On the back of my previous blog post on Jane Austen, as promised…a guest post from Hubby. Over to you Hub!
I remember reading out loud around the classroom at school. I would always volunteer my services early in the lesson so I could then switch off and avoid the teacher’s ire if, when the volunteers dried up and I was picked upon, I wouldn’t know where we were up to.
Since those days I don’t think I’ve read anything written before the 20th century, and even then Jane Austen wasn’t on the curriculum of my all-boys school.
So when Cathy set herself the task of re-reading all of Austen’s work in a month, in a moment of foolhardiness I volunteered to read one of her choosing. Pride and Prejudice duly arrived on my bedside table. I expected a struggle, but it was quite a page turner.
I enjoyed the slow and steady progress towards the inevitable happy ending. The distance between Elizabeth, the heroine, and Darcy, the hero, was set as far apart as possible very early on and then gradually narrowed. There was a nice moment when the idealistic Elizabeth, whilst continuing to struggle with the contradictory intel on the man whose first proposal of marriage she has already rejected, visits his country estate, suddenly fancies herself as the lady of the manor, and begins to rue her decision.
Overall, I did struggle a bit with the language and didn’t get the humour particularly, so I won’t be reading more Jane Austen but I’m glad I at least have one under my belt.
Finally, as I write this on mine and Cathy’s 37th wedding anniversary, I could not help but note the similarity between mine and Darcy’s chat up technique…. which basically involves hanging around and making a nuisance of yourself until the lady in question comes round to the idea. Worked for both of us in the end!
whatcathyread 