…and if that post title doesn’t generate hits, I don’t know what will.
Yesterday, a friend who watches politics very closely proposed the following unified field theorem of the GOP nomination race: The GOP is Elizabeth Bennett. Mitt Romney is Darcy, wealthy and powerful – on paper, he’s not just highly marriagable, he’s everything the family needs in a match for one of their daughters. But he’s boring and off-putting. Could she really be happy with him? Gingrich is Willoughby Wickham [oops]; superficially he comes across (at least to some) as exciting, intelligent and someone who really understands her and what she wants. But he’s irresponsible and dishonest. Marriage to him would certainly be a disaster. His chief role is to remind Elizabeth how boring and off-putting Darcy is by comparison.
I offered a countertheory. Gingrich as the irresponsible Wickham, yes. But to my mind, Romney is Mr. Collins. Just like Darcy, Collins is a very attractive match on paper; just like Darcy, Collins comes across as boring and off-putting at first. The difference is that Darcy’s social ineptitude masked depths that Elizabeth would later delight to discover; with Mr. Collins, what you see is what you get. Remember the BBC version, where Elizabeth’s friend who married Collins describes how she’s very well taken care of, things are very pleasant, and oh by the way, she arranges every aspect of her home life to minimize the amount of time she sees her husband? Yeah, that’s what a GOP marriage to Romney would be like.
I think this has the makings of a great parlor game! Here’s my next contribution: Mitch Daniels is the early Darcy, the Darcy of the first half of the story. He’s overwhelmed with an ardent desire to propose to Elizabeth, but dutifully restrains his passions because of a prior restraint imposed by a domineering and possibly somewhat unbalanced family member. The difference is that Daniels hasn’t manned up and proposed (yet).
The possibilities are endless. Possibly Rick Perry as Bingley, who looked good on paper (Texas economy growing explosively) but turned out to be a tongue-tied amiable dunce? But Bingley is a pushover, and no one calls Perry that. I’m still working on it!
How do we fit Ron Paul and Rick Santorum into this equasion? Who represents, say, Mr. Bennett?
Is my political nerdiness showing? At least the humor value distracts me from the depressing reality, which Bret Stephens sums up devastatingly in his column today arguing that the GOP deserves to lose. I find it difficult to resist the conclusion that he’s right.
January 24th, 2012 | 11:25 am
By “Willoughby,” you mean “Wickham,” right?
Perhaps Ron Paul is “Lady Catherine de Bourgh,” who has an opinion on everything and is offended if anyone disagrees with her.
I nominate “Uncle Gardiner” for Rick Santorum. He’s a sensible man who helps fix a crisis, but is otherwise irrelevant to the drama.
January 24th, 2012 | 11:28 am
Thanks for catching that! This is the problem with Austen – the villains are too similar. You can’t tell your scoundrels without a scorecard!
Oh, wait, did I just discover another valid application to politics?
January 24th, 2012 | 11:49 am
Ron Paul is Darcy’s cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam — she rather likes him, he seems to be taken with her, but he’s just not able to bring himself to marry her because he can’t sacrifice what he values more highly.
For Fitzwilliam, it’s because he doesn’t want to lower his standard of living and live as merely a rich man rather than a fabulously wealthy one. For Paul, it’s not that.
I like George P. Wood’s suggestion for Santorum. Wish it were otherwise, but oh well.
January 24th, 2012 | 12:10 pm
Ron Paul is Elizabeth Bennett’s mother. End of discussion.
January 24th, 2012 | 12:43 pm
Jane Austen was not a fan of conventional wisdom, therefore much of her satire was aimed straight at it.
The last few debates proved conventional wisdom to be wrong regarding Rick Perry. He was neither tongue-tied, nor an amiable dunce. If you think of Darcy’s original proposal to Elizabeth it is reminiscent of Perry’s “I don’t think you have a heart” moment. Certainly both men provoked similar responses in their audiences. Recall Mr Bennet’s reaction to Darcy’s second proposal,
“Lizzy,” said he, “what are you doing? Are you out of your senses, to be accepting this man?”
That’s pretty much what anyone thought of a person who still supported Rick Perry for president after his brain freeze. Yet, what did Michael Barone write regarding Rick Perry:
“I have to say that if I had made that horrifying 53 second brain freeze I would be reluctant ever to appear in public again; give Perry credit for doing so readily, often, with good humor, and improving his game as he went forward. That says something significantly positive about him.”
