Dear Pride and Prejudice

Dear Pride and Prejudice,

When I first met you I didn’t even have a chance to know you at all. You were abridged. You were translated. And I was a child who laughed at Lydia’s antics as much as E’s response to them. For having a younger sister who thought running around the yard constituted playing was an embarrassment to the precocious mind of my 10 y/o self. In my view, we suffered the same fate and I could relate. As for Darcy, I also couldn’t see why that haughty man was popular. He wasn’t even good looking in the illustrations. So you see, I didn’t care for you. Not really.

Ten years later, I realised first impressions could be deceiving. I met you again and you looked entirely different. You were no longer the abridged paperback copy for children but the academic edition that was the required reading of an English lit uni class. Footnotes and appendices were your accessories, and that essay-length introduction could be compared to the shoes that really showed off your high instep. The words you used were quaint and old-fashioned. What a charming display of Victorian civility! E was utterly arresting. I was full of feeling for E and her ‘circumstances’. Her insufferable family. Her all-round indignation. Her wounded pride. Then, her change of heart. Her willingness to forgive. Her happily ever after. How could she think Darcy would reject her for she was clearly the better half of the match! All those quibbles about class and decorum? Pfft. Mere historicity.

So dare I say it was a non-surprise to see you taking on yet another new look? I waved you over because Nicole & I had agreed to a meet-up with you. You had a little of the sameness from before. Liveliness. Romantic appeal. Witty repartee. But the cynicism began to show between the lines. The irony I missed before brought on bouts of suppressed laughter whereas the cutting insults that had seemed so well deserved almost made me blush in second-hand embarrassment. You know how there’s that meme floating around on the webverse? ‘If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best’? Yep. Insert that meme here but unironically cos E was horrid. To Charlotte Lucas, especially. Poor her. My sympathies do grow over the years. So how could E? Also, how could HE? Yes, Darcy. I have to confess my consideration for him was only to the degree of being E’s love interest and having the honour of being played by Colin Firth. This time round though, I saw how generations of women fell in love with him for I now counted myself one of them. Because at some point, you just gotta give the guy more brownie points for being forgiving and able to get things done than nailing that sardonic look and having ten thousand pounds per annum.

As I end this letter I have to regretfully say I think this will be our last meet-up in a long time. Maybe until the next decade since that seems to be the frequency of things between us. Don’t think much of it though. Because it’s not you. It’s me. But can I look forward even a little to how things might be different? It does seem that way, does it not? The way we have of welcoming changes in our perspective and bringing in what we’ve gone through as you tell your story again from beginning to end. So till we meet again. Yours in adoration.