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Jane Austen is universally recognized as a great author, and her novels have always been widely appreciated worldwide, with virtually no dissenting voices. "Pride and Prejudice," in particular, is recognized as one of the greatest masterpieces in all of British literature.
In short, it can be said that this is the Austen work that has most engaged, inspired, and influenced humanity from as far back as 1813 to today.
So, it seems the problem is mine.
I turn to the pristine Debaserian lands for the very first time, and certainly, I'm not expecting welcome committees ready to receive me, but I quite supplicantly invoke Your understanding, at least a sign of willingness to listen to this lamenting voice of mine.
This is because "Pride and Prejudice" literally bores me.
I'm a man, and even though I've never watched a Van Damme movie, I cannot claim to be accustomed to sentimental literature, and this is undoubtedly true, which could already serve as a mitigating factor for my harsh criticism: simply (despite not loving war or action films) I wouldn't have the right degree of sensitivity to comprehend the scope and enormity of this romantic novel.
Hmm, the plea sounds good, but it doesn't hit the target.
The problem, I confess, is that I read very little sentimentality in this work.
And the best part is that if this work is destined for eternity, it's not so much for the continuous, insistent, almost nerve-wracking, I would say, focus by the author on the vacuity of the entire female gender of the time or on a social system that prevents even feelings from blossoming, but it's precisely because this story is considered a love story!
And that's where the hitch is, in my opinion. Because I don't see any love at all. And not even masterpieces, for that matter.
Within a fluid narrative structure but lacking content, introspection, where characters are manifest in almost all their peculiarities from their first appearance to the conclusion of the novel, there is little in my opinion if not a giant soap bubble in the form of a novel.
A literary soap opera where the power of love is not discerned but rather the love of power.
And yes, because between the very stereotypical handsome and mysterious (and fake nihilist) Mr. Darcy and the so-called indomitable "filly eager to find someone worth mounting" Lizzy, there is and remains for much of the novel a fierce competition, exclusively aimed at the male conquest of the most elusive prey and the female seduction of the most dominant male.
A 500-page soap bar, in my opinion, but try to read (or reread) at least the first hundred pages, which won't cost you more than half an hour, given the fluidity (at least this) of the "Great Author's" style, and tell me what you find introspective, hint at some chemical and psychic changes in the two protagonists... And you'll find pure essence of nothingness.
What leads the dissatisfied Darcy to feel attracted to an almost commoner? Read it, and you'll only find a momentary fascination with her (a recurring ploy that Austen relied on a lot!!!) "beautiful eyes." And at most, a genuine and unbridled curiosity about the real behavioral differences Lizzy displayed compared to other husband-hunting hens. That's all.
And then, did this Darcy really appeal to Lizzy, with his unrepentant behavior and gloomy, superior expression? Even in the first hundred pages, you'll only find an "...and since she liked him too..." and nothing else.
Resigned, I wonder how an internationally recognized author, who has been ascended by whoever and by "whatever many" to the Olympus of great literati, can allow such an insufficient and approximate characterization of the profiles of the two (unfortunately immortalized) protagonists of this banal little story. Where, when, and especially why the first, then second, and third changes occur in their souls is an absolute mystery. Austen leaves us dry of answers, but the important thing is love, heart, flower, declaration, ring, serenade, him on his knees, or at least so would say the many readers who eagerly review this little work on all literary sites, never failing to declare "Pride and Prejudice" as the greatest book in the universe, not hiding at all that they've reread it several times, that they've memorized it as much as Benigni with the Divine Comedy, etc.
Progenitor of modern authors of the most devastating cancer of modern literature, called "chick-lit," in my opinion, Jane Austen excels in her ability to recount just about everything except the essential, namely it's in the inner motions, introspections, descriptions of states of mind, of feelings and their (most predictable) changes that the author dramatically falls short, making this book of undoubted potential little more than a lucky little novel with pink flying hearts and colored flowers, exactly like those on the cover of my copy, deliberately "removed" months ago from a cellophane containing the book in question and a copy of the magazine "Modern Woman" in which a threatening headline declared "A Steady Boyfriend Is Happiness" (!)
No psychological processes, no investigation into the nature of this conflict, no explanation then on how, at a certain point in the narration, a son of a gun like Darcy could transform from nothing into a charming gentleman...
A story lacking everything that could make it a true novel.
But how good is Austen at recounting his two declarations of love, what expressive capabilities, what sense of detail, what care for particulars!
So absent with the pulp as it is present with the peel.
And then returning to this metamorphosis of Darcy, so inexplicable as to literally split the novel in two (have you ever seen a soap bubble split in two? I haven't), don't you, dearly beloved debonair adventurers, also find that same cliché typically linked to the female imagination of the macho turning into a kitty, the lion becoming a kitten just for her, yet retaining lion and pack leader status with everyone else?
Don't you find exactly the vanity of the standard woman living a seemingly secure existence in the court of the great charismatic and powerful man, reigning sovereign in his habitat but happily (and spontaneously) on his knees before her? Don't you see, in short, the realization of the typical dream of the woman aspiring to do with men what the tamer does with lions?
Perhaps it is precisely for this reason that "Pride and Prejudice" reigns supreme in the hearts of so many women: Lizzy, deep down, is the woman all of them, in a grip of their heritages and their aesthetics, would like to be, and she experiences everything they would like to live themselves.
I, who, even as a male, would struggle to dream of being Tex Willer, John Rambo, or Lionel Messi, really can't understand how a woman could be so subjugated by certain aesthetics and such archetypical redundancies as to consider this all-pink book an immortal masterpiece.
But more than anything, I can't grasp how one could define this a love story.
Destroyed as a man and as a reader, I ask You.
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