Real People Reading Jane Austen

I'm a member of a real life book club at my local library. I've been going for over five years. The reading list is mostly literary, CanLit, and heavy stuff about the Middle East, along with a few classics - it's hit and miss. But hey, it's free. And it's great to spend one evening a month talking to people who are as geeky about books as me, and that's the main reason I go.

None of them, however, are romance readers. Which made this week's discussion of Pride and Prejudice very interesting.

"I fell asleep reading it."
"It took me forever."
"The sentences are too long."
"I don't know what it was supposed to be about."
"Don't these women have anything else to do but sit around and gossip?"
"I don't understand why everyone just sits around and nobody works."
"It helps if you see the movie."
"Kids don't read anymore. In twenty years no one will be reading this book."

Mind you - these are intelligent people. These are readers. I just sort of sat in a stupor, not sure where to start. Pride and Prejudice, to me, is a treasure, a work of exquisite and unutterable genius. It is a page-turner. The sentences are like delicious morsels of food, one after the other, each with such different and beautiful flavor that it is a joy to sit and savor the one you're reading before you go to the next. The two hundred years since it has been written have passed like a fraction of a moment, leaving the precise insights of Jane Austen's unparalleled dissection of human nature as timely and immediate as ever.

And Mr. Darcy. Oh, Mr. Darcy.

I tried, really I did. When someone mentioned that Jane was "too perfect" to be a real character, I tried to point out that Jane is Austen showing what society sees as a real, true, perfect woman - and asking you what you think, next to the "imperfect" Lizzie. You think she's boring? Maybe it's Austen saying that society's version of the ideal is a little bit cardboard. She knows, people.

I got dead silence for that.

Romance readers and writers adore P&P almost universally. I was a jarred by a conversation that could treat such an obvious classic so carelessly, and I wished heartily for a round table of true romance lovers, so we could really talk about this book. The wonder of it.

It was mentioned, near the end, that much of the romance genre springs from P&P. And the inevitable cliche was mentioned: "You know, you can take classes on how to write romances, and they tell you the formula. Your hero and heroine have to hate each other on sight, and they have to kiss by chapter three, and all that." Ha, they had a hearty chuckle, and one woman rolled her eyes. Ye gods. I could have yelled at them all, but what was the point?

I'll keep going, I guess, if only because one can be equally scathing to any book on the list, and we are. (God, there are some horrible CanLit books out there - they make my eyes bleed.) But it made me realize that I've changed over the last five years. My heart really is in the romance business, and the people who think the same speak my language. Without my fellow romance lovers, I'd be adrift on an island of Austen-haters, wondering if I was crazy.

I'm not crazy. I just love Mr. Darcy, that's all.