Reviews, etc.

If you are going to read Pride and Prejudice for the first time or the twentieth, pick up a copy with a peacock on front. Seriously, why read the entire book imagining Mr. Darcy as Colin Firth, Elizabeth as Kiera Knightly, or Wickham as Patrick Dempsey (that was my own imagination), or worse, any of the characters as some strange looking History Channel pencil drawing of a person from the 1800's? Give yourself a clean slate, open mind, and the power to use your own imagination to create the characters. Pick up a copy of the book with no faces on it...just peacocks.

As I am not a "classics" type of girl I have never been inspired to read Pride and Prejudice, or any other great work of literary fiction. I think this mainly stems from the fact that in literature I never get beyond the first, most obvious, theme of the book. If it is not written, then I don't see it, because I do not read into things (yes, I was the girl that did not know when a guy was flirting with me either) I just don't read into things too deeply. If an author is trying to make a point about communism, women's rights, social isolationism, or trying to secretly convey that the world is coming to a terrible end through a story about five sisters or an island full of eighth graders and a wild pig, or killing birds, red letters, or a great man who has lots of nice parties at his house...I will completely miss it.

I used to get so mad at my English teachers because they would start talking about these hidden agendas and secret messages and themes being conveyed and I wondered...if he wants to talk about slavery or his feelings, why doesn't he just say, "Today I am writing about the evils of slavery"??!! Why does everything have to be shrouded with literary genius so that people like me have no clue what the book is really supposed to be about??? And why were so many other kids in my English classes looking at the teacher with complete satisfaction that they shared the same knowledge of the secrets of the book??? It's a book about animals on a farm, not about government and change and the evils of society!!!

So, for much of my life I have protested against literary works of genius. But if Meg Ryan (in the movie You've Got Mail) loved the book so much, how could i not read it?

My review (minus anything that went beyond the surface): sassy, endearing, empowering, witty, and a humorous story with only a twinge of tragedy. A well crafted story of the realities of human desires. Wealth, beauty, class, comfort, and security on one end that requires at some point the loss of self, dreams, aspirations, or dignity. And on the complete other end confidence, dreams, integrity, deep love, passion, self worth, and aspirations that are only fulfilled in their due time and in the natural course of life that culminate in truly being content, satisfied, slightly humbled, and more complete as a human. It was a perfect love story. A great picture of a family I don't want to mimic. And a pursuit of self-worth and intrinsic value that I wish more girls would find themselves worthy of. It was fascinating, funny, squirrely, prideful, and really pretty beautiful.

I loved the book. Of course, I loved the heroine and secretly, desperately, hoped that I was like her. And I loved the happy ending.