Suzanne,
Re your comments below:
> I'm going to jump in here, not really in defense
> of the movie, because I'm the one who made the
> comment above about no movie Darcys smiling
> enough, but I don't think that Darcy's interest in
> Elizabeth is perhaps as flagrant as you consider
> it to be in the book. Are there clear signs that
> he likes her and is interested in her? Yes, there
> are, but he also sends plenty of contradictory
> signals too, and I've never thought he behaved
> like a man ready to propose. If Elizabeth had been
> less prejudiced she would have recognized the
> possibility of his interest, but I don't think she
> could ever have been expecting a declaration, not
> unless she was exceptionally vain.
Lisa's insistence that Darcy's interest in Lizzy is, or should be, manifestly obvious, points up the other half of my point.
Just as film is a visual medium, with different tools and devices for telling a story than prose fiction, so is prose fiction a collaborative process between author and reader, and every reader will bring something different to that collaboration, and will come away recalling a story different from every other reader.
Lisa clearly thinks, from reading the book, that Darcy's interest is clear. And she's not wrong. That was the experience she had when she read the book. But the fact that others found, upon reading the book, a Darcy who hid his feelings well, or a Darcy who sent mixed signals, shows that this isn't the only reaction an attentive reader can have. Nor does it mean that any reader's interpretation is going to match, in every particular, whatever JA was trying to convey.
But precisely because every reader brings a different ingredient to the recipe that is P&P, just as every person sitting down at a dinner table for the same dinner brings a different set of taste buds, a film version can't be judged on the specific vision any of us had when we read the book.
JIM D.
Re your comments below:
> I'm going to jump in here, not really in defense
> of the movie, because I'm the one who made the
> comment above about no movie Darcys smiling
> enough, but I don't think that Darcy's interest in
> Elizabeth is perhaps as flagrant as you consider
> it to be in the book. Are there clear signs that
> he likes her and is interested in her? Yes, there
> are, but he also sends plenty of contradictory
> signals too, and I've never thought he behaved
> like a man ready to propose. If Elizabeth had been
> less prejudiced she would have recognized the
> possibility of his interest, but I don't think she
> could ever have been expecting a declaration, not
> unless she was exceptionally vain.
Lisa's insistence that Darcy's interest in Lizzy is, or should be, manifestly obvious, points up the other half of my point.
Just as film is a visual medium, with different tools and devices for telling a story than prose fiction, so is prose fiction a collaborative process between author and reader, and every reader will bring something different to that collaboration, and will come away recalling a story different from every other reader.
Lisa clearly thinks, from reading the book, that Darcy's interest is clear. And she's not wrong. That was the experience she had when she read the book. But the fact that others found, upon reading the book, a Darcy who hid his feelings well, or a Darcy who sent mixed signals, shows that this isn't the only reaction an attentive reader can have. Nor does it mean that any reader's interpretation is going to match, in every particular, whatever JA was trying to convey.
But precisely because every reader brings a different ingredient to the recipe that is P&P, just as every person sitting down at a dinner table for the same dinner brings a different set of taste buds, a film version can't be judged on the specific vision any of us had when we read the book.
JIM D.