“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
“She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me.”
"In cases such as these, a good memory is unpardonable"
I have seen Pride and Prejudice, the one with Colin Firth, approximately eleventy-zillion times, give or take.
And not because it's dreamy to watch Darcy broodingly swim in a lake at his estate at Pemberly in a way that is totally extraneous to the plot but allows him to emerge from the lake disarmingly dripping and attractive.
No.
Rather, I've seen BBCP&P so many times because it is the best way to spend time with my grandmother. Two decades ago, she began to go blind, and decided to to re-watch movies she had seen before so that she could still see the movie in her mind's eye, if not on the screen, and like a homing pigeon, she always returns to Pride and Prejudice.
So for many years now, if I wanted to chill with grandma, it meant watching this movie over and over again, to the point that I see your ability to quote scenes from The Princess Bride or Napoleon Dynamite, and raise you the entire 6-hour BBC mini-series adaptation of Jane Austen's most popular novel.
We watch Darcy scorn Elizabeth, and she says, "Oh he's proud, but just you wait."
She knows that everyone who is proud eventually gets taken down
We don't get to say how
Sometimes the eyes go first, sometimes the bowels
Sometimes the memory.
She forgets now.
Pieces of her life get wrenched out like pulled teeth
They're pulling all her bottom teeth out next week.
She'll be under anesthetic when it happens but when she wakes up there will be throbbing holes where bones used to be.
She asks if I remember my uncle, her son who died when I was twenty. If I remember Russell, her second husband who died when I was eleven. If I remember my grandfather, who died just after my mother told him she was pregnant with me.
I tell her I will remember.
I will remember that she was a Sicilian matriarch. A New Orleanian survivor.
And when she dies I do not expect to inherit anything but this:
I make gumbo the way my father does, the way she taught him
First you make a roux
And you stay with it. Don't leave. Stay and stir. Watch it.
Don't leave or it will burn.
Don't leave.
Don't leave.
She is going anyway. I cannot stop her.
So as she goes, I will let my memory become selective too. I will forget how she shat herself at the airport and I tried to clean her up without making her feel embarrassed. I will forget that I never wanted to know whether or not she had lost most of her pubic hair. I will forget that there are so many things now she can't remember. I will forget how scared I am of losing her
I will remember her calling me her baby. I will remember her humming Sinatra. I will remember her saying a rosary for me.
And anyway, in cases such as this, a good memory is unpardonable.
And not because it's dreamy to watch Darcy broodingly swim in a lake at his estate at Pemberly in a way that is totally extraneous to the plot but allows him to emerge from the lake disarmingly dripping and attractive.
No.
Rather, I've seen BBCP&P so many times because it is the best way to spend time with my grandmother. Two decades ago, she began to go blind, and decided to to re-watch movies she had seen before so that she could still see the movie in her mind's eye, if not on the screen, and like a homing pigeon, she always returns to Pride and Prejudice.
So for many years now, if I wanted to chill with grandma, it meant watching this movie over and over again, to the point that I see your ability to quote scenes from The Princess Bride or Napoleon Dynamite, and raise you the entire 6-hour BBC mini-series adaptation of Jane Austen's most popular novel.
We watch Darcy scorn Elizabeth, and she says, "Oh he's proud, but just you wait."
She knows that everyone who is proud eventually gets taken down
We don't get to say how
Sometimes the eyes go first, sometimes the bowels
Sometimes the memory.
She forgets now.
Pieces of her life get wrenched out like pulled teeth
They're pulling all her bottom teeth out next week.
She'll be under anesthetic when it happens but when she wakes up there will be throbbing holes where bones used to be.
She asks if I remember my uncle, her son who died when I was twenty. If I remember Russell, her second husband who died when I was eleven. If I remember my grandfather, who died just after my mother told him she was pregnant with me.
I tell her I will remember.
I will remember that she was a Sicilian matriarch. A New Orleanian survivor.
And when she dies I do not expect to inherit anything but this:
I make gumbo the way my father does, the way she taught him
First you make a roux
And you stay with it. Don't leave. Stay and stir. Watch it.
Don't leave or it will burn.
Don't leave.
Don't leave.
She is going anyway. I cannot stop her.
So as she goes, I will let my memory become selective too. I will forget how she shat herself at the airport and I tried to clean her up without making her feel embarrassed. I will forget that I never wanted to know whether or not she had lost most of her pubic hair. I will forget that there are so many things now she can't remember. I will forget how scared I am of losing her
I will remember her calling me her baby. I will remember her humming Sinatra. I will remember her saying a rosary for me.
And anyway, in cases such as this, a good memory is unpardonable.
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