Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is one of the most well known romance novels. Perhaps it was she that set the tone for a unending popularity and publishing of Regency Romance novels. Yet, let's face it.... Romance novels today are not one. Single. Bit. Like Jane Austen's well crafted, wonderfully written, classic. Pictured above is a set proper romances. These romances are perfectly clean and have all the romance and drama you could ever want in a book, not to mention they have character development and maybe some good principles here and there. Yet, they will never be what Pride and Prejudice is. A Heart Revealed included a girl who used to be a bratty stuck up aristocrat, but transformed into a country girl who can say kind things and cook lemon cake. Edenbrooke is about a selfless girl and because of her selflessness, ends up almost losing everything, but in the end she gets her papa back and the guy. Blackmoore is a dramatic story about a girl who is also selfless, and who doesn't understand love because she is so selfless, so then she goes to India and then finally realizes what love is and then the guy comes to India to marry her. Lord Fenton's Folly includes a selfish dandy who gets turned into a gentlemen by his snappy and sensitive wife. My fair gentleman is about a sailor who falls in love with his tutor named Ivy. Ivy also doesn't understand love and through meeting this sailor, more fully understands the corruptness of society and in the end marries him.
The difference between classics and novels is that 1.at some point a classic must be hard to read and 2.the characters must go through experiences that cause you to think about things, to think about whether what they're doing is right or wrong, they cause you to realize things that you perhaps might not have considered before if someone just told you straight up, they cause you to feel, to feel things like the warmness of home, wittiness of a character, the magic of childhood.
Though this proper romance collection might cause you to feel heartache or wholehearted devotion, though they might include the transformation of a character, or perhaps they even get you to think about the corruptness of society, or your own selfishness...they are still novels.
Old movies and new movies are a good tool to help you understand the difference between Pride and Prejudice and this proper romance collection. The difference between a real classic and a novel.
Back in the old days, movies were hard to understand. I've seen some old movies that I actually have to use my brain and think about what they are saying, I have to constantly pull my attention back to the TV even though every scene is SUPER boring. But once I understand an inside joke that one of the characters listed off as if they could say it without thinking about it, I laugh for HOURS. Cause it's probably the most well-crafted joke I've ever heard. When you compare this, to new movies today, (and don't get me wrong there are some spectacular shows out these days... I'm talking romance.. With a few exceptions) it's hard to fathom the mental jump they make! The jokes they crack in movies today are PITIFUL! The language they use, and the lines they're given, are so easy to understand, you don't even have to think about what they are saying. And sure, the recent movies you watch are probably clean, perhaps they have character development, and they probably get you to feel something, yet there will never be a joke that snaps with charm and wit, and that actually takes some brain power to understand.
So, why do we watch new movies? Why not stick to the old? Well, the answer is simple, we as a society (that includes me) are too dumb to understand the whole of old movies. We might get one line if we think about it for a while, perhaps we have trained ourselves to understand whole scenes at a time, yet in the end, we watch movies to turn
off our brains. We are no longer entertained by witty and clever things. We are only entertained by action and romance that may or may not be pitiful.
So why do I read these books? Why not stick with Pride and Prejudice and call it good? Well, it's much of the same answer. I find that sometimes, I am not entertained by books that are hard to understand. I want to turn my brain off and just enjoy a book that has really bad communication problems between characters, that have pretty pitiful inside jokes, and not only is the story not real, but the main principles and consequences are either obviously real, or not real in the slightest bit. Just think about it, if you're selfless, you get what you want? Not true. If you are a girl with a brain that you use often, you still won't marry a guy because he'll lose his house? That is a terrible contradiction.
In the end, these books are fun to read, they're clean (even though they have the habit of looking like you're reading porn) but they will never be what Pride and Prejudice is. So for any person that says one of these books listed above is your favorite, please, reconsider. I love them too, but only because I love to turn my brain off.
In this instance, please, turn yours on.
