I can write, but I can't write like that.

This is the second in the "books that have stuck with me" series (see the original list, without commentary, here [or right below this post, if you are reading on the blog arranged chronologically]). Amateur Reader suggested that I tackle the commentary on these books, and I suppose I am taking the easy way out by writing about the two works that have been previously discussed (at some length) on his blog.  Hopefully there will be more posts to come.

I included two canonized "classics" on my list: A Tale of Two Cities and Pride and Prejudice. The former I first read in English class sophomore year of high school (thank you C. Taylor!) and the latter junior year (thank you Dr. F!).

A Tale of Two Cities devastated me. Prior to sophomore year, it was a given (in my mind) that I would on day write novels.  I had been an active writer since I was in the third grade, and by junior year of high school I was filling a spiral notebook a month.  While I also planned to be a plant scientist and active in the food industry,  and possibly international relations (I was taking Chinese and German, after all), writing was what I obviously did, and would continue to do.  And then I read A Tale of Two Cities.  And every weird detail from the beginning fell into place at the end. I realized immediately that I couldn't plot like that if I sat down and diagrammed out a whole book, then re-wrote passages every time they conflicted, much less if the first chapters were published before the end was written and I was actively writing other books at the same time.  Charles Dickens had genius that I didn't, and, however many notebooks I might fill with my scribbles, I never would. (I commented about that here on Wuthering Expectations, in the middle of Amateur Reader's insightful several-day discussion of the book). I haven't re-read A Tale of Two Cities, and likely never will, but the lesson that I don't have plotting genius, and some people do, was a direct result of the book.  I still count it high on the list of best books I've read.

Pride and Prejudice, by contrast, did little for me when I read it in Dr. F's class. The lesson I learned that I could apply to my own writing was that I had too many characters on the pages of those notebooks.  I was confused by the number of characters in P+P (and the use of Eliza/Lizzie/Miss Elizabeth Bennett) and counted that there were three times as many in my current notebook. Otherwise, I know that I did enjoy P+P upon that first reading at 16, but can't quite figure out why.  I was confused, I didn't realize the book was funny, and my romantic sentiments were shattered when I realized that Colonel Fitzwilliam wasn't for Elizabeth after all.  I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out Darcy's first name (also Fitzwilliam, mentioned once in the book) and then angrily writing an "alternative reading" defense of Charlotte and Mr. Collins that my teacher presented as part of his work on teaching criticism via outlines of "alternative readings".  If I had speculated that I received a lower-than-justified grade on my Alice in Wonderland paper, just so that I would be anxious for extra credit just at the very moment that Dr. F needed a student example of his new method for a conference, well, apparently, I would be so ungrateful as to mention it here.

Much as it pains me to say it, though, the close reading necessary for writing that alternative explanation was the beginning of my on-going adoration of Pride and Prejudice (again, thank you Dr. F.).   I didn't think it was funny until I read it again in college (thank you unremembered college prof.) and I didn't see most of the sarcasm (or recognize Darcy's hotness) until the mini-series came out (thank you BBC producers and casting) but I somehow "got it" from that second reading at 16, and I have loved it ever since.  I love Elizabeth Bennett (see old conversation on Wuthering Expectations here). I consume "Austen Light", sometimes in voracious quantities (search by Austen to read about some of it) and I re-read Pride and Prejudice every year or so (sometimes seeing plot points I had missed during the previous nine readings, like Charlotte Collins being knocked-up) mostly because it just gives me pleasure.  It's the best book of 1813 with reason.