You're sitting with your elbows on your knees, eagerly leaning forward on the edge of your seat after almost six hours of movie viewing. The moment has finally come - a reward for your patient endurance of early 19th-century mannerisms and endless shallow conversations. Elizabeth and Darcy lean in, as if to kiss ... and the camera instead moves upward for that picturesque image of birds flitting amongst the springtime flowers.
It is amazing how much 20th-century film can reincarnate Jane Austen's own prim literary tendencies. And to any English major, at least, the paltry courtship culminations and rushed marriage scenes of "Pride and Prejudice," "Mansfield Park" and "Sense and Sensibility" are just as dissatisfying. Let's be blunt - Jane Austen just cannot match the modern day yearning towards Harlequin romance.
Or is that just what her publishers would have liked us to think? In "Pride and Promiscuity," the literary world's newest parody, two Austenphiles claim to have found the hidden sex scenes of Austen's greatest works.
Left for a week at Shelwyck Court, a remote hideaway in rural England, Arielle Eckstut and Dennis Ashton claim to have discovered a box of manuscripts hidden in the slate of a windowsill. Granted, the actual hiding place echoes more of the Bronte sisters than of Austen - but the slip can be forgiven, especially when the discovery bestows such a wonderful read upon us.
Somehow it doesn't matter that these passages are not actually genuine Austen, because this is honestly what generations of readers around the world have yearned for. What modern day Austen fanatic hasn't craved just a little more understanding about the relationship between Edmund and Fanny in "Mansfield Park"? Who can say that the consummation of Elizabeth and Darcy in "Pride and Prejudice" wouldn't add something to the tale? Most readers want a little spice (or more than a little) in the lives of their characters - what else has the ability to turn a book into more of a vicarious experience?
The parody becomes pitch-perfect as Eckstut and Ashton find a balance between modern sexuality and early 19th-century conservatism. Each passionate scene is heralded by a well-known Austen passage - and the seam between the two is honestly undetectable. As remarkable as it is for two 21st-century writers to nestle themselves into the prim literary style of Austen, Eckstut and Ashton have accomplished just that. The language is so timely, the interlocking of "pride" and "promiscuity" is so precise - one could almost believe that Austen actually wrote these scenes.
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As a parody, the work is nearly faultless. By including disgusted letters from Austen's publisher - also found in the windowsill - Eckstut and Ashton seemingly acknowledge that it is actually Austen who has this "French blood coursing through her veins, and the very lowest of such blood at that." So now the disguise is complete, even for those who could never believe that Jane Austen, womanly ideal, could write these passages, and the laughs start rolling.
The consummation scene of Elizabeth and Darcy, of course, is a given. The modern sex scene is a little skewed, however. Two lovers walking together, finally disengaged from the rest of their social group, seems normal enough. They talk about the weather and the scene feels like Austen herself. Then Mr. Darcy's next comment shocks the reader: "I am rather partial to all things wet, Miss Bennet. It makes going inside all the more pleasant." Gasp - suddenly this really has become a sex scene. And what's even worse, you're enjoying it!
One would think it should be difficult to maintain Austen's prim style of language and "dignity" while ever so subtly describing the latest moment of 19th century self-satisfaction, but "Pride and Promiscuity" accomplishes the impossible. The gap, I suppose, wasn't that hard to jump after all, since readers already knew how self-centered Emma could be.
"Pride and Promiscuity" is, in the end, only a wonderful parody by two young authors graced with a sense of humor. As a wicked and irreverent break from the true pages of Austen, it is a jewel. Austen's works should all be read for the sake of reading classics. But when the literary moment has passed, when you're in the mood for a Harlequin romance and you can't quite convince yourself to check one out of Clemons, try the perfect parody and the best 19th-century love scenes never actually written.
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