Posted by Kathy F. on September 04, 1997 at 23:28:08:
In reply to You Both Are So Funny! posted by Nora on September 04, 1997 at 19:40:49
] I laughed so hard (Marsha) when you said that JA was disgusted with romance. Come to think of it P&P was the only ending that I actually found satisfying. She works these elaborate plots and then in one sentence she says "...And he pledged his love and devotion and they married in spring"
] I mean come on. Well, I couldn't blame her because she really had no experience. She never married, and I think it is quite possible that she did find it replusive....
________
I don't think that JA was so much disgusted with romance as unexperienced. She flirted with a few young men, we know, and possibly fell in love with one of them, but never married. I remember reading somewhere that the reason she never explicitly wrote all that much of love scenes (none of her books have the ladies' answers to the proposal, it's couched in terms such as Emma's "What did she say? Just what she ought, of course, a lady always does.") was sort of a reaction to her sister-novelists' over-romanticizing the scenes. I think I read that she basically thought that they made the people sound ridiculous. That is one of the things I like about P&P2--they didn't feel the need to add a lot of non-JA stuff--it's left to our imaginations. I don't really like the end of Emma3's proposal when they go outside of the dialogue of the book: "I held you in my arms when you were 3 weeks old...." It just seems weird.
Kathy
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