In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen takes 400 pages to tell a story that could have been told in 100, or 10 if you’re Raymond Carver, though Carver never would have written a story like this. There are at least six extraneous characters by my count, and if Austen had brought this novel to workshop I’m sure she would have been brow-beaten into cutting most of them.
The story focuses on two sisters, one of them good-hearted to the point of being hopelessly naive, the other too sharp-tongued and keen-witted for her own good; is it any mystery that the naive one will become disillusioned, that the smart one will be humbled, or that both will end the novel by marching down the wedding aisle with their knights in shining Armani, so to speak?
The wonder is that Austen somehow keeps us interested in this shopworn plot. Partially she does this by making it a comedy of errors. The meddling mother, the bumbling cousin, the dunder-headed daughters, and various other minor characters make appearances that have more to do with comic relief than advancing the plot. The plot, such as it is, is almost entirely one of negation and misinformation — it’s what the sisters don’t know, or the wrong ideas they have, about the men they’re interested in, that drives the story. Mostly this is not, as it so often is in Shakespeare, for example, a matter of deliberate secrecy; it’s simply reticence and good manners and social decorum that keep them from knowing what they need to know.
For example, at one point Jane, the good sister, visits London, where her beloved “Bingley” has gone with his friend and sisters, who have convinced him it’s best to break off his relationship with Jane and avoid marrying a woman who’s socially beneath him. Even though the smart sister, Elizabeth, knows that the sisters and friend are doing this, she can’t talk Jane into writing directly to him or going to him herself, and we spend about 300 pages screaming at her to get a clue.
Later, it becomes obvious that Mr. Wickham, who everyone had previously thought to be a really great guy, is actually a big jerk and a con artist. Rather than warn others about this, Jane and Elizabeth both decide to keep quiet, because they don’t think he can do any harm and they don’t think it’s their place to rat him out. Naturally, he ends up eloping with one of their sisters and almost ruining everything for everybody.
In a novel such as this, where information is at a premium, the role of letters becomes of almost paramount importance. This was the level of the narrative that held the most interest for me, and Austen does a remarkable job building and maintaining tension, so that we’re almost as eager as the characters themselves to receive whatever letter everyone’s waiting for and find out what’s going on. There’s an amazing letter from Darcy, right after Elizabeth has stunned this incredibly rich and handsome scion by turning down his initial offer of marriage (because she thinks he’s a jerk because of Wickham’s lies and because he talked Bingley out of marrying Jane), that goes on for like eight pages and explains his whole life’s story and introduces more extraneous characters and begins the slow process of humbling Elizabeth and making her change her mind.
After Wickham absconds with their sister, the novel basically becomes everyone sitting around waiting for news via letter, and the fear and dread factor couldn’t have been greater. “Every day at Longbourn was now a day of anxiety; but the most anxious part of each was when the post was expected. The arrival of letters was the first grand object of every morning’s impatience. Through letters, whatever of good or bad was to be told, would be communicated, and every succeeding day was expected to bring some news of importance.”
Of course, as I’ve already noted, things turn out for the best — Wickham, though a despicable sort of character, is forced to marry the sister, which is apparently preferable to having the rumor go around that she spent a weekend in London with him; Jane marries Bingley and etc etc — … All in all, despite or because of the threadbare but bloated plot, the letters and the intrigue, I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Finally, here’s a recent article about Andrew Davies, who’s adapted several Jane Austen novels.
Nice review. It would be interesting to go back and re-read this novel by paying special attention to the letters. I’ve never thought of it this way.
Ah, Austen. What a wonderful writer. I love Pride and Prejudice.
Your point about what kind of reception her novels would have at a writers group is interesting. What’s your sense of what is being “aimed for” nowadays, in those sorts of forums? versus what Austen is offering?
This made me think back to your earlier post about rhyme, and how I’ve been thinking about that. Mostly, how powerfuly the incidentals of time and current concepts of artistic merit dictate how we censor ourselves as writers. How many people love reading rhyme, fostering an appreciation for older writers and their techniques, and yet somehow feel they shouldn’t incorporate those same things in to their own work?
The same, perhaps, goes for Pride and Prejudice– a book that dares to pander to our desires in terms of plot, and yet surprises and delights us in terms of its character interaction. There’s definitely, when I look at current novels, a sort of …. focus that seems to be required of “good writing”– where all things must lead to the end of the tunnel narratively. Little in the way of elbow room for the sort of full breath that one can get in a novel. I wonder if this has much to do with the influence of film on writing? So many books (verse and prose) seem to be some sort of redux of cinematic techniques– rarely do I find something that really seems to __use__ language in a way that has some sort of density to it. It’s all only image based, and so frequently, as with a movie, everything seems to have to gel at the end with that “aha!” moment.
(…and then my mind goes… ::singing:: “Taaaaaaaaaaaaaaake ooooooooon meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!! Take on me!….”)
I’ll have to ponder more your thoughts on letters.
Funny you should mention film, Steve; that was sort of exactly what I was originally thinking about while reading the book — knowing that it’s been adapted several times — which characters would they just get rid of for the sake of expediency and clarity? And I do think that sort of mindset creeps in on the workshop level, especially with fiction (although I haven’t been going to fiction workshops, but I gather this sort of anecdotally). Cutting away fat, making sure something’s fully “baked” — what if I want it messy and raw?
Yet, at the same time, there are lots of popular writers who go against this grain — David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers, Delillo, etc. — writing super long books with multiple plot lines and dozens of characters. So as with rhyme or any other technique that’s not de rigeur, I think “good writing” is ultimately defined by whether it’s good, i.e. whether people like it and it conveys accurately whatever it was meant to convey, regardless of form.
Your points well made, and I think there is “good stuff” out there. Perhaps good writing sort of stays the same over the years (atleast in this regard), and its the mediocre crap that tends to change so swiftly– i.e. be swayed by current tastes, filmic methods, etc. ???
You forgot Salman Rushdie. I’m offended.
Ironically, the first serious course I had as an undergrad was a Jane Austen course, taught by someone who I still consider my mentor. He had a PhD from Harvard and seemed to know everything. He made Austen come back to life.
Steve–
didn’t she smell kind of funny?
That’s interesting, though… Never thought I’d get so much out of a book I picked up more to stave off “serious” reading than anything else. And I haven’t even explored the notion of Austen’s “Romanticism” — contemporary with all the biggies of that time.
Tina–
Rushdie is SUCH a big author that I completely forgot about him in this category…
Steve, it cracks me up that you call yourself “the other Steve” now. 😀
David, is that supposed to be an excuse? ‘Cause it’s not working.