COMMENTARY: Pride and Prejudice (1813)
The following are thoughts and reactions I had while reading Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen. They do not reflect my overall post-reading opinion of the work.
⚠️ SPOILER ALERTS AHEAD ⚠️
- I am a sucker for witty banter and Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have it in spades. I’m already whimsically delighted.
- Ch. 3 - is this correct? In the days before email and telephones, you had to visit for ten minutes at someone’s library before getting a dinner invitation? Or is this just rich people decorum?
- Ch. 4 - ‘I give you leave to like him. You have liked many a stupider person.’ Rofl. Only siblings talk this way to each other.
- Ch. 6 - wait, so is this like “does he like me?” and “does she like him?” And “how do I get him to know I like him without telling him I like him?” high-school conversation but with really pretty words?
- Ch. 7 - ok. So they don’t have jobs because they don’t need to work. They don’t really have hobbies. They go to town and visit their aunt just to get news and gossip so that they can “furnish their evening conversation”. JFC. What is life like when all you do is fill your head with what everyone else is doing?
- Oh. They do send letters. I wonder what the protocol is for a visit, a call, or a letter.
- So are sleepovers just a thing here? How far is 3mi/5km anyway? Oh. It’s like walking from my house to the mall. That’s just over an hour walk. Or 15m drive.
- Sorry. I had to look up the rules of Loo, or Lanterloo for short. Jack of Clubs is known as “Pam”? Ha ha. Flush with Pam and Flush with Trumps are both tricks.
- There’s very little action/description in the prose and mostly the characters’ opinions and judgement of other characters and how they act. Makes me wonder if I’m freaking out too much about world building with my own writing.
- my god there’s a lot of people crying out loud here. Elizabeth cried. Mr. Bingley cried. Mrs. Bennet cried. Stop raising your voices. Just calm the fuck down.
- Pg. 39 - ‘I did not know before’, continued Bingley immediately, ‘that you were a studier of character.’ What? What!? That’s all everyone ever does around here!
- Pg. 41 - ‘I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!… I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.’
- Ch. 9 - lol. I thought another Bennet sister was going to stay at Netherfields… like a running gag, until all five had commandeered Bingley’s estate. Would’ve been hilarious.
- Piquet. So many interesting card games.
- Ch. 10 - Miss Bingley is like when someone is In your google doc while you’re writing. Except she talks.
- ‘Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.’
- Pg.57 got a letter a month ago, replied to it two weeks ago… and that’s replying with “early attention”? Two weeks to reply to something is “early attention”? I mean, none of these jackasses have gainful employment and two weeks is “early attention”?
- Entailment from Cliff’s Notes: “An entail helped keep all of the land in one chunk and in one family (on the male side) through the generations. The eldest son stood to inherit the bulk of an estate.” Oh that’s cool, it’s storytelling element of a sense of urgency.
- ch13 oh oh oh is Wickham Hugh Grant?
- ch15, haaaaave you met Liz? Just go down the list from eldest to youngest
- pg. 77 - it kinda sucks that I know Wickham is Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones and he’s lying right now. Kinda ruins the surprise.
- I just love how being good looking means you’re trustworthy in this world. “Amiable appearance”,
- Pg. 96 - omg. Shut up. Just STFU… fucking Mr. Collins. Are annoying characters part and parcel to talky dramas?
- Ch. 19 - so cringe. Reason 1. Set an example for MY parish. Reason 2. It will make ME happy. Reason 3. My boss told me to.
- Stupid idea: a relationship course written by Mr. Collins.
- ch. 20 - why doesn’t he not just keep going down the line? No Jane, no Liz, who’s next? Lydia? Kitty? Mary?
- ch. 21 - Caroline Bingley. That bitch!
- ch. 22 - and just like that, he gets a wife? What?
- ch. 29 - my god they play a lot of card games. Quadrille and Cassino?
- ch. 32 - alone in a stranger’s house for awkward conversation!
- ch. 33 - Fitzwilliam, Deliverer of the Red Herring.
- Ch. 34 - woah. 48% mark and Mr. Darcy drops the A-Bomb
- wait… I’m still confused by what Darcy said in his letter. Does he think his friend Bingley is not good for Jane? And Wickham is a liar. I think I got that. Need to go back. Brb.
