Oh Darcy, oh Darcy, oh dear!

Oh no, Darcy is not sexy! Rereading Pride and Prejudice is upsetting me greatly. I first read this book during the BBC series when I (and every other hot-blooded heterosexual woman) fell in love with Austin’s haughty hero, played by Colin Firth. Colin Firth is not actually sexy, (Think about it, have you ever fancied him in any other role?) but he is an amazing actor, and oh boy, he could smoulder. I sprinted through Austin’s words and fell in love even more. I can’t attribute it to the age I was because I recall an elderly aunt talking about manufacturing a Darcy doll which would have a button to make him wet (If you don’t remember that scene you haven’t seen that adaptation.) I imagined a Barbie-sized doll, but on recent reflection maybe my octogenarian relative was after a sex doll, and who could bloody blame her? But now I read and he no longer appeals. He is awkward, shy, tentative, boyish. Maybe Colin Firth was the person that brought the sauce to this character, and oh yes he could smoulder.

I still enjoyed my reread, I do so love to reread. Some cruel lecturer some 20 years ago (with a wonderful Rochesterian scar) maliciously tried to sabotage Austen for his students by forcing Mansfield Park upon us. I remember being quite trepidatious about Pride and Prejudice but Elizabeth Bennett was quite the antidote to Fanny Price. And I still like her, even if I am no longer wooed by Darcy. And books affect us in different disparate ways. Sometimes call my dog 'Mr Bennett!' in the park, a permanent memory of both book and series. 

So to my next prescribed read, Longbourn. I hope it bodes better than its first page. I hope it does more than swim in the wake of the Sargasso sea.