Goodreads really wants to slot this in with a regular copy of Pride and Prejudice, and to be fair you are reading a copy of Pride and Prejudice when you read this.
In my case, it’s been so long since I’ve read this book and I have watched so many snippets of the 1995 BBC version and the 2005 Keira Knightley version since that there were multiple, multiple times that I thought I was reading some sort of “newly discovered passages!” version of the book.
These annotations remind of those Shakespeare editions where the original text is on the RHS and explanations on the LHS, like what olde time words mean or sometimes straight up explanations of what is happening. Those editions inspire some pretty heated discussions amongst my friends, for what it’s worth–some are of the opinion that we should focus on the plot of books via Sparknotes and then delve deeper once that’s known. Others think that learning to read Shakespeare (mostly via acting out scenes) is a literary skill in and of itself.
None of that really matters here, because the plot of P&P is never the issue. Is it a truth universally acknowledged that the travails of Mr. Darcy and Miss Elizabeth Bennet are, well, pretty universally known (amongst a certain subset of the Western world, of course, I don’t presume to know the extent of Austen’s reach). So the annotations here fall into the following categories:
– straight up definitions: these range from neutral to useful, in that some words have not really changed meaning but the author thinks people might not know the word, but others really have changed (prime example being the nuances behind saying someone has ‘condescended to you,’ which I remember from school)
– explainers of the day to day of Regency life: for example, did you know (which I didn’t in such detail) that only Jane gets to be Miss Bennet, and the other sisters are all Miss [First Name] or Miss [First Name] Bennet? Until Jane becomes Mrs. Something Else. Now that I know this, I find lapses in filmed adaptations or non-contemporary books somewhat irksome
– putting facts and figures in context for modern day readers: your usual notes about what a hat that cost 16 shillings would imply in modern day–and, of course, what it actually means that Mr. Darcy has an annual income of £10,000
So far so good–and honestly, I would have been engaged with a book that only had these annotations. That’s what I was thinking this book would have. But to my pleasant surprise, there’s also a whole set of annotations that can best be described as…a chopped up recap summary? Like one of those old school TV Without Pity recaps, which go through the plot in such detail that you don’t really need to watch the show yourself, but with asides and insights that also help explain if you did watch but didn’t capture all the nuance.
The Shapard clearly loves the source material, because boy does he go into detail on the nuances of what we’re seeing. It’s almost like…dissecting texts from a crush with a friend? Look, we all know what the texts say, and there’s nothing really more that we’re getting by repeating them with different inflections and putting them in context. But it’s just so much fun to do so, and that’s what you’re getting with this book–someone who’s unapologetically happy to dissect all those fun little nuances that we’re all getting, but which you don’t really talk about for fear of seeming like an uncultured reader who’s still stuck on this one book they had to read when they were in high school.
