Well, I might as well make the obligatory Feast of St. Valentine post.
My brother has recently started to read Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. Over here, he claims that he is doing this because I have challenged him to do so.
In fact, I have done nothing of the sort. This is camouflage of the basest kind.
I gently suggested to Bhavya that he read Pride and Prejudice not as a challenge but out of pure fraternal affection. Despite possessing raw sex appeal and animal magnetism, he has no charm whatsoever. The story of his life is:
Girl sees boy at quiz/ debate/ et cetera.
Girl instantly falls for boy. (Why does this never happen to me?)
Girl meets boy.
Five minutes to five weeks after meeting her, boy manages to tick girl off.
It’s astounding. He manages to fritter his natural advantage. Given enough time, there is no girl he will not manage to annoy and convince that he is a horrid, horrid, boy.
It is for this reason that he needs to read Pride and Prejudice. I haven’t read it myself, for the simple reason that I can’t get through anything by Jane Austen. It’s a morass of the passive voice in which better men than me have sunk. Anyway. Returning to the point.
The point- which I have so far meandered around because the CAT is tomorrow and I have every right to be distracted- is that girls go wild over Mr. Darcy. Look at Bridget Jones. Look at Mia Thermopolis (OK, that was the bloke in Jane Eyre but it could easily have been Mr. Darcy). Look at Vrinda, who left a comment at my brother’s post, and in fact has a teddy bear (or is it a cat?) called Darcy. For that matter, look at the heroine of Pride and Prejudice, who I assume is wild about him at the end of the book. And Bhavya is reading Pride and Prejudice not to settle a bet (or bets), but because he knows that to emulate Mr. Darcy in all wise is his only hope of having a happy ending on future Valentine’s Days.
Then again, maybe it’s just to settle the bet. He is pretty competitive. I’m turning in early, I have the CAT tomorrow. Good night.