The first time I read Pride and Prejudice, I did so blindly.
I had no idea of the story, or the characters. It was assigned reading for my sophomore year English class. All I knew is that everyone else was complaining about having to read it, and they talked about it in You've Got Mail.
I remember how quickly I fell in love with Jane Austen's writing. How surprised I was that it was funny. How much I loved the characters, and how from that day forward a part of me always longed to be in that world instead of the one I'm in.
As I read Darcy's line: "You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you" I dropped the book, sat up in my bed, and squealed in shock. Then I had to frantically search for my page.
One of Jeremy's first gifts to me when we were dating was the 5 hour long A&E adaption. He watched it with me (we snuggled the whole time, not a bad trade off). But he admitted it was a cool story, even though he said Elizabeth was "kind of awful." I love her slight awfulness. I've done flowers for many a weddings, wrapped Christmas presents, and who knows what else to those 5 glorious hours.
When we lived in Salt Lake, Jeremy took me to the opening night of the new Pride and Prejudice movie. I was nervous that I wouldn't like it, but it was cool to go see it that night, knowing it wouldn't be in St. George for another month. It was an interesting opening night crowd (and as a geeky girl who has been to the opening night of many geeky movies, including Return of the King in costume - oh yes - let me tell you I know an interesting crowd.)
Despite the lack of Collin Firth, I loved the movie. I like it more every time I see it, there are so many beautiful subtleties. When we get a piano, the first piece of music I want to purchase and learn is the title theme.
I think it will always be one of my favorite stories and my favorite book. There's something about it that makes me feel lovely and want to be artistic.
And I think of it every day. After all, I have my own Bingley:
(Photo by Frankie)
This cat was supposed to be Darcy, but Jerm decided the name was too feminine.
So we settled on Knightley, (from Emma) But he's Darcy at heart.
