Me and Mr Darcy (45 page)

‘He’s absolutely
nothing
like him.’

The Daily Times, 14 February 2007

 

 

Austen’s creation beat other fictional heroes, such as James Bond and Superman, in the poll, run by the Orange Prize, of more than 1,900 women. Which seems strange to me, as surely he’d spend the evening glowering at you across the restaurant table and being rude to all the waiters?

Men just don’t get Mr Darcy, and how could we? For Darcy is the anti-man. He is everything a man is not and therefore women adore him. For us blokes, he’s a pain in the arse. Over the years I’ve been compared unfavourably with him many, many times. He’s the perfect gent. A sex-machine to all the chicks. He burns with sullen intensity and does so while wearing a frilly white blouse and tight breeches. And, excuse me, but no one complains about his fashion sense!

So what is it about Mr Darcy that sends women wild? What’s the secret of his lasting appeal? And, more importantly, what can I learn from him?

In search of an answer, my editor ‘suggested’ I spend a week on a Jane Austen literature tour with die-hard fans. Now, the last time I encountered Mr Darcy was when I was forced to read
Pride and Prejudice
for my English GCSE and I didn’t particularly like him then. So this time round, when I found myself cancelling plans to spend New Year skiing in the Swiss Alps to visit museums in the British countryside, our relationship went from bad to worse.

Understandably, and somewhat fittingly, I was rather prejudiced when I interviewed his fans. Made worse by the simple fact that women love him. And that’s not just a plain and simple ‘love’ him, that’s a Barry White ‘
lurve
’ him.

‘He’s just so sexy,’ Rupinda Ali, a yoga instructor told me. ‘All that smouldering and moodiness – phwoar – I know what I’d like to do on my date with him.’

Add jealousy to my list of complaints against him.

Me. A man who doesn’t have a jealous bone in his body. And here I am feeling envious of a fictional character.

But it appears
that’s
where I’ve been going wrong. Because for most women on this tour, this literary bad boy is as real to them as Santa Claus is to the under-fives. He’s been their first love, and it’s been an enduring love. They don’t want to give him up. Through all the ups and downs of relationships, the heartbreak, the disappointment and even the happy mundaneness of marriage, Mr Darcy is always there. Brooding, dashing and full of integrity, he’s tall, handsome and, a bonus here, extremely rich. He is also aloof, moody, detached and more than a little ‘complicated’.

When it comes to women, I’ve learned this is a completely irresistible combination.

‘He’s just looking for the right woman to fix him, to unlock all his passion and allow him to love,’ Hilary Pringle, a retired lawyer and devoted Darcy fan informs me. ‘And let’s be honest here, the man oozes sex appeal. Show me a woman who wouldn’t want to sleep with him.’

I tried, and I couldn’t. Every female interviewed would, given the opportunity, jump into bed with Mr Darcy. Even Maeve Tumpane, who blushed when she said, in her soft-spoken Irish accent, she imagined he would be ‘the type to respect you in the morning’.

Maybe this is the key to his unique appeal: he’s sexy. He’s also, let’s face it, a bastard and although they will hate me to say this, women love bastards. Just look at Heathcliff,
Sex and the City
’s Mr Big or even Jack Nicholson’s character in
Something’s Gotta Give.

Jane Austen knew this. She knew that women like a challenge and would be intrigued by ‘the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world’. Mr Darcy was most definitely
not
a new man. Women might say they want their partners to do the dishes and help them put the duvet cover on but these are not the attributes they have sexual fantasies over.

And women wonder why we men are confused.

I did, however, learn a few things from Mr D. In keeping with these mixed messages, women might have embraced feminism, but they still adore a show of chivalry. So the next time you’re tempted to bag that seat on the Tube, stand up and let the lady sit down – a few open doors, it seems, go a long way . . .

Then there’s all that repressed passion. Women, it seems,
lurve
repressed passion.
Pride and Prejudice
is a whopping 350 pages long and yet Mr Darcy and Elizabeth never kiss. Which means, if you’re watching the BBC adaptation, that’s six hours of foreplay. Even in the film version, it’s over two.

Now I’m not sure there is a man alive who can keep a woman excited for that long without so much as loosening his cravat (unless of course you’re Sting. Who can ever forget his boasts of Tantric sex?), and even if you could, in today’s culture, if you didn’t try to kiss a woman on the first date, she wouldn’t think you chivalrous, she’d accuse you of being gay.

But that’s the whole point. Mr Darcy is, as Emily Albright, an attractive twenty-something New Yorker on the trip confessed, ‘a wonderful fantasy. The embodiment of everything hopeless romantics desire in the man of their dreams.’ He loves passionately. Is unimpressed by looks and clothes and charm. Is full of integrity. And, most importantly, didn’t choose the prettiest girl but went for personality.

Now can you see why I want to kill him?

In short he can do no wrong. He is the perfect man.
Or is he?
As Ms Albright went on to point out on our first date, ‘He’s not actually real – you are.’

And so it seems I have the final advantage. Because although I might not be every woman’s fantasy (OK, I’m not
any
woman’s fantasy) and I’m certainly far from perfect, it’s ultimately the real guy who gets the girl.

So stick that in your breeches and brood about it, Mr Darcy.

 

Alexandra Potter was born in Bradford. She has lived in the USA and Australia, and worked as a features writer and sub-editor for women’s glossies in the UK. She now writes full-time and divides her time between London and Los Angeles. Her previous novels are
Do You Come Here Often?
,
What’s New Pussycat?
,
Going La-la
,
Calling Romeo
and the widely acclaimed
Be Careful What You Wish For.