Elizabeth was wise enough to admit she had rushed to judgement on Mr. Darcy. That he was not what she originally perceived him to be. Neither was Wickham. The GOP Wickham is not so dastardly as the one in the book which may be why he’s getting a second chance with Elizabeth now. The truth is Miss Austen was a better writer than the GOP brass and punditry combined – she had Elizabeth give the second chance to Mr. Darcy, not Wickham. The GOP brass and punditry sent Mr. Darcy back to Texas, leaving Wickham to attempt his charms again.
As the way the GOP has been penned now, Mr. Collins is gathering his waterlilies with the inflatable hat his patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh advised him to wear to prevent his drowning. Elizabeth is scheduled for a long visit to the country with her favorite aunt uncle during the summer of 2016. They are to be in same exact county in fact where Mr. Darcy’s family seat is….
January 24th, 2012 | 12:58 pm
To understand all this, you must have read Pride and Prejudice at some point. I have spent my life not reading romance novels or even proto-romance novels. Couldn’t you have tried this with Dostoevski or maybe Ernest Hemingway?
carl
January 24th, 2012 | 1:06 pm
“The GOP Wickham is not so dastardly as the one in the book which may be why he’s getting a second chance with Elizabeth now.”
Don’t see that. Wickham only ran off with one woman, and he wasn’t even married at the time. The difference is that our Elizabeth doesn’t have the standards and moral perception of the original.
Pride and Prejudice is not a “romance novel.” It is a novel of psychology, character, and social satire, with romantic entanglements creating the background to illustrate those things. Indeed, it is clear by his characterization of the book as a “romance novel” that Mr. Jacobs has never read it.
January 24th, 2012 | 1:30 pm
“The difference is that our Elizabeth doesn’t have the standards and moral perception of the original.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Fair point.
But Wickham, for his day, was pretty dastardly. He got kicked out of training for the Church. The Darcys were paying for that education. Then he did beguile a governess in his attempt to run off to Gretna Green with the underage Georgianna Darcy. He wanted her inheritance. Plus he didn’t pay his debts. And he only married the dingbat Lydia because Mr. Darcy cleared his debts and got him another post in another regiment.
I agree completely that Pride and Prejudice is not a romance novel, but that doesn’t make this parlor game any less amusing.
Game on as Rick Santorum is wont to say -John Huntsman is Edwards Ferrars elder brother Robert from Sense and Sensibility…
January 24th, 2012 | 1:38 pm
Mitch Daniels is closer Edward Ferrars of Sense and Sensibility. Mr. Darcy was thought to be a sketch of young (and moral) Beau Brummel. Beau Brummel’s wife never would’ve returned to a former flame. Edward Ferrars lost his first fiance to his elder brother….
January 24th, 2012 | 2:16 pm
pentamom
Of course I haven’t read the book. I said I hadn’t read it. No one ever made me read it for a literature course, and how else would a guy ever come to read this novel? I shall have to make an informal survey of my friends of the XY persuasion to see how many of them have read Pride and Prejudice. I suspect the number will not be large. I suspect the number who read it outside of educational compulsion will be infinitesimal. I also suspect that they will react to the question as if I had asked them “Do you put on your makeup in the car?”
That was sort of the point of my comment. It seemed funny to me to describe a Presidential race in terms of the romantic web found in what amounts to a sophisticated proto-romance novel. At least that’s how guys see it. That’s why we can’t be beaten into reading it. Really now. How many guys exist who would of their own volition walk into a bookstore and say to themselves “Hey, I think I will buy something by Jane Austen today. I haven’t read her works before.” Why do you think that is?
That was the genesis of my comment. It was about the dissonance that is created when a political competition (traditionally masculine) is analyzed according to what amounts to a feminine model found in a book like Pride and Prejudice. The books I offered as counterpoints were traditionally masculine for that very reason.
carl
January 24th, 2012 | 2:41 pm
How did I know this post was fodder for Pentamom? :-)
January 24th, 2012 | 2:55 pm
Carl – this one’s for you,
January 24th, 2012 | 3:06 pm
Carl:
I’ve read my Dostoevski, I’ve read my Austen, I’m a guy, and I can beat you at arm wrestling. :-)
Austen’s pretty good, you should try it.
January 24th, 2012 | 3:44 pm
@Carl – Agreed on all counts. But you might still beat me at arm wrestling.
