Another list of favorites. This time the classics have their turn.
I have restricted myself to choosing five, but really…that is not enough, I know. Still, for the sake of not making my list two whole pages, here are my picks.
1. Pride and prejudice — Jane Austen: who doesn’t know the story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy? The best love story of all times.
2. Rebecca — Daphne du Maurier: a haunting story with a twist of two women struggling for the attention of one man.
Fanny Price, a young woman who is taken away from her family at the age of ten and brought up by her rich aunt and uncle. She learns manners, how to behave in certain circles. The only real friend in her ordeal is her cousin Edmund, who gives her paper and feather to write, and later on her uncle gives her a fair chance too, by giving her a lovely fire (and so warmth) in “her” library. I really haven’t got a clue what more to tell . It’s just a romantic story about a very dull young woman. All is well that ends well. But I’m not finished yet…
Emma is a young woman, living in Highbury, 19th century England, with her dad. Her sister Isabella is already married with John Knightley, the brother of Mr. (George) Knightley, her best (male) friend and “fifteen years her superior”. She just made a love match for her former nanny and she thinks herself the best matchmaker there is. Her friend Harriet Smith knows everything about that as Emma tries to get the vicar interested in Harriet and letting Harriet believe this match is possible. In her enthusiasm Emma forgets however about the different social status that are still well represented in the England she lives in. Emma herself says she is never going to be married, but once Frank Churchill arrives on the scene, she can’t help thinking about her own life, and the love in it. During that time she is guided and often corrected by Mr. Knightley, but she is as often blind to all his reasons for it, or is she?
