Raillery

I watched that recent "Pride and Prejudice" movie, starring Keira Knightly, over the weekend and found it pretty good. The cinematography was very interesting and less "Hollywood", which I guess is to be expected since studiocanal is listed in the production credits. One thing that stood out for me when watching this movie was the manner in which the characters often conversed. It was all very polite (at least verbally), but some of the banter stood out in the way it lacked... well... it's hard for me to put a name on it. I guess the best word to describe it would have to be a Japanese term I learned while taking Prof. Whitman's linguistics and culture class. Much of the banter seemed to lack in tatemae, which I suppose could be described as a kind of social politeness.

For example near the beginning of the novel, Jane falls ill while visiting Netherfield, Mr. Bingley's manor (he's actually just renting it but close enough). Jane stays there to recover, and Elizabeth drops by to see how she's doing and ends up staying as a guest for a bit. In this scene, Elizabeth is sitting in a room, reading, while Mr. Bingley, his sister, and Mr. Darcy are having a conversation in the same room. Darcy is talking about the qualities he looks for in women and Elizabeth seems so incensed by his words that she can't continue her reading and bursts in:

"Then," observed Elizabeth, "you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished women."

"Yes; I do comprehend a great deal in it."

"Oh! certainly," cried his faithful assistant, "no one can be really esteemed accomplished, who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved."

"All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."

"I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any."

"Are you so severe upon your own sex, as to doubt the possibility of all this?"

"I never saw such a woman, I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe, united."

It seemed quite presumptuous for a guest in someone's house to suddenly break into a conversation in such a forceful manner. Maybe it's an artifact of my own cultural upbringing, but I can't imagine doing something like that while a guest in the home of someone with whom I was barely acquainted and was currently taking care of an ill sibling. I think that even in the presence of the most heinous remarks, the most I might do within this setting would be to depart. However, I found the repeated instances of conversation such as this, quite amusing and that it created a really good opportunity for actors to express themselves in performance adaptations. Did people in this era really converse like this? I dunno, but it is amusing for the reader, which is good enough for me.

But then, yesterday, while I was in Phoenix, I was listening to a show on NPR there that's not broadcast on my local NPR station. The guest on this show was Stephen Miller who was promoting his new book, "Conversation: A History of a Declining Art." One of the subjects he covered was the declining art of raillery, which he says was a common form of conversation in the 18th century, but is almost completely absent in modern conversational style. He described raillery as a kind of good natured repartee or perhaps even a light-hearted argument, where the participants verbally jousted with each other over some topic but always with a light-hearted and pleasant manner. There was an immediate connection between this subject and the movie I had watched just a few days prior. I started to wondering if the manner of conversation that had so stood out in my mind was characteristic of that time period and what kinds of social consequences that had in interpersonal relations.

So of course, I had to go find a Borders to visit between the end of the work day and the airport and try to get the two books. "Pride and Prejudice" was obviously no problem, but I was not terribly surprised that they didn't have Stephen Miller's book. So I bought what I could get and will have to order what I couldn't on Amazon.

And then on the plane ride back, I was watching ep. 14 of SAC2 for the third time. (I'm watching SAC2 a second time, but I'd watched ep. 14 an extra time cause I really like it and showed it to Ben and Catherine.) There was some interesting related topics in there too, but that will have to wait for another time.