Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is the book I have reread the most. It’s my comfort read, the one I turn to every five to ten years. While normally I talk about more recent books in the hopes of encouraging you to try out some new authors, or of getting suggestions of similar authors for me to try, something interesting happened while I was rereading Pride and Prejudice that I would like to explore.

First of all, I read this as an ebook. It came already installed in my Sony eReader, and I began it a while back but didn’t start seriously reading it until last month. While format can make a difference, I read a lot of books on my eReader and even on my Palm, so this isn’t a new format for me.

Okay, at this point I suspect you’re thinking I’m going to say, despite my history, that now I hate the book, but I’m done being mysterious. I enjoyed the interactions between the characters as much as I always do. I like the stilted but witty crisscross, the arrogance that gives way to self-examination, and the culture of the times. None of that changed for me.

However, I found myself caught by some of the mechanics I’d never noticed before. For example, there is hardly any “show” at all in the book. Most events, even the crucial ones, are offered in a “tell” format. While this should take all the strength out of the words, it doesn’t. The style is more an extension of their particular culture, and one that makes me want to play with that aspect myself.

Another thing I noticed, though this may have something to do with the format, is I felt more impatient in this read. As much as I love the complexity of the Bennet family dynamics and the consequences of two parents who have abdicated their roles (if for different reasons), I was eager to get to the parts where Darcy and Elizabeth pair off. I’ve never experienced this race to the main conflict before, but it may be a consequence of having read the book too recently (I think I went seven rather than ten years this time) so the early conflicts are still too strong in my memory to greet me as a stranger.

Or maybe it’s just because Elizabeth and Darcy make for such an excellent conflict that all others pale before them.

They start as opponents, a skillfully drawn set of circumstances and assumptions that make them at best want to have nothing to do with each other and at worst put them at each other’s throats. The causes of their conflict are reasonable on both sides: Darcy because of social standing and expectations with regards to appropriate behavior, and Elizabeth because of how she reads into his demeanor attitudes that are both present and not.

The way Elizabeth (or Eliza as she’s named in the start) explores and evaluates his character and that of the people around him is keen, sharp, and yet not needlessly cruel, at least based on her understandings.

Darcy, on the other hand, is suffering from a severe case of classism, supported by the atrocious behavior of the younger Bennets and their mother. However, he fails to maintain his immunity to Elizabeth’s way of looking at life and exploring the world, leading him to seek her hand in the absolutely worst way possible.

Regardless, my plan is not to step you through the whole book. The point of my focus on their relationship is that they move from opponents to both contrite for different reasons. However, rather than that destroying the banter they offer to my delight, all the way to the very end, albeit more cautiously, Elizabeth continues to tease Darcy out of his assumptions.

If you haven’t read it, and have any interest in social and cultural clashes, Pride and Prejudice remains high on my list of books I’ve enjoyed. The final realization that struck me was this: Pride and Prejudice is a book of assumptions. It is a book where two people are held apart because the information they have available does not show the other in good light, and rather than questioning the source, they both accept what they assume to be true. No wonder I like romances where the conflict is grounded in misunderstanding. That theme was in the very first romance that caught my eye.

So how about you? What is a book you keep going back to? Have you noticed a significant style change in modern conventions compared to your comfort book? If so, does the style hinder how you read the book? Can you see, looking back, how that book has influenced your reading choices?