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Friday, March 30, 2012

Elizabeth Kantor: How I Met Mr. Darcy

Welcoming Elizabeth Kantor: 
Guest Post and Give Away
Hi, Darcyholics! I am delighted to introduce to you a new friend, Elizabeth Kantor.  Elizabeth's book The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After will be available April 2!  I am proud and grateful to be the recipient of a pre-release copy and am currently enjoying reading it!  Oh, if I could have only had a copy back in my dating years.  But then there is a chapter about marriage as well.

Hints available in her book include: how not to be a tragic heroine, how to pursue Elizabeth Bennet's 'rational happiness"--learn what it is and how you can find it, how not to let cynicism steal your happy ending, and even keys to how you should deal with men who are 'afraid of commitment'.  I know you will enjoy it as much as I am.  I am very happy that Elizabeth will let us know HOW she came to develop the wealth of wisdom available to us in her new book.

Upcoming Guest Posts Are As Follows:
March 30--Elizabeth Kantor
April 3--Bonnie Carlson
April 6--China Fuentes-Montero
April 10--Jane Vivash
April 13--Regina Jeffers
April 17--Elizabeth Ashton
April 20--Susan Mason-Milks
April 24--Lynn Robson
April 27--Veronica (Dark Jane Austen Book Club)
May 1--Matt Duffy
May 4--Susan Adriani
May 8--Annette W.
May 11--Beth Massey
May 15--Erlynn K.
May 18--Rebecca T.
May 22--Candy M. (So Little Time...)
June 1--Kara Louise
June 5--Sharon Lathan
And Many more to come!

&*&*&*&*&*&

Comments on Elizabeth's post will be entered into our monthly drawings, which include a copy of her new book, available to US and Canada readers.    Entries will be based on comments on blog posts; but additional chances will be given for joining this site, tweeting this post, Joining this site as a member!, sharing this on Facebook or your blog, Friend me on Facebook, clicking 'like’ on Barbara Tiller Cole, Author's Facebook page, Join Darcyholic Diversions Facebook Page or following BarbTCole on Twitter.

How I Met Mr. Darcy
By Elizabeth Kantor, author of
The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After


          Like a certain Miss Elizabeth Bennet, I completely failed to appreciate Fitzwilliam Darcy until long after we first met. Our initial encounter was in a high school English class--an even less propitious setting for a first meeting than a Meryton assembly ball)--and I have to admit that, while I liked Pride and Prejudice, I didn't really see Mr. Darcy's potential.

            I read more Jane Austen in a college seminar on the sublime and the beautiful, and began to get some clue about her genius for relationships, her keen insights into both male and female psychology, her talent for understanding love.



            But it was only when I fell hard for my husband--who is actually a Jane Austen fan himself--and he talked me into reading Persuasion when I was high as a kite on those endorphins that flood your brain when you're first in love, that I really "got" her love stories. They're exactly what being in love is really like. Since then I've been reading and re-reading everything Jane Austen wrote--from the six novels many, many times; to the tantalizing unfinished novels (it's painful every time, leaving Emma Watson's love story when it's hardly begun), to the Juvenilia. And the more I read Jane Austen, the more I'm sure that Elizabeth and Darcy at the end of Pride and Prejudice are the perfect picture of what it is to be in love--in the kind of love that really does have the potential for happily ever after.

            But I'd like to take this opportunity to argue that, even once we fall in love with Mr. Darcy, it's still too easy for us to miss the really important point about him, and about the love that he and Elizabeth find. Because remember, Elizabeth and Darcy get to the real and really satisfying love that they share at the end of the novel only after getting over inferior kinds of love.

            In Darcy's case, it's an inferior sort of love for Elizabeth herself that he has to overcome before he can address her successfully. His original thing for her is a perfect example of what Jane Austen, in another novel, calls "the haphazard of selfish passion." When Darcy says, "In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell me how ardently I admire and love you." he really wants Elizabeth. So much, in fact, that he's willing to do things he thinks he shouldn't, to get her. But he doesn't really love her. That's why Elizabeth's complains to Darcy that "you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character." It's only when he sees that she's "a woman worthy of being pleased"--that she's a prize he'll have to aim high for, not a guilty pleasure that he's caving to--that he begins to really love her.

            Elizabeth, meanwhile, has had to get over another inferior sort of love--her crush on Mr. Wickham:

               If gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth's change of sentiment [to Mr. Darcy] will be neither improbable nor faulty. But if otherwise--if the regard springing from such sources is unreasonable or unnatural, in comparison of what is so often described as arising on a first interview with its object, and even before two words have been exchanged--nothing can be said in her defence, except that she had given somewhat of a trial to the latter method in her partiality for Wickham, and that its ill success might, perhaps, authorise her to seek the other less interesting mode of attachment.

