Pride and Prejudice: Nitakushi, K-pop and Shippers

“Pride and Prejudice” hasn’t lost popularity for two centuries: dozens of reissues around the world, countless adaptations, zombie parodies, and an endless stream of memes. It’s customary to think of the novel as a beautiful love story, but in spirit it’s more like a political-and-domestic drama about marriages as a survival strategy: romance there, if we’re being honest, is a little. But there are plenty of characters and situations that today would look like a set of loud “red flags”: enterprising Wickham, who kidnaps a 15-year-old girl for profit; the father of the family who could protect his loved ones from ruin but prefers not to bother and not go to London to arrange documents; and Darcy, who repeatedly violates the rules of proper behavior. And in this lens, the Bennet sisters turn into a boysgroup—only in the k-pop format.

In the episode we discuss: Did Austen write about feelings or about survival strategy? Who in the book truly loves, and who chooses marriage for calculation? Why does Collins annoy everyone so much? Is it possible to read the novel as a feminist statement. And of course, without memes and “text guessing” there’s no way around.

Telegram channel of the podcast and book club: https://t.me/zakladka_podcast

Time stamps:
01:43 Why is the novel still so popular?
07:40 Is this book about love—or something else?
09:05 Why couldn’t the house be given to the daughters? (Spoiler: it turns out it can!)
10:22 Did the world change since Jane Austen’s time?
11:40 Did the heroes love each other?
15:22 What’s up with the strange relationship between Elizabeth and Darcy?
26:15 How realistic is the plot?
30:54 And what about Jane and Bingley?
32:30 Did Lydia become a victim of Wickham the womanizer?
39:30 Why is Mary so stuffy?
40:40 How was 19th-century education different from ours?
41:55 Is Collins really such an annoying character?
48:22 What’s wrong with Mrs. Bennet?
50:36 Is this book a feminist manifesto?
53:27 The “book of memes” section
59:16 Is the ending too happy?
01:02:45 Guessing from the book