The email came the day before my 35th birthday.
asserted
email → come → birthday
I was lying on an overcast beach in Devon with my girlfriends when my agent messaged to say that Netflix were making a new TV adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the first in 30 years, and would I be interested in writing and producing it?
asserted
I → lie → it
I was filled with equal amounts of excitement and terror – everyone who has read Pride and Prejudice has a vivid, singular imagining of what it should look like and how it should be.
asserted
it → fill → what
How could I make my version live up to all the versions that live in millions of people’s hearts?
uncertain
that → make → hearts
After a few days of thrashing out all that could possibly go wrong, I decided to embrace the challenge of adapting everyone’s favourite book.
uncertain
I → thrash → book
My favourite Austen adaptation of all time (the 1995 Sense And Sensibility) was made by Emma Thompson when she was 35.
asserted
she → make → Thompson
When I returned home I reached for my hardback copy of Pride and Prejudice.
asserted
I → return → Pride
With my highlighter pen in hand, I spent the next few days re-reading and falling back in love with it.
asserted
I → spend → it
The first thing that must be said about this novel, because it’s not said enough, is how fantastically adaptable it is.
asserted
it → say → novel
All the script glitches you would normally get notes on from a TV commissioner or film studio have already been addressed by Austen.
asserted
you → get → Austen
She did 99 per cent of the screenwriting for me back in the early 1800s.
asserted
She → do → 1800s
Pride and Prejudice is the blueprint for romantic comedy: so many romcom rules originate from it.
asserted
rules → originate → it
The romantic leads initially seem like opposites, and yet discover they are more alike than they thought.
asserted
they → seem → opposites
They begin as enemies, sparring with language, they end up as lovers.
asserted
they → begin → lovers
Over a couple of hundred pages, they duck and dive and dance around these obstacles.
asserted
they → duck → obstacles
Just as we think they will never see each other again, they are drawn back together.
asserted
they → think → other
And then comes the first great reunion – when Elizabeth unexpectedly encounters Darcy in his grand, bucolic home of Pemberley.
asserted
Elizabeth → come → Pemberley
Elizabeth’s prejudice is defeated.
asserted
prejudice → defeat → ?
She sees Darcy for who he really is, and who he really is, is the perfect man for her.
asserted
he → see → her
So, of course, here comes the turmoil.
asserted
turmoil → come → course
God, she’s good!
asserted
she → ’ → ?
Just as Elizabeth realises she loves Darcy, her youngest sister runs away with a soldier, plunging her family into ruin and rendering all her remaining sisters unmarriable.
asserted
sisters → realise → ruin
Elizabeth, having been in reaching distance of all she could ever hope for – a perfect match, both in love and marriage – loses it all.
uncertain
she → reach → it
Not only is her family saved, they’re saved by Darcy in what is arguably the greatest act of romantic heroism in literature.
asserted
what → save → literature
He does not do it for glory, he does not do it to explicitly win Elizabeth back.
asserted
he → do → Elizabeth
He does it for her peace and happiness – “I believe I thought only of you.”
asserted
I → do → you
We are left with two people who have been transformed by love; whose every preconception has been overturned simply by coming to understand each other.
asserted
preconception → leave → other
Nora Ephron, the queen of this genre, said that Pride and Prejudice is “one of the greatest romantic comedies ever written” because it is “a novel about the possibility of love between equals”.
asserted
it → say → equals
The moment in the book when I fall in love with Lizzie every time I read it comes after her first meeting with Darcy, when she overhears him calling her “tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me”.
asserted
him → fall → me
Instead of feeling humiliated by this insult from a man of much higher social status than her, she laughs it off, telling the story “with great spirit amongst her friends”.
asserted
she → humiliate → friends
Austen couldn’t be clearer – this is a woman who not only knows who she is, but likes who she is.
asserted
she → know → ?
So, how do you find a man to match the perfect literary leading lady?
asserted
you → find → lady
Austen had the answer – you don’t.
asserted
you → have → answer
You construct a man who is flawed – snobbish, rude and emotionally cold – and you create a story that makes him become worthy of her.
asserted
him → construct → her
A character so exquisitely drawn that she has become her very own archetype.
asserted
she → become → ?
“The business of her life was to get her daughters married”.
asserted
daughters → get → life
Without marriage, they will be homeless when their father dies.
asserted
father → die → marriage
And penniless too, as Mr Bennet has neglected to set money aside for them.
asserted
Bennet → neglect → them
It is a very, very serious business, and no one seems preoccupied by it other than Mrs Bennet.
asserted
one → seem → Bennet
This effortless shift between the emotional, societal and trivial resonates for so many because it replicates the multi-textured experience of real life.
asserted
it → resonate → life
…and 11 more, not listed.
The Aporia