I think we should go non-partison on this. Hillary is Lady Catherine. Harry Reid is Mr. Collins. I’d be tempted to make Obama out to be Mr. Bennet based on his disconnection with reality, but Mr. Bennet at least eventually began to recognize how his clueless but well-intentioned blathering had contributed to the disaster of (at least) his youngest. Maybe we need to go with Anna Karennina with Obama is Konstantin Levin?
January 24th, 2012 | 3:56 pm
“At least that’s how guys see it.”
But why parade the uninformed view? An uninformed view could just as easily call The Brothers a murder mystery and Crime and Punishment a police procedural.
Crowhill — because you’ve known me for over a dozen years?
Mrs. Jackson — my point wasn’t to diminish the dastardliness of Wickham. It was the other way around. ;-)
January 24th, 2012 | 4:39 pm
I should point out that no less an authority than Wikipedia calls Jane Austen a ‘pioneer’ of the romance novel, and Pride and Prejudice the ‘epitome’ of that genre. I think my case is made. :-)
But for further proof, I would point to the video clip from Mrs Jackson showing a man and a woman discussing the novel. And what movie is the clip taken from? “You’ve Got Mail.” A classic chick flick. Well, of course the hero in a chick flick is going to be able to discuss Pride and Prejudice. That’s why they are called chick flicks.
arty
There are always statistical outliers. ;) But fess up. Did some teacher make you read the book?
carl
January 24th, 2012 | 4:59 pm
carl:
Nope, I read Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion, as a matter of personal interest. As a matter of personal taste, I’m a Dostoevskii fan through and through, but I’m intending to finish Austen’s oeuvre here at some point. I read the romance in Austen as a vehicle, not as the central point.
January 24th, 2012 | 5:02 pm
plus, there was this guy I went to grad school with, who was always going on about how great Dickens was, and how “fluff” Austen was, by comparison. I’ve always hated Dickens, and so I figured that Austen must be good if that guy had what was (in my view) such poor taste. (yeah, bring on the reciprocal hatred of the Dickensians, I know)…
January 24th, 2012 | 5:58 pm
What, Wikipedia reflecting the general, Hollywood-fed opinion of the masses on a matter of subjective judgment? Will pigs fly next? ;-)
The problem is that Austen has been pop-culturized through film (and I might say I think that many of the films have done a decent job.) But the films, good as many of them are, just don’t convey quite what the books do, creating a popular sense that Jane Austen if (exclusively or predominantly) for imbibers of (not to mention characters in) “chick flicks.” That’s about as reasonable as, as I suggested above, regarding Dostoevsky as a purveyor of criminal thrillers.
January 24th, 2012 | 9:23 pm
Come to the Dark Side, Carl Jacobs! But seriously, you might enjoy Jane Austin (or you might not). My husband assumed he wouldn’t like her work, but he greatly appreciated Pride and Prejudice for its insight into human nature. I also remember him observing that it is very humorous, and he had not expected that.
January 25th, 2012 | 12:55 am
Mitt Romney *wishes* he were Darcy.
(Maybe the writer of this piece does, too….)
January 25th, 2012 | 8:09 am
I love George P. Wood’s identification of Ron Paul with Lady Catherine de Bourg.
if the stories of Hermain Cain’s trouble with women are true, then he reminds me of Georgianna Darcy in his naivete. Did he really think the stories would not come out? There was something of the babe-in-the-woods about him when he left the familiar shelter of the business world and entered the political arena, what with all those wolves out there.
January 27th, 2012 | 2:39 am
[...] I missed watching the latest GOP debate, but that’s fine by me. Now that I’ve seen First Things’s evaluation of the candidates a la Austen, I know nothing else needs to be said until the general.A friend who watches politics very closely [...]
February 1st, 2012 | 3:08 pm
[...] Wednesday, February 1, 2012, 3:08 PM Greg Forster Mitt Romney continues to follow his campaign strategy based on emulating Mr. Collins by once again saying the very worst thing you can say. It’s like watching ten or twenty years [...]
February 2nd, 2012 | 9:44 am
Love the piece. Especially the comment with the analogy of Santorum, the best of the lot, to Mr. Gardiner, one of the best of all Austen’s characters.
P&P is a great men’s book. It is not a silly romance but a huge portrait of an era of the universal issues of society. My husband loves it and so do my sons. For a great recent sequel try P.D. James’ Death comes to Pemberley.
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