styles of writing. Gossipy conversation and concise reportage make an appearance in Pride and Prejudice, along with the type of dialogue Austen uses to the effect of sexual tensions. To evoke such a pageant of romantic tropes only to subordinate it at its end, once the narration slides into indirect speech and the audience is left to guess at what is taking place from the report of Elizabeth’s discomposure, is characteristic of Austen’s adamant dismissal of having the potency of her tale subjugated to the clichéd diction of love.

Nonetheless, to the modern-day general public the absence of grand romantic gestures is, for lack of a better word, simply incomprehensible. Inevitably, seeking to enlarge on the intimacy and to appeal at the box office at the same time, actors work to intimate such affections on-screen. The closest an adaptation came to exploring the physical aspects of Elizabeth’s relationship with Darcy was through the 2005 version of the book, though the script teetered perilously on the edge of treason, going so far as to deny dear Miss Bennet a vital element in her characterization: Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth is a romantic child of nature, not a young woman of willful disposition who sneers at Darcy as an obnoxious snob.

But not all film-makers are willing to admit that the stolid scepticism of Austen’s novel needs to be curbed to factor in the sentimental romance. For instance, BBC’s Elizabeth, in this case a fairly ambitious Jennifer Ehle, informs her sister of her feelings for Darcy growing stronger after she first glimpses his estate. Incidentally, this is the very same series that gave us Colin Firth in a wet, clinging shirt, as if to overcompensate for the blatant cynicism on the part of the heroine.

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It has taken the cinema a long while to catch up with the scandalous frankness of Pride and Prejudice. Critics who turn to Austen have other problems: they are baffled by the prominence of the militia in the chronicles of the first part of the novel. At home in the ballrooms in Meryton, militia regiments are so ubiquitous that it’s hard to believe these men are simply here to fight the French. Not only is their presence required as a means of providing the warframe necessary to the Napoleonic era, it also constitutes a surprise element in a unregretful character study. Austen, who grew up in a family that had spawned military men in abundance, is emotionally and intellectually aware of the kind of life designed for enjoying the pleasures of youth which enthrall countless millions of eligible young men, and obviously sees this as an opportunity to sketch in behavioural details whenever appropriate; therefore, the belief that Austen was indifferent to contemporary politics needs rebuttal, for it becomes a small evidence for establishing a cultural basis for Pride and Prejudice, at once the most effervescent and military of all her novels.

In Pride and Prejudice, readers can be absorbed in a fast-moving narrative, filled with acute observations and jokes, the highlight of it the unforgettable cast of characters that goes hand in hand with a rich narrative texture. Writers new to the genre Austen has graced with her pen would be well advised to take a leaf out of her book of novel-writing, whereas readers coming to it through the freshness of a camera shot will be free to find new meanings in the novel, should they help shed the romance label that accompanies every possible dramatization of Pride and Prejudice.

And Then There Were Many: Crime Fiction Throughout The Years

I just thought I’d preface this post by saying that I sincerely hope you all had a great weekend. I spent mine with some college buddies, but instead of lamenting the rate at which summer seems to be flying by, we indulged our passion for probing the recesses of our minds and looking for things to pique our interest. At first, we tried some good old mystery films, and the next we were puzzling over ITV’s Agatha Christie’s Poirot.

Needless to say, I jumped at the chance of an excursion into the literary territories of crime in the confines of a living-room. Crime novels have come in fashion and gone out of it time and again, yet I’ll break things down to some basic tidbits about crime fiction for the avoidance of doubt.

The Ancestor 

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins: The father of crime fiction, Collins created many of the ground rules of the detective novel with this classic. The novel also reflects Collins’s liberal stance on the treatment of servants. Despite his failure to adapt the novel for the stage on more than one occasion, the Moonstone is a rare treat for amateurs and connoisseurs of the genre.

The Classics

The Collected Sherlock Holmes Short Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle:  The Collected Sherlock Holmes Short Stories feature our favourite detective in the course of his inspiration-driven, deftly-handled quest to relish the paranoia involved in the sense of each successful crime. The process heavily juxtaposes Sherlock’s analytical approach to plotting and scheming with the detective’s unconventional, avant-garde methods, which make one want to wear an aluminum foil hat. The success of BBC’s series Sherlock is testimony to the appeal of this modern-day revival.

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie: There are readers who can hardly contain in their patience when it comes to Poirot’s smart-aleck answers and know-it-all attitude, but few people could question Agatha Christie’s keenness for engrossing storylines and sharp eye for detail. Besides, who’s to say that crime novels substitute suspense for character development and moral dilemmas? Death on the Nile grants that wish and makes us privy to the shadow play of erotic impulse, pitting innocence against guiltiness in the guise of the leads who go to town milking histrionic excess from conniving a lover’s campy treachery.

