Comments on: Jennifer Ehle on Elizabeth and life after P&P

By: susan w.

susan w. — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 14:28:54 +0000

jennifer Ehle says it in her 1995 version, and when she says it, it does appear to be pointedly directed at Mr. Bennet, and that’s when I had the thought that she meant Darcy surpassed her father. it’s a wonderful interpretation, but it’s not expressed in the book. Occasionally someone outJanes Jane.

By: Jennite

Jennite — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 03:56:23 +0000

Perhaps she’s just paraphrasing? It has been a decade since she read the book, since they finished filming.

By: Vanessa M

Vanessa M — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 13:06:20 +0000

It is not everyone who reads a book over and over, like we all seem to do, so I don’t blame JE for the mistake. I still found her comments on the book insightful, and the whole interview a pleasure to read.

By: Kathleen G

Kathleen G — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 12:00:41 +0000

I am amazed nobody has pointed out that if JE is so moved by rereading ” the bit where Lizzie tells Mr. Bennet that Darcy is the best man she has ever known” she must be rereading her old scropts, since that particular line appears nowhere in the book she professes to love so much.

By: Jennite

Jennite — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 04:03:13 +0000

Thanks for the link, guys.

I’m with Sonja- just can’t understand the appeal of MP. Fanny is…well…a bit of a wet blanket.

*waits to be stoned*

Mrs Norris made me swear out loud.

By: Mags in London (I want to go back to Bath!!!) and home tomorrow

Mags in London (I want to go back to Bath!!!) and home tomorrow — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 21:07:37 +0000

Never got around to seeing it, frankly, though I think I have free passes waiting for me at home…

By: Liz

Liz — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 14:28:21 +0000

I stumbled upon P+P as a ‘lil girl – ok, I was 8 or 9 – read the translated serial version in my mum’s monthly women mags. So, couldn’t help but fell in love with it very earlier on. Now I’m wondering if it had been S+S or MP instead – would I react the same way too ?

By: Sonja

Sonja — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 13:56:52 +0000

I just read MP for the 3rd time – and I can’t like it. I’m not a romantic teenager. But everything is wrong with Fanny, Edmund and the story. How could one like them? I can’t understand.

May be you’re right it’s better to read something else but P&P, first. But I think the most Janeites started with P&P. And maybe they would have never become Janeites if they would have started with MP.

My favourites are:
1. P&P
2. Persuasion
3. Emma
4. NA (or 3. NA and 4. Emma )
5. Sense and Sensibilty
6. MP

By: Vanessa M

Vanessa M — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 19:03:59 +0000

Very good points, Teresa. I only wonder if people will give up before getting to P&P, but I agree that it raises expectations (“light & bright & sparkling”) the reader may not find in the other novels.

Mags, have you seen the movie yet?

By: Teresa

Teresa — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 01:21:36 +0000

Just rub it in, Mags, just rub it in…

Anyway, IMO S&S, MP, and Emma are just so unromantic and practical (which doesn’t mean I dislike them) that if you were to read P&P first you would not know what to do with yourself after.

I read P&P first as a romantic, starry eyed teenager (around the time most people are introduced to it) and it was many, many, many years before I could appreciate any other book of Janes.

P&P is too perfectly written, too interesting, too powerful and almost too much for a teenager to process without a certain level of maturity.

Take that same impressionable teenager and give them something like MP or Emma to read after P&P and they will in nearly every case (but certainly not in all cases) revolt. It would be hard for anyone to find anything to admire in Fanny or Emma after getting to know Elizabeth.

That is also why I feel why so many people who read JA fan-fic get “stuck” in P&P related stories – they can’t disconnect because the romance of it has sucked them in and will not let them go.

I could talk on this topic forever, but this is probably not the place. E-mail me if you’d like to continue.