mass market paperback, 496 pages
English language
Published April 28, 1996 by Eos.
Pride and Prejudice is an 1813 romantic novel of manners written by Jane Austen. The novel follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the dynamic protagonist of the book who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between superficial goodness and actual goodness. Its humour lies in its honest depiction of manners, education, marriage, and money during the Regency era in Great Britain. Mr. Bennet of Longbourn estate has five daughters, but his property is entailed and can only be passed to a male heir. His wife also lacks an inheritance, so his family will be destitute upon his death. Thus, it is imperative that at least one of the girls marry well to support the others, which is a motivation that drives the plot. The novel revolves around the importance of marrying for love rather than money or social prestige, despite the communal …
Pride and Prejudice is an 1813 romantic novel of manners written by Jane Austen. The novel follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the dynamic protagonist of the book who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between superficial goodness and actual goodness. Its humour lies in its honest depiction of manners, education, marriage, and money during the Regency era in Great Britain. Mr. Bennet of Longbourn estate has five daughters, but his property is entailed and can only be passed to a male heir. His wife also lacks an inheritance, so his family will be destitute upon his death. Thus, it is imperative that at least one of the girls marry well to support the others, which is a motivation that drives the plot. The novel revolves around the importance of marrying for love rather than money or social prestige, despite the communal pressure to make a wealthy match. Pride and Prejudice has consistently appeared near the top of lists of "most-loved books" among literary scholars and the reading public. It has become one of the most popular novels in English literature, with over 20 million copies sold, and has inspired many derivatives in modern literature. For more than a century, dramatic adaptations, reprints, unofficial sequels, films, and TV versions of Pride and Prejudice have portrayed the memorable characters and themes of the novel, reaching mass audiences.
Hilarious, and romantic. Fun times!
How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.
Technically, this was a re-read, but also, I haven’t touched this novel since high school and until now I only ever read Jane Austen in translation, so it didn’t fully feel like one. For the most part, I had an excellent time with it. As far as enemies-to-lovers romances go, this one truly stands the test of time. There wasn’t a single dialogue scene I didn’t love, and the characters’ quips and observation often made me giggle. I loved the interactions within the Bennet family and, of course, the banter between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy—and how the fun parts intermingled with the cutting commentary about the society of the time (a lot of it still very applicable to certain aspects …
How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.
3.5? qué diver! y bastante fácil de leer en original, imo. a veces demasiados nombres para mí, pero lo he disfrutado bastante. no me esperaba tanto orgullo y tanto prejuicio! ganitas de leerme sense and sensibility
Pride And Prejudice is a difficult novel for me to review because, although this was my first reading of Austen's work, I have already encountered its essential storyline in televised adaptations and numerous other novels so I felt as though I was revisiting the book rather than coming to it fresh. I enjoyed the humour, especially Austen's partly-veiled observations on the predicament of women rendered useless without a husband and, of course, her wonderful characters. Austen had such a talent for observation and for just exaggerating foibles enough to make people such as Mrs Bennet and Lady Catherine ridiculous, but not unbelievable. Personally I wasn't convinced by Darcy's complete change of behaviour mid-book, but both he and Elizabeth have wonderfully sparkling conversations and spats with the great energy fairly leaping from the page. The repression of their social situation contrasts brilliantly with the obvious strength of their emotional attraction to …
Pride And Prejudice is a difficult novel for me to review because, although this was my first reading of Austen's work, I have already encountered its essential storyline in televised adaptations and numerous other novels so I felt as though I was revisiting the book rather than coming to it fresh. I enjoyed the humour, especially Austen's partly-veiled observations on the predicament of women rendered useless without a husband and, of course, her wonderful characters. Austen had such a talent for observation and for just exaggerating foibles enough to make people such as Mrs Bennet and Lady Catherine ridiculous, but not unbelievable. Personally I wasn't convinced by Darcy's complete change of behaviour mid-book, but both he and Elizabeth have wonderfully sparkling conversations and spats with the great energy fairly leaping from the page. The repression of their social situation contrasts brilliantly with the obvious strength of their emotional attraction to each other.
I was interested to learn from Ian Littlewood's introduction that Pride And Prejudice was pretty much an overnight success upon its publication, but that it took some sixteen years and at least one drastic rewrite to get to that stage. The book was refused on its first submission in the late 1700s, even though Austen would have paid for the printing herself! An example to authors everywhere of the importance of not giving up!
