of mics and men
is a weekly column by Mayank Srivastava, a Monster Energy enthusiast who likes to waste his time binging content. This is another one of his “cosy corners” where he puts out his thoughts about anything from music to mangas and everything in between, on the wall where the etchings can’t weather away; ad infinitum.
Austen is albeit one of the world's most famous writers, but as it's known: a person in the limelight is always under the microscope as well. For Austen, it's her works that have been the one under constant scrutiny. Pride and Prejudice is one of the foundational classics that has been promoted by my school board for children in grade 6 to write a book summary for. I distinctly remember not reading a single word and going on the internet to plagiarise the whole SparkNotes summary since the arduous part was to fill up 15 pages on this dreadful social commentary set in Napoleanic Wars in Southern Britain County and London. And the worst part was to waste hours of playtime sharpening pencils and drawing margins to reduce the writing area. Since my reading habits aligned more on the comics side at that point, the mention of a classic sent shivers down my spine every summer vacation.
That may be the reason why I hadn't touched any classic like Gulliver's travel, A Tale of Two Cities, or the like all my living life until the Covid-19 Lockdown. Pride and Prejudice was my first choice not because of how revered it is in the literature world but because of Keira Knightley and Netflix and maybe Audible and the appeal that Rosamund Pike serenading me to sleep in these lonely times has. Quite ironic of me to pick up a book, rather an audiobook on various predisposed notions named 'Pride and Prejudice'.
A slow start which these notions might have something to contribute to, but never have something affected my perspective about society and the constructs so quickly as this particular book had, I've read my fair share of Hobbes and Locke but somehow Austen now comes up when someone asks me about social commentary. Being a romantic is more of a bane than a boon reading this work because every time you are reminded of the fact that how relationships have changed throughout history and how eccentric it feels to look for something more substantial than social media validation. The Romance in this novel is the reason why a lot of people unironically put "Old Soul" in their Tinder bios. And it's not their fault, it's just how beautifully Austen has woven this world almost like a Spider's web that catches the flies of repressed feelings of romance off guard until it's too late.
Austen's intention becomes quite clear as we read through the chapters, this is a novel about 'First Impressions'(the name of the original manuscript) and how humans must look beneath the surface. As we delve deeper into this book, we discover it's Austen's motive to lay bare the truth about Class, Marriage, and Family in Victorian Britain using Pride and Prejudice as the means. Characters are so vivid yet the setting so dull, contrasting it to today's fast-paced life the speed of the horse-carriage is menacingly slow and so is the pacing of the story.
I don't want to deter people from picking up this book as it is a must-read. Elizabeth Bennet has entered my all-time favorite protagonists mainly because I resonate with her so much and now the image of Keira Knightley comes up every time I think about Elizabeth.
In the end, I would leave you with the overdramatic yet apt quote that I find fits every time some decides to ask why I do what I do:
"I have said no such thing. I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me"
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