Sunday, January 11, 2009

Dating Mr. Darcy

Most women would love to date Mr. Darcy. He's rich, he's handsome, he picks Elizabeth because he values her wit and intelligence, he saves Elizabeth's family by making Wickham marry Lydia. Who wouldn't want this knight in shining armor? Who wouldn't want to meet a man just like Darcy in this day an age? Most women picture him as Colin Firth, who played Darcy beautifully in the 1995 version of Pride & Prejudice starring Firth and Jennifer Ehle. So who wouldn't want him? Alexandra Potter, that's who.

Potter wrote "Me and Mr. Darcy" a good story about a modern day woman who "meets" Darcy while going on a Jane Austen tour of England. Each meeting with the fictional Darcy takes place during a dream or while something else is going on, so we know Emily doesn't really meet the fictional Darcy, but we learn something else. Darcy is sort of a stick in the mud. He doesn't like Emily's modern clothes. He's shocked to learn she works. He can't believe she doesn't know how to ride and is amazed that she doesn't act like a proper lady. Is this really what we want? A man who expects us to live like they did in Regency England? A man, who if he married us and got bored with us could tie a rope around our necks and sell us at market to the highest bidder? (Men really could do this in Regency England). Probably not. So while Darcy is fun to dream about maybe we need to update him for our purposes.

3 comments:

  1. I just got "Calling Romeo" in the mail. It's an Alexandra Potter book and it looks good. I'll let you know. When I ordered it I thought it was sort of "Me and Mr. Darcy" only with Romeo. Now I'm thinking not so much. Oh well it should be fun. Although I kind of want to read the Susan Kaye books again. If only I could read 8 books at the same time and I mean at the exact same time.

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  2. Marisa,

    I changed the poll just for you. Now you can vote for Tilney.

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