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.

(Maybe the writer of this piece does, too….)

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.

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.

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