Finished! I don’t think I have ever felt such a sense of relief and accomplishment upon completion of a novel. Jane Austen is an author I had always felt I ought to have read. At the very least I have always harboured a nagging sense of duty to have watched at least one of the many screen adaptations of her works.
I “escaped” studying “Emma” at A-Level, in favour of “Great Expectations”, and I remember at the time being led to believe that as a class, we had been spared from an over-rated, agonising and protracted piece of literature, loosely described as a “glorified Mills & Boon love story”. As such I have never felt inclined to get familiar with the characters of “Mr Darcy” and “Miss Bennet”, my sense of prejudice leading me to imagine their tale to be one of doomed lovers, destined to fail overdramatically in their attempts at happiness.
But after a few false starts when I returned to the mythical first line, to gain my bearings, I plodded diligently through some of the most intense passages of dialogue I think I have ever encountered. But as I learned to accept the slow, steady rhythm of Austen’s writing, I found myself growing less and less impatient with the pace of the plot. I found myself relishing the precision of the interaction between the characters, entranced by the formality of social contact.
I always knew that Darcy would be the hero of the piece and I applaud the ending wholeheartedly.