"Deconstruction generally tries to demonstrate that any text is not a discrete whole but contains several irreconcilable and contradictory meanings; that any text therefore has more than one interpretation; that the text itself links these interpretations inextricably; that the incompatibility of these interpretations is irreducible; and thus that an interpretative reading cannot go beyond a certain point."There's your pretentious bit of academic gibberish for the day. No, actually it's quite fascinating, but it's not what we'll be doing right now. I only mean deconstructing as in deconstructing the idea that Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice isn't... bollocks.
Die-hard Austen fans, I apologize. I'm not trying to insult you. It's just that I can't figure it out. Being a sucker for romantic 19th century novels myself one would think I were deep in your midst. I love Wuthering Heights, and I can't say Jane Eyre isn't good.
After finishing Love in the Time of Cholera I needed something else to read. Pride and Prejudice has beaten me quite a few times already, dare I give it another try?
The backside of my edition reads:
"In a remote Hertfordshire village, far off the good coach roads of George III's England, a country squire of no great means must marry off his five vivacious daughters. At the heart of this all-consuming enterprise are his headstrong second daughter Elizabeth Bennet and her aristocratic suitor Fitzwilliam Darcy – two lovers whose pride must be humbled and prejudices dissolved before the novel can come to its splendid solution."
It sounds great. Entertaining, interesting and meaningful. All the right ingredients are there. But somehow, the finished product has never done anything for me. Perhaps it's just because I haven't finished it. The cover does talk about the novel's "splendid solution".
I've started to read it more times than I care to remember; I've even tried to listen to the audio book version. I did read more than half of it, but to no avail. And I'm not the kind of person to easily give up on a novel. If I start reading one, I finish it. Apart from this one. Maybe it's circumstantial; maybe it's just not for me (but it should be!).
I guess I will have to give it another go, and actually finish it before I judge it. I might like it. After all it is considered a classic, and is quite widely loved.
If not I will submit Pride and Prejudice to a vicious, verbal assault that will go completely unnoticed. Which also means no one will hear its screams. Mwahaha!
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