I finished this in agony. The dialogue is witty at times, but always at such a boring, inconsequential level. Most of the conversation is about how agreeable or disagreeable this or that person is, and while Austen tries to address this superficiality with the character of Mr. Darcy, his character arc is extremely superficial in its own way. Actually, this dickhead very predictably turns out to be a very kind, lovely and agreeable man once you get to know him.
The characters are boring. Mr. Darcy makes the very predictable transformation from total dickhead to precious darling in basically the snap of a finger. Elizabeth's only character trait seems being a smart-ass. Jane is a gullible fool. Mr. Collins is ugly and disagreeable. All Mrs. Bennet ever worries about is marrying her daughters. And Mr. Bennet doesn't ever give a shit about anything, except his daughter Lydia being …
I finished this in agony. The dialogue is witty at times, but always at such a boring, inconsequential level. Most of the conversation is about how agreeable or disagreeable this or that person is, and while Austen tries to address this superficiality with the character of Mr. Darcy, his character arc is extremely superficial in its own way. Actually, this dickhead very predictably turns out to be a very kind, lovely and agreeable man once you get to know him.
The characters are boring. Mr. Darcy makes the very predictable transformation from total dickhead to precious darling in basically the snap of a finger. Elizabeth's only character trait seems being a smart-ass. Jane is a gullible fool. Mr. Collins is ugly and disagreeable. All Mrs. Bennet ever worries about is marrying her daughters. And Mr. Bennet doesn't ever give a shit about anything, except his daughter Lydia being a slut (at least the novel wants you to look at her like that). In fact, Lydia is perhaps the most interesting character of all, but the epilogue clearly shows that we're supposed to hate her for not marrying rich and trying to obtain money from her sisters who did better on that end.
If the one-dimensionality of the characters is supposed to be for the purposes of satire, well then Austen forgot to make it funny.
Story is nice but the audiobook doesn't sound good 🤷
An inversion of the typical fantasy tropes but just didn’t connect to this one.
Uh, yeah, not my favorite book, sorry Austen fans! I had very high expectations given the book's remarkable reputation, but I just found it to be a very long description of people discussing marriages, while visiting each other.
What I liked best about Pride and Prejudice are its characters - the plot drags on, but it is carried by its colorful cast of ladies and gentlemen (literally), who almost come alive while reading their eloquent monologues and dialogues about the world around them. They alone are "worth" at least two stars of this rating!
I have to admit I had a lot of trouble with the kind of language. The narrator and almost all characters use long-winded sentences with carefully selected words to convey their opinions, and I found the language in this one particularly difficult to understand. There are definitely many "quotable" lines, particularly the famous opening line of …
Uh, yeah, not my favorite book, sorry Austen fans! I had very high expectations given the book's remarkable reputation, but I just found it to be a very long description of people discussing marriages, while visiting each other.
What I liked best about Pride and Prejudice are its characters - the plot drags on, but it is carried by its colorful cast of ladies and gentlemen (literally), who almost come alive while reading their eloquent monologues and dialogues about the world around them. They alone are "worth" at least two stars of this rating!
I have to admit I had a lot of trouble with the kind of language. The narrator and almost all characters use long-winded sentences with carefully selected words to convey their opinions, and I found the language in this one particularly difficult to understand. There are definitely many "quotable" lines, particularly the famous opening line of the first chapter.
I am aware this is a book from the 19th century. I guess I'll stick to Victorian novels from a few decades later.
This was definitely a challenge to my English-reading level - which is quite obvious for the time it took me to read it ;) but oh-so-worth-it. I wasn't expecting it to be that funny, actually - and I'm also grateful that I "waited" long enough to read it that I was able to enjoy it (because I'm pretty sure the "funny" would have flown a few miles above my head 20 years ago :P )
Je öfter ich diesen Roman lese, desto mehr liebe ich ihn. Obwohl ich die Handlung in und auswendig kenne, fiebere ich immer noch so mit wie beim ersten Leben. Außerdem bin ich offener für die kleineren Details.
Es gibt wohl kaum ein anderes Buch, in dem die Hauptfiguren glaubhaft eine so große Veränderung durchmachen wie in diesem. Und es gibt keinen anderen love interest, den ich so vergöttere wie Mr Darcy.
This is one of the best books I came to pick up by chance at a bookstore.
