Review: Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Genre: (Classics) Historical, Fiction, Romance
Rating: 5

Mrs Bennett is ecstatic when a young single man moves in to the house nearby, and she is convinced that one of her daughters will be married by the end of his stay. At the ball that her daughters are destined to meet Mr. Bingley and his friends, they are shocked when they meet a very unlikeable man—Mr. Darcy. Mr. Darcy does not like anyone, he is proud and haughty, and rude to the point that he spoke of Elizabeth Bennett, in hearing distance, that he did not find her pretty at all… hence begins her prejudice.

But when situations of luck and chance force Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy to get to know each other more, Elizabeth is not expecting Darcy to propose to her. She flatly rejects him—and then falls in love with him, of course.

I don’t think that I can really say anything about Pride and Prejudice that has not already been said, but I will say my honest opinion, as always. My mom has been bugging me to read Austen’s work for a very long time, and now I understand why.

Austen has crafted an intricate, beautiful, utterly romantic story that will spirit you away into another time and place. I felt the pain and the tension of the characters, the annoyance that poor Elizabeth felt about her dreadful mother, and I despised Mr. Collins, and pitied his wife.

The reality of the romance between two characters is always very important. Mr Darcy did not love Elizabeth for no reason, nor because she was pretty. In many contemporary romances, what happens between the characters is not always realistic or logical. But the love between Elizabeth and Darcy was founded on character, had depth, and elapsed over a realistic time period. This was no three-week whirlwind romance.

Pride and Prejudice will absolutely be a permanent addition to my bookshelf— my e-bookshelf, also:

Audio: I listened to the audio book of Pride and Prejudice. I got it online for free at www.librivox.org (this link is a direct link to the page I downloaded it). Those of you who don’t know about Librivox, it is a community of readers who record books on audio that are no longer copyrighted, and are in the public domain.

The version I listened to was recorded by Karen Savage. She did an excellent job reading. She added to the book instead of taking away, as some audio books that are hard to listen to tend to do. She has a perfect English accent, good voices for the different characters—though they’re not overdone to the point that they sound silly—and she read fast enough that the book did not drag. Savage has done a fantastic job, and she is the best reader I’ve listened to all year.

Gutenberg text for Pride and Prejudice.
Audio link
Karen Savage