When Pride and Prejudice turned 200 years old last year, the Guardian ran a wonderful collection of short pieces about the main characters by a variety of writers, who said the sorts of thing that literary people say when they are out partying: Mr. Bennett is a bully, Elizabeth doesn’t like women, and Mr. Darcy is “a depressive.” I began enjoying this classic the moment I realized that the narrator is setting us up by telling lies — starting with the famous opening sentence about the universal truth of how rich single men “must be in want of a wife.”
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (New York: Barnes & Noble Classics: 2003), p. 196.