★★★★★ The second time I read Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen

I remember exactly where I was the second time I read Pride and Prejudice.

I was in Uris Library at Cornell, the Undergraduate Library, affectionately known as the UGLY, sitting in the beautiful second-floor reading room. (The UGLY is not actually ugly at all.) I had read P&P once before, when I was in High School, and I loathed it. I probably picked it up again thinking that an author could not be as revered as Jane Austen is unless there was something there. Had I missed something?

Had I ever! The first time I read P&P, I thought every word was meant seriously. Thus, when Austen wrote, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife," I took that to be something Austen literally believed. The second time I heard the laugh, and I saw the key to reading Austen: she is always laughing. Behind every sentence she writes, there is a laugh, or at least a smile. At the same time, she is always at least a little serious.

Along with that realization came a second, "God, I'm such an idiot!" It was hard to believe I could have been so stupid as not to hear the laugh the first time I read it. If you are older than ten years old and at all a reflective person, then you have had the experience of realizing that you're an idiot many times. It stings but is rarely fatal. (Being an idiot may be fatal, but realizing you're an idiot is usually good for you, eventually.) If you've never realized that you're an idiot, let me help you with that. You, Dear Reader, are an idiot. In nothing is your foolishness so evident as in your failure to perceive it. You may not believe me, but if you live and are fortunate, you may eventually figure it out.

It is fitting that P&P should have helped me to this revelation, because that experience is a large part of the story. Perhaps the most significant turn of the novel is when Lizzy realizes that she was taken in completely by Wickham and entirely misjudged Darcy, and as a consequence made a disastrous irreversible mistake that could not have been more stupid. Yay, Lizzy!

The second time I read P&P I loved it. I subsequently gobbled down every one of the sadly few books Austen left us with. In fact, I have read them so many times that I can no longer read them -- I have them practically memorized. They are full of wisdom and humor. She is certainly my favorite English-language author.

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