I picked this up at the library for the Florida trip because I've somehow gotten into the habit of reading classics on vacation and I'd recently watched the movie version with Keira Knightly which had increased my wanting to read it. I saved it for last, and didn't start reading it til we had begun the drive back home. I took my time finishing it, too, taking breaks and reading other books, drawing it out. Can't understate my instant love and affection for this book. How crazy is it to talk about being affectionate about a book? But that's how I feel.
During the time I was reading it I went into the local used book store I've been frequenting since I moved here and happened to take a look at what they had. I'd been checking when I was in, because there are some books I know I'm going to buy and I'm just waiting for the right cover - I know I'll eventually have all the Jane Austens so I've been just picking them up over the years. Anyway, they had this simply beautiful copy there of Pride and Prejudice and I took it home for $5. So I'd started reading the library copy and finished with my own.
Pride and Prejudice hardly bears description, and I'm going to just go on for a second about some of the things I love about it: Jane Austen's wit. Her tongue-in-cheek humour. The Bennet family dynamic. The luxurious settings of Pemberly and Netherfield Park. Elizabeth Bennet's sharp intelligence. Her controlled tongue she can wield like a knife. Her blindness. MR DARCY. The sheer and utter delicious romance of this book.
On Ms Austen herself: I did some reading after finishing Pride and Prejudice (with a satisfied sigh) and I was disappointed to find that the life of Jane Austen herself seems so sad in many ways. It's tragic to think of how many of her letters have been burned and lost forever - I can't help wondering if they were burnt to protect her secrets or those confided in her - probably both. Worse still is the fact that to our remote view her own life seems completely devoid of the kind of romance she writes about with such passion. I am still full of curiosity about her and will have to find a good biography at some point in the future.
For now I'm drawing out the rest of my reading....I'm aware of having the one-time-only experience of being able to read a fantastic book for the first time. It's different every time you read it after that, in a good way, but still never the same as the first time. So I'll wait a while before reading Persuasion or Northanger Abbey. Save them for later.
A note on bookmarks:
I used to fold the corners down, and collect but never use bookmarks. When I started university I always had tons of postcard ads for various theatre productions I was working on or thinking about seeing, and I started using them as bookmarks. Now I've progressed to the point where I have a manilla envelope full of stuff I've saved (tickets, postcards, birthday cards) or collected (cool business cards, drawings, whatever, oragami). When I read a book for the first time and it doesn't have a bookmark I dig through my envelope and find one that fits with the book somehow (in my mind). In this way I'm slowly working through my personal library and every book is getting a page marker. It's turning out to be a cool way to save and give a purpose to all that little paper ephemera I like or want to keep. The picture below is the bookmark I gave to Pride and Prejudice (it fits well folded up). I still fold down corners; when I come across a line in a book that just hits my soul I turn down the bottom corner of the page.
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