Pride & Prejudice (Manga Classics)

Genre: manga
Pages: 377
Published: 2014

Pride and Prejudice, depicted in gorgeous shojo manga style?!  Being a confirmed Jane fanatic and, as a teenager, an avid admirer of melodramatic manga in which all the characters are mildly anorexic and have enormous eyes, I could hardly resist buying this hefty manga.  Nor was I disappointed.  I devoured this fun, exquisitely-drawn manga in a few hours and enjoyed revisiting the world of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy in a new medium.

Devout Pride and Prejudice fans might be a little squeamish at seeing such a complex and verbose story as Austen's original novel simplified for the manga format.  And, yes, despite my enjoyment of it, I cannot deny that this is certainly "Austen-lite."  However, I began the book acknowledging that it would be nearly impossible to capture all of the social intrigue and slights and character complexities of the novel with dialogue bubbles and the occasional narration.  I think this would be an excellent introduction to Jane, or to classic literature in general, for a teenage reader or someone who usually avoids reading classics.  In any case, I was actually impressed with how much of the novel's plot the manga encompasses and how many classic P&P quotations it includes.

I loved the way the artist Po Tse depicted all of the characters!  Elizabeth and Jane were visually just gorgeous, and I think the writer Stacy King captured the strength of their friendship and their characters very well.

Elizabeth and Jane

 Also intact are most of the humorous moments from the original novel.  Mrs. Bennett's match-making antics made me smile!  I loved the scene in which she tries to make Mr. Bennett convince Elizabeth to marry Mr. Collins, swearing that she will never see Lizzie again if she doesn't marry Collins.  Mr. Bennett replies that Elizabeth is in the unfortunate position of losing one of her parents from this day forward, for he'll never see her again if she does marry Collins!  Speaking of the always-irritating Mr. Collins, I also enjoyed his character and the sort of abbreviated, almost chibi-like way he was drawn compared to the other, more elegant characters.

Mr. Collins' arrival frightens everyone

Most elegant of all was Mr. Darcy, and I think the artist did an excellent job showing his emotions through the lack of emotions visible on his angular, sardonic face... Does that make any sense??  Anyway, I was perfectly satisfied with the way Darcy and Elizabeth's relationship changed (and changed) over the course of the story.  All of the major plot points were covered, unless I'm forgetting something.  A few things seemed out of place or a little anachronistic in the manga, such as the way Kitty constantly flirted with the local soldiers much more openly than she did in the book.  In one scene she yelled, "Hey, boys!" or something like that, across a busy street and I was a little miffed, because that wasn't something any girl in an Austen novel would do.

Elizabeth and Darcy

Nitpicking aside, I would highly recommend this manga to an Austen fan who cannot get enough of Pride and Prejudice (meaning all of them, I guess!)  As a manga reader, I was incredibly pleased with the breathtakingly beautiful art.  There was also something very satisfying about reading a stand-alone story, because many of the manga series I have read consist of dozens of volumes.  I will definitely be checking out the other Manga Classics in this series, and I am particularly eager to get my hands on the manga adaptations of Emma and The Scarlet Letter.


This book is

gorgeously-drawn              faithful                 irresistible        

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Genre: classic
Published: 1817
Pages: 250

In her first novel Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen defends fiction in a manner that any ardent reader can not but highly approve of and applaud:

“It is only a novel... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humor, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.”

Northanger Abbey is definitely such a novel, though it seems to be sadly underrated compared to other Austen novels.  What it may lack a little in page count and dynamic secondary characters, in displaying "the most thorough knowledge of human nature," it more than makes up for in "the liveliest effusions of wit and humor."  Here Austen employed her usual candid wit to satirize not only certain elements and stock figures of English high society, but also the lurid Gothic romances like The Monk that were the bestsellers of her day.  The result is marvelously entertaining to read and often very funny.

Seventeen year old Catherine Morland is considerate and vivacious, a devoted reader of Gothic romances and a life-long country dweller.  When she has the opportunity to travel to Bath with family friends and spend a few months taking tea in gathering rooms and dancing with eligible young men, Catherine jumps at the chance, though she knows little of the manners of high society.  However, as Austen's omniscient narrator explains, Catherine's unworldliness can only work to her advantage in the game of attracting a suitor:

"She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance.  A misplaced shame.  Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant.  To come with a well-informed mind, is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid.  A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing any thing, should conceal it as well she can."