- Oh ok. So Darcy thinks Jane isn’t actually into Bingley. And that the Bennet family are dirty social climbers? Or just not well-mannered? Aka “want of propriety”? Is this what the Simpsons episode was parodying? Episode 122: Lisa’s Wedding? Where the rich guy was like your family is dirt?
- And Wickham decided to go to law school instead of the church profession that Darcy’s dad paid for… and got £3000 out of it… and then proceeded to blow it all, then asked Darcy to get his church job back. Ok. So he didn’t sleep with Darcy’s Japanese wife then. Got it. Oh… but holy fuck. Wickham seduces and elopes with Georgina when she was fifteen? That’s a lot more horrible than Bridget Jones Diary. Fuck.
- ok. Maybe I shouldn’t read major reveals in Austen novels when I’m dead tired, because those were some heavy reveals.
- pg. 201 - wait. So Liz agrees with Darcy’s assessment of the Bennett family? Man I don’t know what is “proper” or “agreeable” or whatever behavior you’re supposed to have in order to climb this social ladder…
- ch. 38 - ok, so Collins is like super insecure about his lot in life…
- ch. 39 - was Lydia always such a teenager in her manners or did Austen not show her not talking so much in the first half of the book?
- Pg. 215 - “usual course of their employments”… doing what exactly??? I’m still not clear what it is that rich people do all day with themselves. They read, go on walks, visit each other houses for weeks at a time, play card games, and have a lot of tea and meals. What is it that Jane and Liz have as “usual course of employment”???
- pg. 230 - re: Georgina “and so accomplished! - She plays and sings all day long!” I mean… I guess that’s what you would value in a young woman in a world where they’re only good for marriage and reproduction?
- ch. 43 - hol’ up . Just hold on for a fucking minute here. You mean to tell me, you can just get a tour of a rich person’s house, just like that? You don’t need to book a time on some website? You don’t buy a ticket? You just walk in and the housekeeper just gives you a grand tour?
- ch. 46 - ruh roh. Entering the climax with a kidnapping. 70% mark. Did Austen intuitively know to start the final act here… or was it she that defined it and we’re all following it now… or was there a precursor to start wrapping up at the 70-75% mark?
- ch. 47-48. So they’re just sitting around and waiting for emails to come in? Cool cool.
- ‘A gamester!’ She cried. ‘This is wholly unexpected.’ Says the woman who lives in a culture where you play card games almost every night…
- ch. 49 - ok so “any marriage” > “marrying a rakish, irresponsible, imprudent gambling addict” got it
- Ch. 51 - teenagers are idiotic hurtful assholes no matter what century or decade.
- ch. 51 / pg. 300 / 82% mark…. Yuge reveal. Holy cow what a mic drop. Darcy was at Lydia and Wickham’s wedding. Daaaaaamnnnnn.
- ch. 53 - omfg Liz. Just because he’s not talking to you doesn’t mean he’s not interested in you.
- Ch. 54 - this coffee thing, following someone around the room with your eyes, sneaking glances at each other, and hoping they make an excuse to get close to you… is basically what every teenager experiences but forgot when we became adults. Austen really brings that period of your life back to life here.
- ch. 55 “He came, and in such a very good time, that the ladies were none of them dressed.” Sorry/Not sorry
- ch. 56 - man, it’s so weird reading Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s defense of first cousin marriage in a 1813 novel when literally, the Tenessee statehouse just banned it 75-2 with Republican representative Gino Bulso vocally defending it… in 2024. What’s even more funny is how she got into her carriage, rode all the way up to Longbourne from Rosings Park… just to bitch out at Liz. She couldn’t just send unhinged text messages like us today.
- pg. 342 - “young ladies have great penetration in such matters as these” Sorry/Not sorry
- I’m so confused. When did Darcy propose?
- I ended up reading chapter 58 three times and still couldn’t find it until I asked Olivia and she pointed it out to me. It was implied.
- ch. 59 - wait, so Mrs. Bennet is that shallow? She could change her mind on Darcy purely on material gain?
- ch. 60 is so fucking cute it hurts.