Trucker Man Reads: Pride and Prejudice

A man's look at a girl's book

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a good wife shall be somehow roped into watching Pride and Prejudice in one form or another, most likely the five-hour BBC edition, especially if that man has already strong-armed said wife into enduring at least four seasons of Smallville on DVD.

And so it was that I, God’s Mightiest Trucker, found myself entangled in the familial goings-on of the Bennetts from Jane Austen’s most famous novel, and I’ve got to admit, it was really dang good. The characters, the drama, the dialogue, the stakes, all of it moved along at a wonderful clip, with a very satisfying conclusion.

After wrapping the 1995 series, the HammerWife also talked me into the 2005 film with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen, which had its own strengths and weaknesses. Rosamund Pike, who plays the oldest Bennett daughter in the movie, also narrated the audiobook on Audible, so I punched that up and listened to the book too.

Thus I found myself experiencing this story in three different ways, focusing on three different executions, and by the end I knew it was time to blow the dust off my old “Trucker Man Reads Girly Books” series to give this one a long-haul rundown. So grab your forty-four ounce caffeine cups, pencil-whip that pre-trip, and let’s hammer down the highway into this Victorian novel-of-manners.

I know this road…

2024 does not mark my first attempt at reading Jane Austen. There’s an ex-girlfriend in my past who tried to force me into liking the notorious spinster’s femme-centric novels and at the time I just wasn’t up for it. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is the sum of its parts and if you don’t have any interest in the parts, well, you’ll never get to the end of the equation. What are those parts?

Well, it’s a product of its time, written by a woman in that time, about that time. Austen herself only lived to be 41 years old and if I remember right, she only published under a handle— “Woman” or “Lady” or something that wasn’t her name. Her novels heavily focus on the ethics of early 19th-century England, especially the code of conduct amongst the gentry, and those whose actions bumped up against that code. It’s a lot of gossip, a lot of cunning and maneuvering and people trying to get what they want while maintaining the appearance of impartiality.

This behavior isn’t unique to Austen’s time, and in fact we see it all too much in our own day. If you’ve paid any attention at all to the 21st Century culture war in the west, you might be thinking of a recent quote from tech genius Elon Musk:

(Language warning)

MUSK: I'm saying what I care about is the reality of goodness, not the perception of it. And what I see all over the place is people who care about looking good while doing evil. F**k them.

In a very real sense, Jane Austen was writing about the same thing, especially in this book. Human beings in large groups often try to agree on rules for how they should act. Then the individuals in that group start angling for what they want regardless of the rules, and they hate it when you notice. They want the tangible perks of obtaining their heart’s desire as well as the social perks of being liked for being good.

It’s just like trucking. You’ve got to be under the right weight for the road you’re on, you’ve got to follow the speed limit and maintain a safe following distance, you have to manage a thousand moving parts around you all at once, because everyone has to share the road…and every time you get on that road, you’re reminded that every doofus in a four-wheeler is gonna do whatever he or she wants, like hanging out in your blind spot, or driving a hybrid in the left lane. If you get upset by that, you know how Elon feels, and more to the point, you know what sense of frustration Jane Austen was drawing on for the emotional conflict in her stories.

Everything after that is just paint and decals. It’s set in England in the 1800s, among the upper class, navigating social morays.

And those morays are?

In trucking we have the little green FMCSA book that gets updated every so often. This tells you the rules of the road. With PRIDE AND PREJUDICE I have the HammerWife who was able to pause the show and explain why people acted in a certain way, because she’s more familiar with that code of conduct.

Basically you’ve got the gentry who are responsible for huge tracts of land and the servants or tenant farmers who work therein. They’re expected to be honest and productive in their financial dealings, as well as chivalrous in their conduct with women and children, and forthright in their efforts to uphold Christian virtues. Bridle your passions, speak no lies, and act with dignity. If you do these things, your reputation will precede you and everyone will enjoy the benefits of a high-trust society.

Not every estate is equal in size, so some men are much richer than others. Estates are handed down to male heirs, usually the son, but in the rare instance that a family produces no sons, it’ll go to the nearest cousin. Remember that part.

Under these conditions it’s easy for people to meet and get married in a very short period of time. Other times the marriages are arranged—or strongly encouraged—well in advance by interested parties. Over time this leads to certain families being stupid rich compared to others, even if they’re both of the same social class.

