So I’m on page 96 and nothing is really happening, apart from difficult dialogues (English is not my first language, so I’m having a hard time with this old English) and just a lot of people going to each others houses.
If you read this book, do you recall when it starts to get better? In combination of reading the book, I’m also going to spark notes once I finish a few chapters and read the summary.
by HumanYogurtcloset941
14 Comments
I have never, in my 70 years of life, managed to get through a Jane Austen novel.
There are native English speakers who have difficulty with the earlier forms/conventions of our language – and you are reading one which falls into that category.
The pacing of writing pre & early 20th century is not likely to be “action” oriented as we think of it these days – especially Austin. Her characters are navigating a complex set of societal (and unspoken) ‘rules’, which is where the book’s tension originates.
You may wish to watch one of the films or mini-series based on the books to get a sense of what the characters are feeling – and then re-try reading the book.
Haven’t read it in a while but the only time I got bored was that one dude monologuing because he’s boring af, which is the point. Read it once and clipped all the pages together so I never had to reread it again. She meets someone and learn some things then stuff happens once she visits a friend’s house. Then everything goes down when she goes on a roadtrip with family.
I think that plot wise towards the end the book becomes more exciting because it takes time to build up the tension and the main intrigue unfolds towards the end. I am not a native English speaker too and I would say that reading classics is definitely more difficult for me than modern fiction. Perhaps reading first in your native language and then in English might be helpful to both ease the process and see if it is the language of the book or the book itself is the issue for you.
I read it after watching the movie and it was better bc I had the movie scenes in my head but without the movie I guess it s really boring
This is so weird, I am also reading Pride & Prejudice for the first time this week. I’m on Chapter 43 and I admit it’s been a bit of a slog for the last dozen chapters. I’m only pressing forward because I like the character of Elizabeth, and I’m fascinated by the Regency era.
I’m not expecting much action in a novel of manners, of course.
If you’re open to it, I’d suggest listening to it as an audiobook; I did recently and had an entirely different experience than you. The pacing felt fine, the character interactions were witty and often downright hilarious, and a good narrator goes a huge way in helping reinforce some of the character’s roles in the story which was a game changer for me.
As someone who loves Austen – the dialogue *is* the exciting bit.
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I wish I were as smart as her characters. Their level of snark is so high level and intelligent that not only can they say it and not get into trouble societally, it’s actually praised.
But I do recommend that if you want to read Austen, you should try reading an annotated version. I read a lot of older English literature and I still read annotated versions any time I can.
Austen’s English is not current English, so a) there’s words and phrases we just don’t use anymore and b) it’s also not uncommon for the words or phrases *not to mean what you think they mean* and c) a good annotation will also give you cultural and social background that you won’t know and understanding that can totally change your understanding of the situation, especially in an Austen novel as there is always a lot of social and economic subtext.
I would recommend an audio book version! I couldn’t get into it multiple times, and when I listened, the narrator did a great job adding inflection, which made the old English much more understandable. I really enjoyed it that way, and will read it properly in a few months.
Like many readers, I was hooked from the first sentence. It’s a story of manners, especially of manners cloaking desperation, and as it moves forward it’s less about the “plot” than it is about moving more and more deeply into the characters themselves.
Charlotte’s decisions illustrate the terrible choices facing women, and illuminates how unusual Elizabeth is in choosing to wait for love – even as Elizabeth‘s judgmental attitude toward Charlotte is one of the least pleasant parts of her character, but it’s the flipside of her own (necessary) regard for herself. Mrs. Bennett is an obvious nightmare, but as the book goes on you slowly begin to realize what a terrible father Mr. Bennett is, and how badly he serves his children. Lydia and Kitty seem like they are just fun, but Liddy is corrupt to the bone.
Just as with Wickham, polite manners can hide true evil underneath, and just as with Jane, polite manners can hide true feelings. The uncovering of that, and watching Elizabeth in the trap that society and the entailment have set for her trying to find a way out that allows her to be true to herself, IS the action of the plot.
My experience with it was that it stayed quite steady through the whole book. It didn’t shift towards more excitement or drama part way through. I haven’t enjoyed any of the Jane Austen I’ve read, which bothers me because I typically enjoy adaptations of her work. But the books themselves feel tedious.
I enjoy Jane Austen, but I didn’t really start to appreciate her witty writing until I got older and started re-reading her work. I promise it get funnier with each reading. The audio books and movies helped too because it gave me more to reference in my imagination.
Pride and Prejudice isn’t old English.
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