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A 300-book/movie review

I had to read it again!
By Esther (Y5C, 2006-07)

One of my favourite books, Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen’s most popular novel. I read it a few years ago and soon after I saw the adaptation to a BBC TV serial. I could not imagine a better actor than Colin Firth to play the main character in the novel, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. I can only say that Helen Fielding, the author of the well-known book Bridget Jones’s Diary, was inspired by Colin Firth’s performance in Pride and Prejudice when she started developing the main character in her own novel, Marc Darcy. In fact, the leading actor in the film Bridget Jones’s Diary is Colin Firth.

In the plot of Jane Austen's classical romance, Elizabeth Bennett the main character, is a strong-willed yet sensible young woman in a well-off but lower class family of five sisters, a long-suffering but loving father and a mother anxious to marry them to wealthy young gentlemen. At a local ball, she encounters one such wealthy young man, Mr. Darcy. He is arrogant, cold and rude; it is hatred at first sight. The title Pride and Prejudice refers (among other things) to the way in which Elizabeth and Darcy first view each other, actually the original name of the novel was "First Impressions".

Some critics think that the novel is a criticism of the romantic love concept and its conceit of love at first sight. But the general opinion is that Jane Austen was an expert in writing about universal feelings and the characters of the book’s adaptation are completely convincing.

So, if you are looking for a way to have a good time, I would definitely recommend watching the BBC TV serial on this novel, or the Bollywood film adaptation, Bride and Prejudice that will surely surprise you.