Oh, Dear Lord! How did I miss the pungent sarcasm in the opening sentence of the novel!
In my early twenties, when frivolity was fashionable, I did not like the story in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I (with my prejudices against soap opera and pride of reading cerebral fiction) thought, “Blah, overused tropes of soap operas.” After twenty something more springs, battling with sleep hazards, I chose the audio book format of Pride and Prejudice so that I could fall asleep soon from the boredom of listening to it.
After finishing the book, reading (the Story Classics Video is in a wonderful format of read along listening) a few chapters twice, sometimes thrice or more, I have finished the book in two consecutive days and nights (listening to the book and reading it whenever I am not speaking, writing or reading anything else). Ten hours thirty minutes and thirty some seconds of the total length of the video was quite reassuring that I would sleep well for more than a month. Even after my repetitive reading of a few chapters, the solace of reading the book for over a month has gone. [That’s what I thought after finishing the book in a go.]
While reading I was smiling. Two decades ago the verbiage of the novel seemed boisterous, condescending, and conceited (I mean that the words in the book were taxing and preparatory for SAT, Civil Service Examinations, CAT and GRE). Now, I feel that the semantics made the prose succinct, and the syntax made the reading sweet yet crisp and poignant (I mean that the prose is bodacious).
The story was known. The plot points were too familiar. Even then I kept reading the book, choosing a chapter in the middle, a chapter in the end, a chapter in the beginning, ignoring the plot development and logical (or illogical) coherence of the narration, as if the book was the brook of clear water quenching my thirst for literary aesthetics. The world building, the imageries, the narrative - everything is a superb mastery of prose and balance of dark and bright sides of lives, the balance of dry sarcastic humor on the society and comical caricatures of the society (the very basic aspects of society that did not change with any paradigm shift from drawing room assemblies or ballrooms to Facebook and FaceTime).
I would not say that finishing the book made me happy. I would rather say that reading the book filled my heart with immense joy. After sheer satisfaction from rejuvenating sleep (I meant that I slept like a baby) night after night for sometime now, my feelings are gratifying to Jane Austen for her style and the taste for delivering literary aesthetics, to Karen Savage for her intonations and heightening the aesthetics, to LibriVox.org for syncing the performances of literary and oratory arts (I mean that writing and reading) through their marvelous platform and to Story Classics for bringing out the extraordinary compilations.
If you are interested you can check the link out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhxqauL9WbM
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