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The take-home message I got from reading "Pride and Prejudice" in college is simply the accurate, intimate portrait of what it meant to be a young, unmarried woman back in those times in England.
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<p>Oh boy .
Another piece of feministic stuff. I don't want to read it already.</p>
<p>P&P sucked. Even with analysis it still seemed like a 19th century chick flick. Now All Quiet rocked and it defininetly has meaning outside a war novel</p>
<p>I'm a guy and I thought it was good so no, it's not cruel to read it.</p>
<p>besides that fact that pride and prejudice is one of the best love stories ever written, almost every single protaganist ive read about in hs has been a guy.</p>
<p>ex.
holden caulfield
gatsby
huck
lord of the flies boys
soldiers from all quiet
robert walton/frankenstein
any many many others</p>
<p>suck it up and just read it,
its really good if you get into it.</p>
<p>It's fine if you personally don't like it because it's obviously a girly book. But while reading it, TRY to learn something. Try to appreciate her writing style, and maybe that will help you get through it. It is famous for a reason [and not because it's 'cruel and unusual'].</p>
<p>To OP: True that!!!</p>
<p>Im a guy and was forced to read Jane Eyre 9th grade and then junior year Pride and Prejiduce. Both books are indeed torture for a STRAIGHT male.</p>
<p>Are they requiring ONLY the males to read it? </p>
<p>I'm asking because I remember we each had to write a love poem in my class a year ago. Everyone had to read it aloud. However, if, when the boys read it aloud, they got an "awwww" from the audience, they got extra credit. The girls got nothing when receiving the same response.</p>
<p>(Personally...I like the book. :P)</p>
<p>Here's the response my English teacher would give. If you intend on being a well-read member of society, then you should have read and be able to discuss literature from a range of authors - from Shakespeare to Jane Austen to Kurt Vonnegut. </p>
<p>Jane Austen's novels obviously appeal more to females, but hey, from my high school experience, there were more books in the curriculum pandering to male tastes than there were to female tastes. Including Beowulf, Grendel, Lord of the Flies, etc. I didn't enjoy Beowulf, but I loved Grendel.</p>
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plus, i'm sure a little action doesn't bore you all that much
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<p>I'm sure a little romance doesn't bore you guys all that much. Come on. A Time article a couple months ago said that teenage boys are often more romantic than they're given credit for.</p>
<p>I think it would totally defeat the purpose of an English class to split the curriculum up by gender. Yes, the girls should be the only ones to read The Awakening, A Doll's House, The House of the Spirits, and Pride and Prejudice. The boys should just stick to those war novels.</p>
<p>Serious question: why are you condemning Jane Austen/Bronte as girly but Lord of the Flies and Beowulf for guys? Good literature is good literature. Honestly, it should be sexless. The quality of writing is what should be appreciated--not just the content itself. </p>
<p>But hey, maybe I'm the minority here. I enjoy Austen and Asimov.</p>
<p>House of the Spirits was good, and I am male; it has plenty of action and crude episodes that would satiate some of the P/P haters above.</p>
<p>My best guy friend (straight, varsity wrestler, etc.) gave me The House of Spirits for my birthday. He wrote in the note inside the front cover that it's one of his favorites. (Note: I haven't read it yet, so I'm just going by demeter's estimation of it as a girl novel.)</p>
<p>I like Jane Austen. I also read Beowulf and Grendel for enjoyment reading. I loved A Soldier of the Great War, though it was 5 years ago that I read it and I do remember there was some romantic stuff, but I remember quite a bit of manly stuff, too. (I need to reread that book... god, it really was so good!)</p>
<p>So I guess what I'm saying is... Guys can enjoy "girl" stuff, and girls can enjoy "guy" stuff, so stop whining. Buck up. Bite the bullet. Be a man. :rolleyes: :p</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>I read the entire Little Women trilogy in fifth grade, although the only good book was the first one. Little Men was readable, and Jo's Boys was just plain tiresome.</p>
<p>I think it's unfair to make anyone Pride and Prejudice. I just don't enjoy that kind of pointless drama crap. Okay, the theme is first impressions. I get that in the first 10 pages. So why keep going on and on in circles about NOTHING!</p>
<p>True that again!</p>
<p>I mentioned The House of the Spirits because it featured, in part, a family with generations of strong-willed women.(And it's a really great book. I love it.) My original intention wasn't to segregate books by gender because, like emyla said, good writing is good writing.</p>
<p>What I like about Austen is that her writing is witty. Not just witty, but sometimes genuinely chuckle-out-loud funny. It's really easy to read it as "chick lit," but it also goes way beyond that.</p>
<p>I also agree that books should remain sexless. I mean, even in the midst of reading that arm-tearing scene in Beowulf, I never thought, "Wow, this should be for guys." I didn't find reading it "cruel and unusual." If you don't like it, just grit your teeth and bear it. Anyway, you can't love every single book you read in English.</p>
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you can't love every single book you read in English.
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Completely agree. </p>
<p>This year, I read Goto's Kappa Child (Japanese-Canadian post-modernist fiction) and I could see how it would be very difficult for guys to relate to - there are no major male characters and the central plot issue in the book is pregnancy. I hated it, and I'm a girl. The intended (or created) gender audience for a particular book should be irrelevant - books should be judged based on writing. There's a reason Austen is part of the classic literary canon. </p>
<p>Oh, and I did use Beowulf as an example of a "guy's book" in my earlier post, but that isn't the reason that I don't like it. I thought it was alright the first time, but we spent about two and a half months on it and it got pretty tiring - hence my distaste.</p>
<p>I've never read it. And most people say it's a bad book. But most peole said that A Tale of two cities was an excellent book, so opinions aren't exactly reliable.
I'll have to read it myself first.</p>
<p>gosh, how awful to make he-men read about female stuff....guess some males don't care what their great grandmothers most likely had to go through</p>
<p>don't be a baby and read the book for heavens sake, and get over your machismo</p>
<p>My teacher even calls the book a "chick porn" and that she loves to she the guy's prejudice towards it....by the way, the next book we are reading a is a Doll's House followed by A Streetcar named Desire (not sure what that one is about though) and then Jane Eyre and there is a whole unit till the end of the year called "Girl's Night Out" and it's all feminist books....she is a feminist and even turned Frankenstein into a feminist piece.</p>