Pride and Prejudice

Inspired by Peter Leithart’s new (and very fine) book, Miniatures and Morals, I recently began reading through Jane Austen. I had read a few of them many years ago, and am not quite sure which ones. So this time I started with Sense and Sensibility, which was fun, and then on to Pride and Prejudice, which was considerably better. But my time in Austen’s work is also reinforcing some prejudices I have about writing and style. P & P begins with a dead construction (“It is”), and the style is heavy on abstraction, nominalization, and the passive voice, all contemporary no-no’s. From the begining to the end, we know the color of virtually nothing, including Elizabeth Bennet’s eyes, and are given no clue of what anything else looks like, at least in the kind of word painting we are used to. Austen tells as opposed to showing, and does so with determined ferocity. And yet, despite all this, it is a magnificent book. Perhaps we are confusing our local conventions for fundamental principles.

I remember reading (years ago) a criticism of John Calvin, written by Eugene Peterson of The Message fame. He wondered how a genius like Calvin could spend his writing and publishing life in Switzerland, and not ever have the grandeur of the Alps creep into his writing. What deep poverty of spirit must this indicate? And yet I suspect this is more a function of our provincialism (in our blind attachment to the conventions and styles we prefer). How does this criticism not also apply to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, all of whom neglected to tell us the color of Jesus’ hair, the knarled strength of His hands, or how a slight breeze ruffled the whitecaps on the Sea of Galilee?

I am inclined to think that good writing is that which displays to the thoughtful reader consistent signs of purpose, design, and intelligence on the part of the author. This should help answer the question of what Jane Austen, Annie Dillard, John Bunyan, Tom Wolfe, and Mark Twain all had in common. If we look at what distinguishes them, we are in the realm of conventions of style. If we look at what unites them, what one thing are we looking for?