For me, this feels like high fantasy, though it actually could hardly be counted as that when looking at all the typical genre denominators which are missing here.
The world the author has built is quite interesting all by itself:
There is a wall separating the North where magic is very much alive and rampant, and the South which more or less boils down to a 1930s real world, from a technical point of view. In recent years, 'tourism' has been cut off because of a rise of necromancy in the North where the balance of power has been lost, as well as social and political stability.
There are three strands of magic which I feel could be sorted into three classes: necromancy (evil), charter magic (good), and free magic (chaotic). And there …
This is one of the best books I came to pick up by chance at a bookstore.
For me, this feels like high fantasy, though it actually could hardly be counted as that when looking at all the typical genre denominators which are missing here.
The world the author has built is quite interesting all by itself:
There is a wall separating the North where magic is very much alive and rampant, and the South which more or less boils down to a 1930s real world, from a technical point of view. In recent years, 'tourism' has been cut off because of a rise of necromancy in the North where the balance of power has been lost, as well as social and political stability.
There are three strands of magic which I feel could be sorted into three classes: necromancy (evil), charter magic (good), and free magic (chaotic). And there is the Abhorsen, a traveller between worlds, not only North and South, but also Life and Death, who combines charter magic and necromancy to keep the dead where they should be: buried.
The author has been quite clever in the choice of his heroine's background. Sabriel has grown up in the South and thus knows hardly any more about the North and its magic and problems than the reader does. When her father, Abhorsen, vanishes, she has to learn very quickly - about the North, the Dead, compressed free-magic beasts, and the fact that Abhorsen isn't dad's name, but his job. Which now happens to be hers.
I am very glad that I picked this up and read it so soon afterwards. While I'm writing this review, I'm waiting for books two and three to arrive, and I'm already looking forward to reading on in April in form of a buddy read.
Elegant and everything you may have heard it was, but it requires so much concentration to read that reading it becomes a little bit of a chore for someone like me, who's been out of the academic realm for many years. But I'm shallow. Most appreciate it and I do, in concept. Isn't it great that you can read something written over two centuries ago and still connect with it?
I sprinted through this one, aided by clear writing, a point-to-point plot with escalating opponents that felt very video game-like, and a rushed conclusion. There were a few too many familiar fantasy tropes for my taste, though, like (spoiler alert) the fallen, decaying kingdom in which it was set, the protagonist who was the last of a long line of protectors, the supporting character who was a bastard prince, the system of magic tied to the land, utilizing a power based on a single premise (the interface between life and death), and talking animals that were not actually animals - there was even an ancient Wall separating the peaceable human lands from the lurking evil beyond, a climactic battle set in the protagonist's erstwhile boarding school, and a horcrux to destroy. I was intrigued by the existence of electricity and motor vehicles south of the Wall, which teased the possibility …
I sprinted through this one, aided by clear writing, a point-to-point plot with escalating opponents that felt very video game-like, and a rushed conclusion. There were a few too many familiar fantasy tropes for my taste, though, like (spoiler alert) the fallen, decaying kingdom in which it was set, the protagonist who was the last of a long line of protectors, the supporting character who was a bastard prince, the system of magic tied to the land, utilizing a power based on a single premise (the interface between life and death), and talking animals that were not actually animals - there was even an ancient Wall separating the peaceable human lands from the lurking evil beyond, a climactic battle set in the protagonist's erstwhile boarding school, and a horcrux to destroy. I was intrigued by the existence of electricity and motor vehicles south of the Wall, which teased the possibility of a novel clash of technology and magic at some point, but sadly the lights went out in the presence of the bad guys, so there was none of that.
One can say the book's title embodies its story, associating pride with Mr. Darcy and prejudice with Elizabeth. These two characters and their respective families are the main instruments which Jane Austen uses to describe, in a sometimes humorous fashion, some of the vices which predominated in English society back then.
Although not being particularly fond of her writing style and one or two characters being a bit annoying, Pride and Prejudice has great character development for both Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth and it excelled in the dialog between some of its characters.
This was interesting. Two worlds border each other along the Wall: the Old Kingdom, where magic works but technology doesn't, and Ancelstierre, where the reverse is true. Sabriel is from the Old Kingdom, but has been raised in Ancelstierre. When her father dies, she must take up his mantel as the Abhorsen and cross the Wall in an attempt to rescue him from Death.