This is the case with the Bennett family. They’re gentry, but they’re from the country. The estate that Mister Bennett manages is more humble than most, and he has five daughters, no sons. They’re all of marrying age but there’s a lack of eligible bachelors around so things are looking rough for the future. He’s old, he doesn’t have a whole lot of money to leave to his daughters (and thus entice anyone to marry them), and if he can’t get at least one of them to marry a wealthy guy, all their futures are bleak.

Bennett Roll Call!

Mister Bennett is the Chad Dad whose marriage has gone a little sour, but he’s got genuine love for his five daughters. In the ‘95 program he was played by Benjamin Whitrow, and in the ‘05 film by the late great Donald Sutherland. At times he appears indifferent to his situation but when he’s motivated, he’s a very engaged and involved father, and really likable.

Missus Bennett is the overbearing mom who, while understandably anxious to get her daughters taken care of, is also too prone to having a Woman Moment at the worst time. She’s played by Alison Steadman and Brenda Blethyn.

Jane Bennett is the eldest daughter, and the prettiest, and the one most likely to be married, and the sweetest, and the shyest, and wait just a damn minute what was the author’s name again? She’s played by Susanna Harker and Rosamund Pike.

Next in line is Elizabeth Bennett, the main character of the story. She’s not as pretty as Jane, because of course Jane is the prettiest, isn’t she Jane? But Elizabeth is very fond of Jane (as everyone is) and they talk about books and their feelings and stuff all the time. Jennifer Ehle and Keira Knightley both play Elizabeth in their own way and to great effect.

The next three Bennett daughters are Mary, Kitty, and Lydia. Mary is the frumpy one with the least chance of ever being hitched, although ironically she was played in the ‘05 movie by Talulah Riley, who married and divorced Elon Musk in real life, TWICE. Get it, girl!

Kitty and Lydia are more similar in temperament, except that Lydia has a tendency to be a dumb teenage girl with a crushing lack of self-awareness, and her impulsive nature ends up driving the key dramatic turn of the middle of the book. She’s played by Julia Sawalha and Jena Malone. If that last name sounds familiar, it’s because you’ve seen a Zack Snyder movie at some point. No seriously, she’s in Sucker Punch, and BVS, and Rebel Moon, and Army of the Dead. Maybe they’re just friends.

Candidates, take the stage!

When the story begins, a couple of wealthy bachelors come to town and immediately Missus Bennett starts scheming to get her oldest and hottest daughter to land one of them. The rich boys throw a party and the Bennetts attend, along with all the other locals, and the gossip flies.

The first eligible man is Charles Bingley, who has a personal fortune worth a hundred thousand pounds, which is close to six million in today’s money. He’s a nice dude, a little simple-minded, and he’s out looking for a wife. His best friend is the ubermensch you’ve heard of called Mister Darcy, who is twice as handsome, twice as eligible, and twice as rich. Very generous of Bingley to let Darcy mog the hell out of him in front of all the ladies, but that’s just what bros do.

In the show, Darcy is played by Colin Firth, who brings his A-game in a very resolute performance, while the movie puts Matthew Macfadyen into the role. He does a lot of stage work and BBC stuff so he’s not as well-known over here in Freedomland. He showed up most recently in Deadpool and Wolverine, hence the joke.

And speaking of ladies, women do be shopping! Missus Bennett angles for an introduction between Jane and Bingley, while Bingley’s stuck-up sister Caroline tries to remind Darcy that she is, in fact, available. Ha! Get rekt, Darcy can pick any hot chick he wants, and Caroline doesn’t cut the mustard. Neither do any of these country belles, come to think of it. When Bingley points out Elizabeth to Darcy, he declares that she is “not handsome enough to tempt him.”

Bro’s got standards and sticks to them. That is the recipe for success, my guys.

But what’s this? Darcy has a brief conversation with Elizabeth? And he likes her eyes? What is happening deep inside his cold, black heart? Are these…STIRRINGS? Proposterous! (I will conquer this! I will!)

The next day Mrs. Bennett sends Jane over to Bingley’s house on horseback through bad weather, knowing that Jane will catch cold and have to spend a few days under the Bingleys’ care. Let those hormones marinate, cook up a little bit of emotional turmoil, etc. (I can see what’s happening…and they don’t have a clue…) Later Elizabeth will walk over there to check up on things, and end up spending a day in the company of Mister Darcy, who is definitely not interested, but totally sits down in the same room as her and starts writing a letter to his sister, with the same energy as that One Guy At The Party who has a guitar and plays acoustic power ballads and whoops I didn’t know you were sitting there I am so embarrassed…

Anyway, Jane recovers, Elizabeth takes her home, and Darcy musters up all of his manly indifference to wish her well “or whatever I guess” but WOO DAMN HE TOUCHED HER HAND…

This is the Victorian equivalent of parking in a drop-top at Makeout Mountain with Elvis crooning through the stereo and your parents have no idea where you are. I sure hope he wore a glove. Somebody pass me the ice water.