             In other words, Elizabeth's thing for Wickham was all about shallow first impressions, while her love for Darcy is about his real value as a human being.

            Mr. Darcy's love is deeply exciting not just because of his smoldering good looks--or the beautiful grounds of his Derbyshire estate--but ultimately because he masters his selfish passion, brings himself to value Elizabeth for who she truly is, and offers her a generous and self-sacrificing love.
 
            That's the kind of love that Jane Austen-lovers should be looking for--in the real world. And Jane Austen can help women find it there.


Elizabeth Kantor is the author of The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After, which will be published on April 2 and is already shipping from Amazon.


 

16 comments:

  1. Oooh, I love your post! It was interesting and enticing! Your book sounds great and I wish I had had it when I was younger too, although I might not have appreciated it like I would now!

    Congratulations on your book and thanks for the giveaway!

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  2. The book certainly sounds delightful! I like the comment about Lizzy and Darcy having a deeper connection than she had with Wickham. Looks can be deceiving. Did the extras and thank you for the giveaway!

    Margaret
    singitm(at)hotmail(dot)com

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  3. April 2nd can't arrive quickly enough!
    what wonderful descriptive insights you've posted ~ TY!
    a great teaser for this new release. i am already anticipating...

    and TY for the generosity of this giveaway !

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  4. i have liked Barbara Tiller Cole, Author's fb pg

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  5. and i twitter follow as @_eHope
    although i've noticed lately that twitter often un follows peeps i've been following which is an unknnown surprise to me when i discover it - and annoying!

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  6. here's my tweet of this post
    https://twitter.com/#!/_eHope/status/186067255317110785
    thx for the opp to win this fantastic book - i'm in just the right season to need and heed Elizabeth's advice!!

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  7. Your enthusiasm is music to an author's ears!

    Faith Hope Cherrytea, I've already been following you on twitter, & enjoying your tweets!

    jt, I know it's hard for people to know they need advice before they've had the experience of doing it their way, & having it turn out badly (Emma!), but Jane Austen is so attractive, I am hoping young women may be willing to learn from her before they make all those mistakes. What do you think?

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    1. if they fall in love with Jane they have that chance and will hopefully make that choice! for me it's b/c i didn't do so well earlier and the door seems to be opening to another chance that i want to be 'armed', if you will :), with more than what i lived earlier in life...

      " when he sees that she's "a woman worthy of being pleased"--that she's a prize he'll have to aim high for, not a guilty pleasure that he's caving to--that he begins to really love her." isn't this just what we want ?
      the eye opening realization resulting in real love..
      sooo excellent Elizabeth!
      my heart resonates with this {still hoping!}

      TY for responding to my efforts! i am entirely taken with what you've written and are writing during this tour...

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  8. very insightful post! How much heartache and how many damaged lives could be prevented if we knew while young that love comes in many stages, and that we can embrace one stage without deciding it is all that love will ever be and make a life commitment that cannot succeed.

    The 'haphazard of selfish passion' and the 'guilty pleasure that he's craving' has indeed taken many down an unhappy path and the disappointment and disillusionment kept many from ever knowing another person's 'real value as a human being' and the love that binds for life.
    Jane Austen is a master at showing the first in all its foibles and taking us to the second in all its wonderousness.
    I would love to read your book and cross my fingers now hoping to be a winner!

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  9. The post brings out ideas that I had never considered. It was very interesting. Thank you for sharing your point of view with Austen lovers.

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  10. Elizabeth:

    I thank you so much for posting here! I really enjoyed learning about how you discovered Austen, as well as for the insight that you have gleaned into the lives of the characters. Oh, if I had only had your book when I was dating! LOL..

    Thanks again,

    Barbara

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  11. today's tweet by @_eHope
    https://twitter.com/#!/_eHope/status/188362802887540737

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  12. Wow - you are so fortunate to find a Jane Austen fan for a husband! Mine only smiles and pats me on the head when he sees me reading the real thing or some variation. Yet he does know the answers to all the JA-related questions on Jeopardy!

    I love this line: "the haphazard of selfish passion." That does portray Darcy very well in his first proposal and I enjoyed your characterization of inferior and perfect loves. Great post!

    Your book sounds very interesting - I hope it is coming out in epub version.

    gailwarner@verizon.net

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