classics

Books to Movies: Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice books to movies

Pride and Prejudice book coverThe basic info. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen was first published in 1813 and is one of the most well-loved classics. There have been several films and TV series made based on the book. In this post, I’ll be talking about the only adaptation I’ve seen (so far) and that’s the 2005 film starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen.

What’s the story? The description on Goodreads calls this a “comedy of manners” and it really is since it’s a witty and satirical novel about life in a society of different classes back in the day. The story revolves around a young independent woman, Elizabeth, her four sisters Jane, Mary, Kitty and Lydia, and the men who enter their lives, most notably Mr. Darcy and his best buddy Mr. Bingley.

Which one did I experience first? I saw the movie first on DVD and since then it’s been on my list of go-to movies. During the time when I was just starting out as a freelancer, I would watch this movie over and over. I just liked having it on while I worked on my laptop. It was also around that time when I decided that I should read the book (and I did, of course).

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Why I should read fairy tales and the classics and kick ass!

Late last night I suddenly remembered that I had a 30-day creative writing challenge to kick off over at my other blog. The first task was to re-write a fairy tale. Off the top of my head I thought about Little Red Riding Hood, but then I realized that story has already been re-told many times. I wanted to pick a little known or unpopular fairy tale so I went to Google and found a long list of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales on Wikipedia. Dammit, I wasn’t familiar with most of them.

Anyway, I looked at the list and picked a somewhat familiar one and read through it quickly. While reading through the story I began to realize that it sounded very similar to one of the books I reviewed a few months back. Holy incapacity, Batman! I just read and reviewed a re-telling of a fairy tale and didn’t even know it! Plus I obviously didn’t do enough research about the book because I don’t remember reading anything mentioning a fairy tale. Gah. I could have said so many things about the book if I knew it was a re-telling of an old twisted tale. (Let’s face it, Grimms’ tales are twisted.)

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Wuthering Heights

I’m currently reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I’ve always wanted to read this not only because it’s a great classic, but also because it’s hailed as one of the most unique gothic novels of its time. I once bought one of those Reader’s Digest compilation of condensed books of gothic literature and I found it quite interesting. It’s so different from what we think as gothic these days. I guess it’s because things were so different back then. I’ve also been interested in the genre ever since I took a course on romantic literature in college. Romantic lit is really not we think it is. I mean, the one book we discussed in class was Bram Stoker’s Dracula. How’s that for romantic. Although, some may argue that it IS the original vampire-loves-mortal-waif romance.

Anyway, my desire to read Wuthering Heights was fueled more when I saw this deluxe edition by Penguin Books. Pretty! The cover is by artist Ruben Toledo.

I also saw a different edition which targeted the Bella-Edward fans. It says “Love Never Dies” and “Bella and Edward’s favorite book” on the cover. GREAT.

I didn’t buy any of these fancy editions though. I found a paperback version with a beautiful cover for only 175 bucks. Hah. Down with capitalism! LOL.

So, I’m reading this book now but I’m still on the first chapter. The old English is a challenge, but it’s beautiful.