A new challenger appears!

If all of this wasn’t exciting enough, we crush a speed bump when Mister Collins arrives at Longbourn, and this bro is is hunting. His patroness gave him a permit and said “Get out there and bag you a wife.” In true chick-lit fashion, he’s already connected to the Bennetts by being a semi-distant cousin, and he’s connected to Darcy because his patroness is Darcy’s aunt.

But Collins and the Bennetts must roll with the Tide because he’s got no problem fishing off the family pier for his wife. At first he sets his sights on Jane, because Jane is the prettiest and that makes Jane the best, don’t you think, Jane? But Mrs. Bennett cuts him off at the pass with talk of a pending engagement to Bingley, so Collins settles for second best and moves down the list to Elizabeth.

When he makes his proposal, you gotta admit, he at least doesn’t give up easily, but Elizabeth is so repulsed by the guy that she ends up fleeing the house. The show does this scene justice but the movie really sticks the landing, not least of all because of who they cast to play Collins.

It’s especially hilarious because Elizabeth turns him down in 2005, yet less than a year later she’d have this to say: (“Consider into your calculations that you deprived me of my wedding night.”) Oh I’m sorry, whose fault was that, LIZZIE?

How was Keira Knightley playing an Elizabeth in both these movies?

In all seriousness, it wasn’t the fact that Collins had no game, or that he was a broke minister by trade, or even that he nested in the same family tree as Elizabeth that he failed to seal the deal. No, Mister Collins utterly ignored the calculus that goes into these decisions.

You see, Collins, you are a short guy and Elizabeth is a tall girl.

Tall girls are for tall guys.

And short girls are also for tall guys.

Get rekt.

In the end, Collins fulfills his mission by marrying Elizabeth’s horrendously old and excessively single best friend, Charlotte Lucas, who is borderline extinct at the Jurassic age of (flips pages) twenty-seven. Later on in the story Elizabeth will visit Charlotte, who will inform her—without being prompted—that between Collins’ duties in the church and her being busy around the house, she doesn’t have to see him that much.

Yeeeeeeeaaaaah…they’re never gonna have kids. Lmao.

And thus our fears did cease concerning Mister Collins.

But now a new NEW challenger arrives! Not an airheaded rich guy, or a rich jerk guy, or a broke airheaded priest guy…this time we get a once-wealthy, now roguish, tremendously charming military guy in the form of Jack Wickham!

Played by Adrian Lukis in the show and Rupert Friend in the film, Wickham—like everyone else in Longbourne—has a connection to Darcy and an interest in Elizabeth. Officers, however, aren’t generally good prospects for marriage among the gentry, at least not to well-off families like the Bennetts. While Elizabeth likes talking to Wickham there is the unspoken knowledge that it’s a massive long shot for them to ever be matched. Still, their conversations end up on the subject of Darcy, and Elizabeth learns that Darcy was mean to Wickham once, so he’s a total jerkface and nobody should like him.

Elizabeth was pretty much already there as far as conclusions go, and now she thinks she has a good reason. After all, Wickham wouldn’t lie, would he? He’s handsome, and handsome men always tell the truth…

The Gentlemanly Diss

Well, the vacation to the country is over and Charles Bingley decides to bail without actually proposing to Jane Bennett, which is utterly unthinkable given how polite, well-mannered, and above all, beautiful she is. You know, the one named Jane? This hurts Elizabeth’s feelings and only augments her pride and prejudice toward those handsome rich boys from Not The Countryside.

And yet, a short time later while Elizabeth is visiting family, she crosses paths with Darcy and he, seemingly on a whim, proposes marriage to her. She has no reason to turn him down because he is rich, but for some inexplicable reason, she does just that! Come to find that some scandalous talk has been making the rounds, and it would seem that Charles Bingley neglected to propose to the exquisitely beautiful Jane because Darcy told him not to. There’s also the matter of him being mean to Wickham, who is too handsome to lie.

