We're persuaded

JOAN THOMAS

The 18th-century novel was a baggy, sententious affair before Jane Austen gave it bones. Pride and Prejudice has a classic three-part structure, one that modern readers respond to effortlessly. In certain other respects, the novel is more typical of its time. Reading it after watching the 2005 film starring Keira Knightley (a lively version that puts the livestock into the phrase "gentleman farmer"), you're struck by Austen's lack of sensory detail. Dialogue was her medium, and all she needed. The vividness and complexity of the characters, as revealed through conversation alone, is electrifying. Pride and Prejudice makes you believe in the reality of the past, to the extent that you doubted it.