Not trying to be contrarian for the sake of it, but I really don't understand why this is popular/classic...

Not trying to be contrarian for the sake of it, but I really don't understand why this is popular/classic. There are better romances, and better novels dealing with social class relations. What's the appeal of a bunch of snobs having an awkward courtship for 400 pages? Any fans of this?

women, gays, and men who want to impress women

It's riotously funny

Wouldn't women and gays at least want a book with some sexual content to it? I don't think anyone in P&P even kisses.

This. I would even go so far as to say it is a tour-de-force

>calling it a "romance"
That's not what it was. You don't even know what "romance" means when applied to high literature. Austen was a realist while Scott was an author of "romance." Romance is what we would typically call historical or fantasy fiction today.

Austen is writing about social issues besides the little lovey-dovey plot that's just there to give the story direction. You have to realize that back then that most stories back then ended with either marriage or death hence the need for a marriage plot.

If you must call it anything, a comedic, realist novel.

rather like watching tour de france

>most stories back then ended with either marriage or death
so ugly women got killed off?
stop exaggerating. and there’s nothing funny in the novel

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Jane Austen. The humor is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of Regency etiquette most of the jokes will go over a typical reader's head.

girl shill go away

It's no exaggeration, you illiterate pleb; those rules are literally what define tragedy and comedy. One ends in death, the other marriage. Have you even read Shakespeare?

Also, all of Jane Austen's novels are hilarious. Not only do they end in marriage, they're also funny.

Trinity trips don't lie. I recommend a Penguin or Oxford edition for those on training wheels such as OP to explain the finer nuances of the humor.

I read this book expecting not to like it and then to post lengthy rants on Veeky Forums about the inadequacy of female writers...

... but it was actually really fucking good and funny to boot

That's probably the worst classic I've read. It's utter shit. There is nothing redeemable about the novel, boring characters, boring story, boring setting. Very dull and lacks wit, it's like it was written by a teenage girl.

hate to break it to you, but married people die too.
>no but their life continues through their children
no

also, show me a funny excerpt.
Collins borders on funny, but not quite there. Most characters are just stupid, with Elizabeth being the only quite sane one, Darcy being quite normal too, and Elizabeth’s father being the most sensible person in the whole novel. I actually liked that guy.
The novel is too verbose and because of it, too long.

Intrestingly, Scott wrote of Austen:

>Also read again, and for the third time at least, Miss Austen’s very finely written novel of _Pride and Prejudice_. That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with.

>It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
The joke is that the plot is concerned entirely with prospective wives in want of a single man in possession of a good fortune.

that’s because the works that describe life as closely as possible are considered good. It’s a reflection of culture and society at that time.

I agree with you, but those works do have an important place in history. Such novels are being kept afloat only because of their historic importance (description of every day life and types of connections between people at a given time in history).
In most areas the novel fails miserably.

Nice digits, although >77 is a retard.

>hate to break it to you, but married people die too
Kek. True. God bless you.

There's plenty of funny dialogue to make up for the parts where Austen gets a bit too verbose, at least for my taste, in describing the characters' reasoning and psychology.

Yeah, there's a quote where he predicted accurately that her novels would stand the test of time over his. Scott was the most popular writer of his generation and also inspired later writers of epic novels such as Tolstoy. War and Peace is definitely informed by Scott. Austen on the other hand while popular did not have the sort of far-reaching fame Scott had. Now every middle class woman on the planet reads Austen and as a pretty average dude I've found her surprisingly funny. I've even met Brazilian chicks who like Austen.

ok i admit this is witty (i wouldn’t use the word funny though). I must have failed to notice Austen’s wit since I only read the novel once, with a figurative gun to my head.

Austen is better than most of Veeky Forums core. Her prose is better, she has a finer understanding of human nature and psychology, and she's much funnier, than say Pynchon or McCarthy.
I always assume half the reason people don't like her is that her novels are female centred, which confuses the average fuccboi

I agree about her confusing the average fuccboi on here.
Dostoevsky is by far the most popular writer on Veeky Forums because the main characters in his novels are usually depraved losers and the women are always le whore with a heart of gold. It's a bit like the average NEET on this site, fapping to instagram sluts and seeing himself as God as he spouts off his arrogant opinion. Their love of Dostoevsky is narcissism. And Houellebecq is just a contemporary version of this same isolated loser caricature. They really want to believe that their being a loser somehow makes them better than other people.

Excellent point.

>fuccboi
>le whore
>NEET

Instantly discarded opinion. If you want to sound serious, you should avoid using those terms.

>and seeing himself as God as he spouts off his arrogant opinion

and yet you do the same thing. I see not a single use of "I think" or any other similar phrase that would suggest you acknowledge your comment as merely a summary of your subjective thoughts on the subject.

Yes. What is it about these exquisite dissections of female social interaction; the detailed psychology of female romantic and sexual attraction that Veeky Forums finds so unappealing?

That's how people write on here. If you're expecting an upper-division literature seminar, you're in the wrong place. You read what I wrote and it's reasonable to guess you're too triggered to respond. Not using memes on Veeky Forums is like breaking fourth wall.

Read my post again and add "I think" to the beginning of each of my sentences. I definitely do not view myself as God, but I think my explanation as to why Veeky Forums's favorite 19th century writer is Dostoevsky and living writer is Houellebecq is reasonable. I actually enjoy both writers, but don't hold them on the same high pedestal as the common denominator on here does.

It sure beats me why virgin neckbeard NEETs wouldn't appreciate all those great qualities! In your sarcastic post, you've neglected to mention that her dialogue is hilarious and she also performs "exquisite dissections" of male "social interaction" as well, however, most of the males tend to be Chads.

Austen practically invented free indirect discourse, which is one of the reasons her books are considered important.

But outside of that, just because Austen wasn't writing about extreme class situations like Grapes of Wrath doesn't mean she didn't write amusing satires of the 1790s British gentry or that her social criticism is less important.

That's actually part of why Austen is acclaimed, her books are technically about love but they refrain from a lot of the conventions of romance stories even in Austen's time. Austen usually skips marriage proposal scenes, kisses, etc. It's more about the ridiculously complicated process of courtship leading up to marriage. Austen usually ends her books with "and then they got married" in the last paragraph because Austen didn't give any actual shits about that part.

>extreme class situations
>extreme

This is why Veeky Forums doesn't like Austen. This board only likes the extreme such as Pynchon, DFW, Dostoevsky, etc. The board abhors realism and the moderate.

Almost like it's populated by immature undergraduates who prefer their women to have penises than opinions

>immature undergraduates
wrong, most of us are semi-retirees desu