I cross-posted with @“Cardinal Fang” – forgot about those hoops! Thanks for the background @Marilyn.
@Mary13 I’d say you chose an excellent book based on this pre-discussion response!
I have two friends who read P&P yearly.
Keira Knightly version enchanting
I don’t even think I need to re-read this, I could probably play any female part in the book. If I could vote, BBC version in length and detail with Colin Firth, but the casting of Keira Knightly, her sister and her mother in that movie version.
I too have read this book often, and I would just like to suggest to anyone who read it perforce in high school or college, to try re-reading it with an open mind. I certainly did not appreciate the humor of it the first time I read it.
I love Dame Judi Dench in the Kiera Knightly film version.
There is an earlier 1980 BBC version, screenplay by novelist Fay Weldon, that is IMNSHO the best, for the purist:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078672/?ref_=nv_sr_4
Elizabeth Garvie and David Rintoul. Although I really enjoyed the Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle version–especially Ehle, with her twinkle–it was sexed up and really not very true to Jane. More of a guilty pleasure. 
The 1980 version is much truer.
But they are both good.
While you’re at it, take a look at Becoming Jane (movie) and Death Comes to Pemberley (TV). I enjoyed both of them.
The idea of someone writing a dumbed down YA version makes me ill. I read it the first time when I was 13 or 14. It’s like those dreadful fake Little House books. Yuck.
Boy, do I feel illiterate. I’ve never read it, nor have I seen any of the movies or read the other books you’re all talking about. I have a lot of catching up to do!!
@VeryHappy, start with a clean slate read the original first before venturing into films and knock-off books! (just my opinion) (but I feel strongly about it) 
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The BBC production sexed up? Are you telling me that Colin Firth diving into the pond is not in the book? 
The BBC production is my favorite, over the Kiera Knightly version, the Rintoul/ Garvie version and the Lawrence Olivier version. But I don’t see how the BBC Jane is the stunning beauty we’re supposed to be seeing; BBC Elizabeth is better looking IMO.
If you loooove all things Austen and want some additional reading, try this new fiction: The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen Flynn.
Time travelers from the future go back and visit Jane Austen … it’s fun! The author is a copy editor at the New York Times … she has done her research and has a convincing voice.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32930819-the-jane-austen-project
I have read it, in HS, but there’s a negative association, perhaps due to my teen attitude.
Let’s do this! You’ll have company!
@Mary13, don’t worry – I know I have to start with the original! I started it about two days ago and realize I have to take it very slowly to pick up all the innuendo. I also find that I have to read everything twice these days to really feel like I’ve understood it, so it’s a good thing that I’ve started this early!
Hey, you might have just tempted me to join in! I’ve never watched the Keira Knightly version because it sounded too anachronistic and at the same time faux authentic (that they lived in the middle of a farm with pigs out front?) and also Colin Firth for the win.
I can definitely get behind this discussion. Should probably reread for the trillionth time, oh, darn!
To new readers and “been a very long time since I read it” readers. As you read, keep in mind the vulnerable economic position women were in if their families were not financially able to support them. If Mr and Mrs Bennet had died young, the girls would have at best ended up like Jane Fairfax (Emma) and at worst Jane Erye.
For those who like to listen to audiobooks, I prefer the narration of Flo Gibson.
I have A LOT of opinions on any work by Jane Austen.
No spoilers, please.
SPOILERS
Some women support themselves as servants. Jane Erye is a high class servant. A governess is socially acceptable at the family dinner table. Emma still socializes with her governess after she marries. I am going to read Cardinal Fang’s book recommendation. Thanks.
Among the class Austen writes about, women don’t have jobs to earn money, though Austen earned some money from her writing. They can become governesses, but lose social capital. Jane Fairfax isn’t taking a position while Frank Churchhill keeps their engagement secret and waits for his aunt to pass away so he can inherit. It wouldn’t be the thing for him to marry a governess. Austen’s female characters want their own homes. Lizzie (jokingly??) tells Jane she fell for Darcy after seeing Pemberly. Charlotte marries Mr Collins to have her own home. Emma, when talking to Harriet Taylor, says she isn’t interested in marriage because she is already mistress of her own home since her father is a widower.
Having a home is a theme in all the novels, imho. Lydia is an exception. She wants to travel. There are other women running off, but mostly I think they still want homes in the end. Lydia may be a feminist Austen heroine. Of course, she is presented as a reckless ditz.
Within the class Austen mostly writes about, the men don’t have that much ability to make money either, if they are landed gentry, unless they figure out how to improve production of their land. There are lawyers, not so high class as the gentry, even if richer. And some rich tradesmen. Bingley has a fotune because his father was in trade. He is renting the neighboring estate so he can act like gentry. His sisters look down their pretentious noses at Mrs. Bennet’s lawyer brother in London. Throughout Austen’s novels there are women waiting around for men to have enough money to marry them. There are long engagements that sometimes don’t work out. Clergy need livings. In Northanger Abbey a young woman runs off with an heir, rather than wait several years for her fiance to get an adequate living. In Sense and Sensibility, this is a plot device as well. Heirs need to inherit. Naval officers have the potential to become rich from booty from captured enemy ships. . The rich men in the books either inherit or were essentially pirates. I don’t think we have any current tradesmen?
I am looking forward to this book thread. I like Pride and Prejudice, but my favorite Austen novel is Persuasion. Second favorite is Northanger Abbey. Mansfield Park is pretty interesting to me.
for Consolation, from another Faye Weldon fan, if she doesn’t already know it
https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Alice-First-Reading-Austen/dp/034058937X
My movie contribution:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1117666/
Lost in Austen
And now I’ll sit on my fingers till Feb.
@alh, thank you! There’s a lot to unpack in your post #34, but I’m not going to even go there until February 1st.
Looks like we’ll have plenty to discuss. Happy reading, everyone!
“I love the BBC version. Also loved the leads in the 1940 version but thought both it and the Keira Knightly versions differed too far from the book. Especially the latter - it’s one of the movies where I start yelling at the screen.”
I thought the 1940 movie version diverged from the book even more than the Keira Knightly version did. Remember the archery scene from the book? Neither do I. But it’s a prominent scene in the 1940 movie.
Also, people talking about the “BBC version” should specify whether they are talking about the 1980 5-episode series - with Elizabeth Garvie and David Rintoul, or the 1995 6-episode series - with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. BBC was involved with both.
“Among the class Austen writes about, women don’t have jobs to earn money, though Austen earned some money from her writing.”
Jane Austen did earn some money from from her writing, but she didn’t earn much. Although her books were popular and sold moderately well, she did not achieve wealth and fame in her own time. No fame because she published anonymously, her name being added to the publications only after her death. And not much wealth because in those days the business model was such that publishers kept for themselves most of the revenue generated from the sale of books. Successful authors made their fortunes by going out on public reading tours – appearances for which tickets were sold, and on which Jane, ever the retiring homebody, never embarked. I read one estimate that said all the income Jane earned in her lifetime from her six novels, converted in modern money, added up to only about $25,000.