Struggling in a Pro-Austen World.
I've never liked Jane Austen.
Not exactly something you should say in a group of women conversing about how much they love the books and the movies.
Probably shouldn't be said in the presence of women in general, I suppose, considering that almost all women love her.
While I was growing up, I always felt a little left out when my friends would go on rants about how amazing Jane Austen's books are and how much they love her female protagonists. Being a sheltered child, I wasn't allowed to read romance novels or listen to any music later than the 80s.
Years later, I sought out her books just so I could understand what my friends were talking about; so I wouldn't feel left out.
When I finally got my hands on "Pride and Prejudice," I immediately began to eat up the words on every page. Took me only a day to read the whole thing. I don't think I've read as fast as that ever since.
But while I was reading it, I felt so confused. To be honest, saying that the entire story was anti-climatic, is generous.
Don't get me wrong, watching Disney movies growing up, I was instilled with the same "save the damsel in distress" expectations as millions of other little girls. Even when I read "Twilight" (I still scratch my head sometimes as to why I would have ever read such cliche-filled trash, and then I remember the whole "damsel in distress" thing again. Thank goodness I got rid of those books.) I felt the same angsty pangs of jealousy for the heroine because she was rescued by some perfect, chivalrous man.
However, as an adult, I no longer feel those pangs. Well, okay that's not entirely true. I do feel pangs, but they're more on the side of disgust and regret for even thinking they were good stories in the first place.
In the cases of both PP and TL, one can see small similarities between the two protagonists.
Both women come from middle to low class families; both women assume a prejudiced view on their male counterparts; both women come to realize their own strength over a course of events; both women become attached to these men; both women encounter another man who, for lack of a better phrase, "shake things up"; both women end up with the first man who happens to have a large amount of money; both women change their male counterparts for the better.
Still, I do appreciate what Austen achieved with her books. I just will never lay my hands on them again.
So if I don't like Jane Austen, then who do I like? Pretty sure there's only one option, or I guess in this case, three.
The Bronte sisters.
Regardless of the fact that Miss Stephanie Meyer decided to make her protagonist's favorite book "Wuthering Heights," I still hold all of their books in high regard.
They convey realistic, imperfect women who fall for realistic, imperfect men. They go through actual tragedy and experience actual triumphs. Not all of them have a happy ending but even through all of their pain, their ending is something that doesn't just happen in the pages of a good book.
That is the kind of heroine I want to believe in. Someone who becomes strong through the course of her story, not one who is already strong to begin with.