Jane Austen

About twenty years ago, on the advice of a friend, I read the novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I've mentioned Pride and Prejudice in this blog before because it became of of my favourite books. Indeed, having finished Pride and Prejudice I went on to read all Jane Austen's other novels in quick succession. She only wrote six novels, and on one level they're very simple because they all just boil down to the story of how the heroine finds her husband. But underneath that simple story they're incredibly complex, and beautifully written too, so that a romantic guy like me finds it impossible not to fall in love with them!

It's interesting to ask how modern gay life maps onto a typical Jane Austen novel like Pride and Prejudice. A lot of gay guys might see themselves as the novel's heroine Elizabeth Bennet, constantly looking for Mr Right and finding that most guys fall short of their ideal. I'd certainly put ex-boyfriend P in that category! I'd hoped to be his Mr Darcy, but I know now that it wasn't to be :-(.

Although all her heroines always found their husband, Jane Austen herself did not marry. I find it easy to believe that like many gay guys, she didn't realise that the perfect husband only exists in the kind of books that she wrote. None the less, that doesn't detract from the fact that her novels were masterpieces.

However, I've always had a problem with her most famous line, which I reckon must be the opening sentence to Pride and Prejudice:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

I guess it speaks for the time in which it was written. Back in 19th century England, saying:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife or a nice boyfriend.

wouldn't have gone down very well!