Today* is a momentous anniversary: 200 years since the publication of Pride and Prejudice. As my friend Deb cleverly remarked, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that some literature is timeless.”
Until a few years ago, I had only read Pride and Prejudice and Emma, so I recently read all the rest of Austen, with that mix of pleasure and dread that one gets from reading a wonderful writer who produced tragically few books.
Pride and Prejudice is packed with passages that strike one as extremely quotable as one is reading, but aren’t really, because the context is essential. This is hilarious, but only if you know the characters (Jane and Elizabeth):
“Will you tell me how long you have loved him?”
“It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.”
Yeah. If you’re shocked by the venality, it’s time you read the book. But here’s a quote that will do even if you’ve never read it:
“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?”
I would have loved to know Jane Austen, but I would have hated to get on the wrong side of her.
*Yesterday! Darn! I would’ve mentioned it in the Sunday service!
Sermons in Stones 
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January 28, 2013 at 8:21 pm
Laurel McClure
What a glorious anniversary. I read and re-read Pride and Prejudice growing up. For many years, it was the only Austen I had read, and I think it must still be my favorite. She is deliciously witty, and observant, and oh yes it would have been dreadful to have her caricature one’s own foibles. It was the first I read, and suffered from high school syllabus syndrome: reading it as an assignment didn’t ruin it, but it didn’t bring out its best, either. Emma was the next, and I was acutely aware when I got to the end of it that I needed to read it many more times to get all the ins and outs of the plot, that is, of the characters’ interactions. Everything is as inevitable as real life–she plots like Agatha Christie except that every twist depends on a character, and everyone always acts in character. Definitely time to re-read that one. –AZM
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January 28, 2013 at 8:34 pm
Allison @ The Book Wheel
Such a great and timeless classic! I wish I was living in a place that had one of the awesome events! I bet there was something near me (I live in San Francisco) but I didn’t know about it until tonight! That’s what I get for having a Facebook-free day. 😉 I think I’ll reread Emma in honor of the occasion. I’ve re-read P & P just in the last year so feel no particular urge in that direction. –AZM
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January 29, 2013 at 9:18 am
David Zucker
Yes, Austen (never call her Jane) is a cure for all sentimentality. Nothing sentimental about Austen. Nor cynical, IMO. I just encountered Auden’s poem about her–do you know it? –AZM
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