 The Genre Re-Definers  

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier: Dame du Maurier’s Rebecca traces its descent from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre – “What throbs fast and full,  though hidden, what the blood rushes through,” as Brontë puts it when criticizing Jane Austen as a prude. The mystery surrounding Rebecca sets the heroine on a path full of twists and turns, but it all comes to fruition eventually, the brightness of the novel undimmed after eighty years.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré: John le Carré’s novel conveniently dispenses with the love triangles and romantic vagaries that characterized its predecessors, issuing the bleakness of espionage as a backdrop for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. In our right-minded times, George Smiley can’t be pilloried as Ian Fleming’s James Bond, so his mission borrows from Professor Moriarty’s archenemy by way of an arc. Still, the book does not stray too far from crime fiction, even going so far as to appear in the lists of the British-based Crime Writers’ Association.

The Newcomer

The Cuckoo’s Calling by “Robert Galbraith”: Robert Galbraith – a pseudonym used by J. K. Rowling – urges most well-renowned storytellers to make way for his literary debut into the world of crime and mystery. The extent of what this entails remains to be seen, yet the result of it can hardly be doubted. The characters do come up with as ingenious an alibi as can well be imagined.

Bonus Top Ten List of Banned Books

While I enjoy a good top ten list whenever one comes in handy, I’ve noticed that most lists involving banned books out there include either books for adults or children’s books but never a combination of those two. This prompted me to try my own hand at something new. So without further ado,  here’s the list I’ve compiled:

1.Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll): Which one of you would raise their hands if I asked you whether you’ve heard of Alice’s Adventures? Even if you haven’t read the book, you’re probably already acquainted with the many adaptations this children’s classic has inspired. According to Virginia Woolf, “the two Alices are not books for children; they are the only books in which we become children.” Who, then, would seek to ban a book that has become such a vital part of a child’s literary experience?

By the time Lewis Carroll had finished writing Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the rumour was spreading he maintained an inappropriate relationship with Henry Liddell’s daughter, Alice. Despite the fact that the heroine was vaguely based on Alice Liddell, whose dark features were a far cry from the novel’s golden-haired, fair-complexioned Alice, the Liddells soon came to shun contact with Carroll, who had been a close friend of theirs up until that point. Later, due to the great deal of speculation this particular event indulged, parents and headmasters in the US demanded that Carroll’s books be removed from all school libraries on grounds they were the work of a paedophile.

What would come to be regarded as the final nail in Alice’s coffin, though, as it had been designed and manufactured by censors all around the globe, was Ho Chien’s reaction to the story he was presented with in 1931. A General in the province of Hunan, China, Ho Chien was appalled at “the portrayal of anthropomorphized animals acting on the same level of complexity as human beings.” Fearing that the books would teach children to regard humans and animals on the same level, the General ordered ban on Alice’s Adventures. Apparently he had never read any of Aesop’s Fables…

2.Ulysses (James Joyce):  It is a well-known fact that Virginia Woolf ultimately derived inspiration from Joyce’s Ulysses while writing her short masterpiece, Mrs Dalloway. What is yet to be unveiled to some readers is that Ulysses is also a novel that has stood tall against criticism and controversial views on the subjects broached in it. In fact, the book was banned in the UK until the 1930s. Moreover, it was challenged and temporarily removed from libraries in the US for its sexual content. In 1933, the ban was overturned in United States v. One Book Called Ulysses. If you haven’t read it, you’re missing out on an ingenious update on Homer’s Odyssey , which may leave you genuinely impressed.

3.Charlotte’s Web (E. B. White): Another classic that has survived a good many challenges is E. B. White’s heartfelt story of the unlikely friendship between a pig and a spider. The chief complaint filed against this book bears a striking resemblance to the accusations leveled against Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, yet somehow censors have managed to involve religious views in the matter. It might surprise you to know that a school in Britain excluded the book from its lists of recommended books for children, for fear that the pig Wilbur might be offensive to Muslim students. Thanks to the crucial intervention of the Muslim Council of Britain, guillotine time didn’t elapse for Wilbur, and the adorable piglet has long since been introduced and reintroduced to generation after generation as a model of a child’s best friend.

4.All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque): The ultimate anti-war novel, All Quiet on the Western Front was thrown into the flames of fires lighted up by the German Nazis in 1933. While it’s true that the plot of the novel centres on the First World War, the timing of its publication could not have been better. Its message challenging and condemning brutal war tactics, Remarque’s work was banned in Nazi Germany for being demoralising to the Wehrmacht. In 1938, Remarque’s citizenship was revoked, but his novel was already held up as the exemplar of a peaceful society by pacifists and anti-war demonstrators.

