Sunday 7 February 2010

Jane Austen and I don't get along

Jane Austen, Austen of Jane, the Sacred Mighty Jane Austen! Thrice hail the Jane Austenness of Jane Austen!
Fuck Jane Austen.
The sheer drought contained within her books make my tongue rough and I feel parched. The pages of complete uselessness slip through my mind and parts that contribute nothing to the story whatsoever run across my eyes.
What bothers me the most though is how much I love her stories. I grew up watching Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility and the likes on BBC. I dreamt of Mr Darcy and of being able to match up people like Emma. Then I was old enough to understand her language (because like all 90's kids I grew up not speaking properly) and I cannot emphasize how bored I am with them. Whenever Jane begins to describe something, I read the first sentence and then skip past it. Which is why I adore the conversation. I adore the exploration of emotion but I don't give a shit about how frilly Mrs Bennet's bonnet is or how shiny Mr Bingley's shoe is, and I especially don't want to read 3 pages about it.
I realise now I am more in love with each individual character and the general story than I am with Jane herself. Still I find nothing extraordinary in any of the characters or in any of the stories. I think it's just that Jane Austen was the one to take something simple and romantic and bring it into 'modern' literature. She brought the happy endings to romances, which rarely existed in Roman or Greek stories, or Shakespearean plays, and that made people happy. Still makes people happy.
However, Ms Austen wrote for entertainment, and when on TV I cannot commend her enough. And I can still daydream of my Mr Darcy, who I know will never come because Mr Darcy is one in a million.
Jane Austen, I love you.
Jane Austen, you poor lonely woman, let go and give in.

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