So that all goes down about as well as a high cube under a low bridge, and there’s virtually no chance of getting this delivery back on track, so everyone is miserable. WhatEVER shall they do?

Darcy, being an educated man, sits down in his room and writes a letter to explain it all: he admits he talked Bingley out of proposing to Jane because he thought it was a bad match, that Jane was indifferent to him and only wanted his money. He didn’t know Jane was actually just shy.

As to the matter of Wickham, the guy is quite the piece of crap. His father and Darcy’s father were friends, and after being orphaned, Darcy’s father took care of Wickham’s prospects. However, instead of following the path set up for him, Wickham cashed out his inheritance and probably spent it on hookers and cocaine. Once he was broke he tried to run off with Darcy’s fifteen year-old sister, hoping to secure her massive inheritance, but only inherited Darcy’s foot in his ass before the dastardly deed could be done.

So it is that Wickham ended up in the military, the only place someone of his breeding and financial status might still have a shot at some respectability. And thus we see that Darcy didn’t actually do anything wrong, he’s just on his guard because scummy people pretend to be good and are after his money. (Elon quote about appearing good…)

The Stirrings Are Stirring

Because this is a girl book, long stretches of time pass where people wander around and visit each other to talk about their feelings. Elizabeth finds herself hanging out with her aunt and uncle, who just happen to pass by one of Darcy’s forty-three houses, but not the one he’s living in at the moment. They decide to take a tour of the place because that’s a normal thing to do, and wouldn’t you know it, they just so happen to cross paths with Darcy, who came home early.

There’s a particularly scandalous portrayal of this scene in the show, where Darcy walks across his own land and comes up on a swimming hole, where he then proceeds to British Skinny Dip in an attempt to clear his head of Elizabeth, who still vexes him. (I will conquer this! I will!)

Just as Elizabeth is taking her tour of the outside of the castle house thing, Darcy rolls up in his Victorian Speedo, and they have a cordial exchange, but it’s clear to the viewer that what’s on the surface is not what’s beneath. Elizabeth and her family linger for a little while longer and they meet Darcy’s younger sister, an accomplished girl with many talents. Elizabeth is quietly turned on by how nice Darcy is. She and her aunt and uncle leave, with stirrings of her own.

Frickin’ Lydia

Despite getting caught for this crap once before, Jack Wickham is back up to his old tricks, and the Bennett family find out all too late that he has once again absconded with a young woman, this time a Bennett girl instead of a Darcy. Nobody can wrap their head around why, it’s not like she’s rich, so eloping with her won’t solve his financial woes. He’s an established womanizer, so if he takes advantage of Lydia and then discards her, he’ll basically be regarded like any other soldier and she’ll be unmarriageable. On top of that, so will her sisters, because this is a culture that puts a lot of stock in breeding and lineage. Behaviors are a matter of family history. This one impetuous, impulsive act by the youngest and dumbest sister could doom them all.

Daddy Bennett goes on the warpath, trying to find Wickham and Lydia in London before they head to Scotland. He’s unsuccessful. Everyone is distraught over this in the Bennett household and if the destination is a stable future, it seems all roads are closed.

Then, out of nowhere, Bennett gets a letter from his uncle or something, who says he found Wickham and Lydia, and they’re married now, and they can all keep up appearances. That’s good news for the sisters, but nobody can understand how this happened, because Wickham would only do the honorable thing for a huge chunk of money…which never appeared. So what happened?

Try This One Weird Trick…

Well, because Lydia is an idiot and can’t keep her yap shut, it doesn’t take long for her to let it slip that Mister Darcy was at her wedding. The pieces soon fall into place that Darcy—after hearing about what Wickham and Lydia did—went to London in search of both of them, and prodded Wickham to the altar in a sort of gentleman’s shotgun wedding. He cleared Wickham’s many debts and even bought him a commission in the Army—that ain’t cheap—in exchange for him knocking off his crap behavior and making an honest woman out of Lydia. This would save the future prospects of the other Bennett daughters, and as a cherry on top, he swore everyone to secrecy about what he did.

But once again, Lydia’s an average teenage girl, and those haven’t gotten better at keeping secrets over time. Elizabeth starts to set aside her pride and prejudice, but just as she’s about to enter the arena and potentially develop feelings for Darcy, the Final Boss appears.

Remember Darcy’s aunt? The one who also pays for Mr. Collins’ whole life? The incredibly rich and powerful old woman is none other than Lady Catherine De Bourgh, played by Barbara Leigh-Hunt and Judi Dench. Both these actresses bring their A-game to this character, and do their job of making you absolutely hate her.

