Illiterates, Literates, and Snobs

Do you contemplate literary snobbery while you read? I do.

I can't help but read my favorite Jane Austen novel with an analytical eye, seeking out what makes her writing magic -- what it is that commands the awe of an entire population of English speakers. For that matter, how has her writing stood the test of time? Albeit, not a very long time.. But hey, a hundred years is longer than I've lived.

When I look up from Pride and Prejudice long enough to remove myself from the eighteenth century, I can't help but feel a phony. High school literature classes teach the classics, but experience has taught me that those lesson leave the majority of students with only the knowledge that they are classics, and not why they are classics. Rather than think for ourselves, we are set a prescribed opinion, one that I find hard to shake now that I have entered adulthood (somewhere out there my parents are laughing at that last part).

I remember watching an episode of Gilmore Girls a while back, the one in which Lorelai and her mother agree on something. For those of you with little Gilmore knowledge, let me tell you that this is an epic occurrence. Lorelai is shocked that they found common ground, leading her to question every choice she has ever made -- even the one that started her love of Poptarts! She asked herself this question: Do I like what I like because I like it, or do I like what I like because my mother doesn't like it?

I was told that Jane Austen is a writer of many English classics, therefore I grew up thinking that. My self doubt comes from a suspicion that without being told of her greatness, I would not appreciate her writing.

With all that said, I do know this: Mr. Darcy makes me swoon and I see much of myself in Elizabeth Bennett. She is the essence of the person I imagine myself being during a time when women were expected to be seen and not heard. My hearts speeds up when I reach the last quarter of the novel and the pages feel right in my hands.