Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

It's hard to write an original review when the book's been around for 200 years, so I'll write a poem reviewing it instead. (BTW, I think I should warn you that the poet in me is severely lacking. :P)

Jane Austen's beloved love story
with
intelligent and lively Elizabeth,
and proud but dashing (and smart) Mr. Darcy,
is
unforgettable,
timeless,
adored by most,
and now, even me.

Ta-da! :D

So I did finish the book, and I cheered with happiness! To understand my happiness, you have to know about the relationship between P&P and I: Last April, we got an assignment in English in which we had to read a novel by a foreign author, and basically we had to write a letter to the author about it and such. I picked P&P because I thought it would be fun reading old English, but I didn't know anything about P&P before the assignment other than it was written by classic author Jane Austen, it was a love story, and the most recent movie version had Keira Knightly playing the lead role.

To make a long story short, there was some family chaos that erupted at the time, so I couldn't finish the novel (but I finished the letter thanks to my grandfather, my friends, and the first ten chapters I read), but I made a promise to Jane Austen's memory that I would read it someday, and that someday was yesterday, because I sprained my ankle the day before playing Tennis, and I had to stay home from school. :D

Now about the book, all I can say is that I think that Jane Austen was a brilliant observer of the society around her. The characters are realistic, and show true emotion. There's at least someone that we can all relate to in the story or someone like the characters that we see all the time wherever we go. There's immense truth in the pages about how everyone views the world, about pride and prejudices, and about first impressions and how they're not always correct. For a while, it felt like I was reading a foreign language book, because of all the "translating" I had to do, and it took me twice the time it would take for me to read a similarly lengthy novel, but it was worth it. :D

Oh, honestly, I really can't explain my immense love for this novel and I know I'm doing a really bad job explaining it, so I'm just going to conclude with me recommending you to read it too someday, and saying that I will be reading the rest of Jane Austen's novels. (I think Sense & Sensibilty and Persuasion are up next in line for me. :]) Oh, gosh, I love the classics.

In honor of the lovely, cold rain today

Here, it's pouring down heavily. So for that, a short poem for everyone:

First Winter Rain by Matsuo Basho


First winter rain-
even the monkey
seems to want a wintercoat

The Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,

Night and morning with my tears;

And I sunnèd it with smiles,

And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,

Till it bore an apple bright;

And my foe beheld it shine,

And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole,

When the night had veiled the pole:

In the morning glad I see

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

-Wiliam Blake

I feel bad for his foe...

Well, this is one of my favorite poems. We had to write an analysis of this poem in English a couple of months ago. It's really interesting with the apple, the anger, and the weird guy who wants to kill his friend. William Blake writes a lot of crazy poems (we learned that he went through a lot of agony in his life) but they're all amusing and they actually make analyzing poems fun.