As it turns out, Lady Catherine was good friends with another woman who had a daughter. This daughter was even frumpier and homelier than Elizabeth, and probably read books that were somehow more boring. In true snob fashion, Catherine schemed to have Darcy marry this Frumpty-Dumpty ever since they were both children, but now she’s hearing rumors that Darcy is engaged to Elizabeth. This results in a confrontation between a gentle farm girl and a stuck up queen bee from high society, with Lady Catherine demanding to know whether the rumors are true. After all, Elizabeth’s dumb sister ran off with a manwhore soldier in London, so all the Bennetts must be trash, right?

All jokes aside, the exchange the follows is my favorite moment of the story. Judi Dench turns in a stronger performance as Lady Catherine, but Jennifer Ehle takes the cake as Elizabeth, so we’re gonna go with the show for this analysis. Brace yourselves, you’re about to witness a murder.

(I’m not going to copy and paste the text of the conversation here. This is just the script for the video I’m working on. But be prepared for me to splice together the verbal sparring between these two Victorian women, and the Halle Berry catfight from 2002’s Die Another Day, and it’s going to be awesome and hilarious.)

Extra funny points for fighting Rosamund Pike in that scene.

Elizabeth holds strong and defends her honor as well as her family name, then tells Lady Catherine to piss off. It takes a toll on her but there’s an understated confidence to her delivery, and you can see how hurt she is by being treated so unjustly. Hands-down, this scene made the story truly kick.

But that’s just me as a dude, I like a little violence and stand-your-ground-ism. For the ladies, the best part is Darcy’s second proposal to Elizabeth, where he clears the air about why he paid Wickham’s debts and made him marry Lydia. Turns out Darcy and Elizabeth were wrong about each other, and the stirrings have now evolved to their final form, so they get hitched and never have a single problem in life after that.

Show Versus Movie

If you have a diehard Austen fan in your life, chances are she tells you that the ‘05 movie isn’t good and the ‘95 show is. After sitting through both of them, I’ll say they each have their strengths, but the show overall is better. It gets the job done without leaving anything crucial behind.

The movie isn’t there to focus on the story so much. I think it was made with fans in mind who already know the story inside and out, and they just wanted something that looked and sounded beautiful. Joe Wright and his crew definitely delivered. The set pieces and production value are off the charts. The cinematography reflects that, with long tracking shots and pictures of incredible architecture, costumes, and more. The show had those things but the movie just plain did them better.

It also did a bang-up job with the music. More than once while I watched the movie, I told my wife how good the score was. There was a strong collaborative effort here, with an Italian composer, a French performer, and an English orchestra. I’m gonna grab a CD at some point.

The downside is that the movie dedicates very little time to key story moments. Darcy and Elizabeth stare into each other’s eyes or banter their dialogue bits at each other, and then suddenly you’re cutting to a scene where Elizabeth reads a letter and she’s completely distraught with a single line of explanation, and we’re rushing into the next segment.

If I were to have watched the movie without seeing the show or reading the novel, I would have missed major story elements. I might have gotten enough of out of it by the end, but the show took its time—and it definitely had the time—in laying it all out. I think this is the main thing that the lady fans complain about when they knock the movie.

It’s still really well done for what it is. Just read the book first and you won’t miss anything.

Verdict

Well, this here’s the end of the road. I don’t have a star rating or anything, I’ll just say that I really liked the show, the book was definitely worth the read, and the movie was a beautiful—if incomplete—tribute to it. Chick Fiction has a rep for focusing way too much on feelings and drama that is uninteresting to men (because the sexes are different and it’s fine for art to cater to that).

Even as a bearded dude who drives semis and reads action-heavy sci-fi, these versions of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE gave me plenty to sink my teeth into. Darcy especially is the kind of dude you’d want in your friend circle, the kind of guy more bros should try to be like, because he doesn’t have time for anyone’s crap and he doesn’t compromise on doing the right thing.

While the prose of the book is really flowery, this is a feature and not a bug. There’s a poetic quality to the writing that you can appreciate. For that reason I’d recommend reading it and really chewing on the story. There’s a reason it has been a hit for the last 200 years. Something like this would be far more valuable to public school readers than Gatsby or the Scarlet Letter, but the point of public school is to make kids hate reading, so here we are.

Anyway, this is my stop, so here we part. Y’all drive safe, see you out there.