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@not4sale
There was no excuse for his ghastly behaviour to Elizabeth, Alderton said; he was a “conceited, bullish and rude snob who, as my fellow millennials would say, needs to check his privilege”.
One way of reading the book is that Elizabeth cracks Darcy, love prevails. It was a dangerous message, said Alderton. “The idea that a man is there to be cracked or is hard to get or something to be won I think is very, very damaging. It should not be that difficult. Elizabeth is the prize to be won.”
He probably was not good-looking, either – less handsome Firth and more “powdery grey hair, pink face and short, with fat calves”.
Alderton was joined in her condemnation of Darcy by the novelist Sebastian Faulks who suggested Darcy may have been clinically depressed, but that did not excuse him.
“He is a manipulative, hypocritical, self-centred depressive, aware of some of his faults but unapologetic for them, because he is bound by arrogance to ignore them.”
The writers were taking part in an entertaining session asking the question Heathcliff versus Darcy: Who is the Bigger Shit?
On the opposing side were novelists Sarah Moss and Philip Hensher. Moss said it was obvious that a man who hanged dogs, beat up old women and imprisoned young women was more of a shit.
Hensher meanwhile argued that Darcy was not a shit, but an “arsehole” and there was an important difference. An arsehole parks in the parking space for a disabled person at Waitrose. A shit sees a disabled person driving into the space and overtakes them to get it.
Democracy was called on and a show of hands from the 1,400 people present ruled that the biggest shit is Heathcliff.
This thread :)