One can easily imagine Jane's sardonic smile as she put that last line to parchment.

Sketch of a pump room or gathering room in Bath

Catherine initially feels as if she knows no one in Bath, but luckily makes the acquaintance of a certain Mr. Henry Tilney, a clever and charming young man whom she quickly falls in love with.  Like any heroine, however, Catherine is beset by countless obstacles.  Isabella, another of her new friends in Bath must insist on carrying on in an embarrassing way with Henry's less pleasant elder brother, though she is engaged to marry Catherine's brother!  Likewise, Isabella's odious brother John has made up his mind that he is going to marry Catherine, despite the latter's indifference to his pathological lying and scheming.  Happily, Catherine is able to escape this intricate and embarrassing situation in Bath after Mr. Tilney and his sister invite her to sojourn at their family home, Northanger Abbey.  Catherine is delighted with the abbey and with her hosts...except for General Tilney, Henry's father.  As she learns more and more about the sudden death of the late Mrs. Tilney at Northanger Abbey, Catherine begins to suspect that the highly suspicious General poisoned his wife, or else is hiding her away in some secret passage...

Some readers have complained that the love interest Mr. Tilney is no Mr. Darcy or that he is a bit of a 2-D character, but I actually found him to be pretty nearly as well-written as Catherine and just...likable.  Fancy that, a love interest being kind and likable instead of going to incredible pains to convince the heroine that he hates her in order to disguise his great passion, or being some "bad boy" that the heroine has to work to redeem!  It makes for a nice change.  I particularly like his first conversation with Catherine, in which he ironically recollects after talking with her a while that he has forgotten to ask her all the stereotypical small-talk questions about how she likes Bath:

"...forming his features into a set smile, and affectedly softening his voice, he added, with a simpering air, "Have you been long in Bath, madam?"

Catherine and Henry Tilney in the 2007 Northanger Abbey film

"About a week, sir," replied Catherine, trying not to laugh.

"Really!" with affected astonishment.

"Why should you be surprised, sir?"

"Why, indeed?" said he, in his natural tone--"but some emotion must appear to be raised by your reply, and surprise is more easily assumed, and not less reasonable than any other."  

I also enjoyed the conversations in which Henry playfully parodies Catherine's expectations that Northanger Abbey will be a haunted Gothic monastery filled with relics of the horrible murders which have taken place there, inventing a whole story about her frightening discovery of a secret passageway.  However, I guess I cannot quote every passage that I loved here!

Just as Catherine Morland must eventually confess to having been influenced by her insatiable love for reading Gothic romances to judge people before getting to know them, I must confess to having been influenced by my love for Northanger Abbey!  After reading it for the first time a few years ago, I determined that I absolutely must read some of these "horrid novels" that Catherine and her friend Isabella thrill over in the book.

Delightful Penguin cover for The Monk

I haven't managed to get through the infamous The Mysteries of Udolpho, whose beginning didn't inspire a lot of interest.  However, I have read Matthew Lewis's The Monk, Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and a number of Gothics by Wilkie Collins, primarily to see if they were as silly as Austen suggests in Northanger Abbey.

My verdict is that yes, Gothic romances can be ridiculous and long-winded, but they are also thrilling and suspenseful and delightfully convoluted, a bit like soap operas.  I have no trouble understanding why Catherine and Henry might burn the midnight oils to finish these tales of wronged ghosts seeking revenge, wide-eyed heroines, wicked foreign counts, and unpleasant housekeepers, all set in the most imposing and medieval of architectural structures.  Austen's book is a satire of the Gothic thriller, certainly, but as an unabashed fan of the much-maligned genre, I also appreciate her homage to it by way of clever parody.  I hope to read more Gothic romances of the sort that Catherine might have encountered soon.  As a graduate student studying that period, I can half-convincingly claim them as necessary reading, and I really want to give Ann Radcliffe another chance!