5.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain): Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn has gone to great lengths to fan the flames of controversy since its early publication in 1885. Much of modern scholarship of the novel has focused on its treatment of race. The frequent use of the word “nigger” in particular has led scholars to assume the book blatantly promotes racism. Others, of course, regard Huckleberry Finn as an attack on racism and the numerous fallacies associated with it. In any case, the novel was listed as the fifth most-frequently-challenged book in the United States during the 1990s. Believe it or not, Huckleberry Finn has only recently exited the above-mentioned list, as Obama’s election into office has been interpreted as a sign that Americans “are ready for change.”

6.Animal Farm (George Orwell): Animal Farm: A Fairy Story – surely the most important work of fictional political satire to be written in 20^th century Britain – was first published in 1945. The success of Animal Farm posed many problems for Orwell, which were none to see compared to the events that had led to the publication of the book. Much of the criticism Orwell faced at the time can be attributed to the fact that Britain and the Soviet Union were war allies; therefore, Stalin was held in the highest esteem in Britain among the populace and the general intelligentsia.

Though the Cold War would later change the global balance and shift the interplay of power bases to fit political symmetry and interaction, it’s no wonder that Orwell’s work was rejected by seven publishers. In due course, the book came to be banned in Cuba, China and North Korea. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that a certain publisher in America declined to publish the novella because he considered there was “no market for children’s books.”

7.The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (L. Frank Baum): As Jane Austen would most likely put it, it is a truth universally acknowledged that the Wonderful Wizard of Oz is one of the foundations of the fairy tale genre. Personally speaking, I simply loved Judy Garland in MGM’s classic adaptation from the 30’s. All of the 14 Oz books set out to instil a sense of selflessness into children, yet they could hardly pass uncontested themselves.

In 1957, the director of Detroit’s libraries banned The Wizard of Oz for supposedly having “no value for children”, for supporting “negativism”, and for “bringing children’s minds to a cowardly level.” Fortunately, Professor Russel B. Nye of Michigan State University determined to talk some sense into scholars by countering that “if the message of the Oz books seems of no value,” then maybe the time is ripe for “reassessing many other things besides the library’s approved list of children’s books.” It appears that Dorothy and Toto have finally found a safe road back to Kansas.

8.Brave New World (Aldus Huxley): Huxley shares a position as the king of Dystopian novels with Orwell, and it’s no surprise the book was banned and challenged at various times. In 1932, the book was banned in Ireland for its language and for supposedly promoting anti-family and anti-religion ideas. The book was also banned in India in 1967, with Huxley accused of being a pornographer. And in case you think that banning a certain book brings nothing new into the whole censorship ordeal, I should probably let you know that the Polish author Antoni Smuszkiewisz presented accusations against Huxley by commenting on the existing similarities between Brave New World and two science fiction novels written by Smuszkiewisz’s compatriot Mieczyslaw Smolarski, the City of the Sun (1924) and The Honeymoon Trip of Mr. Hamilton (1928). Whichever the verdict delivered on the copycat question, Huxley’s novel is a feat yet to be matched by the work of  any science fiction author wannabe.

9.Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl): Roald Dahl’s fantasy novel has worked its way to the top of children’s lists of personal favourites and claimed its rightful position there through thick and thin. The younger generation of fellow bibliophiles have undoubtedly met Charlie and the eccentric Mr. Wonka through Tim Burton’s adaptation of the book.

Nonetheless, Charlie’s place in the bookshelves hasn’t always been secure. In fact, children’s novelist and literary historian, John Rowe Townsend, has described the book as “fantasy of an almost literally nauseating kind” and accused it of “astonishing insensitivity” with regard to the portrayal of Oompa-Loompas as black pygmies. In spite of Dahl’s alteration of their physical appearance and his declaration that he hadn’t intended to target specific racial groups, the book was banned in parts of the USA. Considering that Charlie didn’t spend too long stuck in the chocolate pump, it seems unlikely that the book will suffer such fate anytime soon.

10.Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov): Nabokov’s tale of Humbert Humbert and Dolores Haze is probably the most controversial book ever written. While Nabokov himself was hesitant to publish a novel that deals with an abusive relationship contentiously enough, and while Lolita came up against no obstacles upon its release in the US in 1958, becoming the first novel since Gone with the Wind to sell 100,000 copies in its first three weeks, the book is more likely to stir up a hornet’s nest in today’s society, which has become increasingly aware of the lasting damage created by child sexual abuse, than in 20^th century Canada. Still, Nabokov never regretted Lolita, and the outstanding number of scholars that have characterized Lolita as the finest novel of the 20^th century are quite possibly of the same mind.