Rating:

5/5 stars

This book is one I selected for my Classics Club challenge list.  Fortunately, I am off to a pretty good start and have not neglected reviewing the books I read thus far.  I am still working on my review for The Awakening--it is turning out to be a difficult book to review!

Classically Readable #2: Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen

Genre: historical romance
Pages: 400, give or take depending on the edition
Published: 1811


Synopsis:
 Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing, but unsuitable John Willoughby, she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love - and its threatened loss - the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

Review:
I think that I'd almost like to have been a gentry lady in Ms Austen's time.  Her characters-- in Sense and Sensibility, the sisters Dashwood and their many privileged friends-- seem to spend the vast majority of their time either playing piano and chatting about the cutest boyfriends or "beauxs" in sitting rooms, visiting other country mansions, or whiling away the day reading.  Of course, the downside is that women's fortune and lifestyles depended completely on whoever they married, and wealth was everything.

What I loved so much about Pride and Prejudice is how brilliantly it depicts the romance and society of the era-- Austen is a very frank writer, especially for her time, I think, and sometimes downright hilarious.  Sense and Sensibility was her first novel, but I really could hardly tell and liked it almost as much as P & P (which I recently watched the movie version of, the one with Keira Knightley-- it was awesome).  Her style of writing is sometimes hard to decipher, but once you get 50 pages into the book, you become entirely used to the long sentences and abundance of commas and early nineteenth century prose.  Her masterful prose is one of the things which make her books so special and popular in the modern day.

But: Sense and Sensibility.  The three Dashwood sisters live a modest (for rich English gentry) life after the death of their father and know that their well-being depends on their being able to marry well, to someone wealthy and suitable.  The eldest sister Elinor is about as sensible a young lady as you would ever meet; she's very hesitant to express great emotions and uses logic in every decision she makes.  Meanwhile her sister Marianne is much less sensible (...and you see where the titles comes in.  Actually, Marianne's downright excitable, vivacious and overly dramatic.  While walking near a country estate, Marianne chances to fall and twist her ankle, only to be rescued by a young man who happens to be hunting right by where she has her accident and who graciously carries her safely home.  Marianne proceeds to lie in bed with her ankle for several days (when people where I live sprain an ankle, they usually just keep on limping) and, upon recovering, spends all her time with her rescuer, the equally excitable and passionate Willoughby.  Willoughby and Marianne seem to be a perfect match, but Marianne's suitor has little money or prospects, and the always logical Elinor doubts his suitability.

Elinor, meanwhile, also has a suitor: a young man called Edward, who comes from a wealthy family and wants to join the clergy.  Edward, to me, was the least interesting of the gentlemen characters in S & S.  In Austen language, he "seemed to me to be rather droll".  Willoughby is like the Austen version of a literary bad boy, so he and Marianne's romance, and the knives which get thrown in it, is much more interesting than what goes on between Elinor and Edward.  It's not that I didn't like Elinor; more that I really didn't care anything about Edward.  We get no sense of his personality, except that he's much more restrained and reluctant to go against the wishes of his domineering mother.  Elinor has a romantic rival for Edward's heart in the form of Miss Lucy Steele, a slightly less well-off and "well-bred" girl who it's difficult to decide whether to love or hate.  All of the characters, with the exception of Edward, are fantastically interesting and for the most part likeable.  The outspoken and gossipy Miss Jennings takes the Dashwood girls under her matronly wing and lets them stay with her for a season at the social capital of London-- she was one of my favorite characters, and added to the comedy and confusions of the novel.  I sorta felt sorry for the third Dashwood sister, Margaret.  Just like the fourth sister in P & P (now what was her name again?), she has no adventures or romantic prospects whatsoever.  Maybe someone should write some fanfiction in which Margaret becomes the first woman Chancellor of England, travels to Narnia, or at least gets married or something.

Tangent aside, the only question which remains is which Jane novel I should read next.  I kind of like the title Northanger Abbey, but Emma also sounds interesting.  You shouldn't need my advice to read this well-loved and always acclaimed book, but I'll say it anyway: read Sense & Sensibility, because its funny and clever and beautifully written and memorable.  And just generally awesome.


Rating: