Austen August: A Pride and Prejudice Read-A-Long discussion

More visits between the Bennets and Bingley, with Jane making good impressions on the family. Despite the Bingley residence finding “the mother intolerable and the younger sisters not worth speaking to” (harsh! Lol) but they liked Jane and Elizabeth. While Jane accepts this behaviour, Lizzie finds it irritating and can't bring herself to like those at Netherfield Park, even if they were really nice towards Jane and herself. Fair enough, in my opinion.

Jane and Bingley continue to stare at each other with hearts for eyes. (Crowd: d'aaaaawh)
Elizabeth asks Charlotte her opinions and advice on the matter because she doesn't think Bingley knows how much Jane likes him- Charlotte advises that Jane needs to make the most out of any time she spends with Bingley because he doesn't know her character well enough to read her mind yet.

Elizabeth says that despite Jane dancing four dances with him, seeing him one morning at his house and eaten four meals with him, “this is not quite enough to make her tunderstand his character” - I'd like to point out that despite this, she is sold that Darcy is an arrogant prat without even talking to him once.

Meanwhile, Austen lets us know that Lizzie has no idea that Darcy is slowly changing his mind about her unintentionally. He begins to consider that she isn't as unattractive as he first thought (oh ho ho it begins. I love that in the actual books of period dramas, the “heroes” are always crushing on the girls quite early on. In the dramas and movies, you don't see any of that until much later in the story, if at all). In order to try to talk to Lizzie, wanting to know more about her,. As a result of this, he forces himself to get involved in her conversation with other guests at Netherfield Park. (Sociallyawkward!Darcy is a Go!)

Lizzie finds it very strange that Darcy has decided to join in the conversation and Charlotte decides that Lizzie should play the piano- she reluctantly agrees and manages a song or two for the group. During this, Charlotte's dad decides to ask Darcy why he doesn't dance, and when he sees Lizzie crossing the room towards them, William Lucas decides to introduce Lizzie as a dance partner to Darcy, and gives Darcy Elizabeth's hand, which he was “not unwilling to receive”. (The Lucas family seem to like the idea of the two paired up!)

Lizzie says she doesn't wish to dance (but politely, doesn't say it is because Darcy is her partner) and when William says that Darcy would have no objection, she replies “Mr Darcy is all politeness” (can you hear the sarcasm? Can you?). She walks away and while Darcy is thinking about Lizzie turning him down, Miss Bingley appears next to Darcy and believes he is thinking how insuffarable these gatherings are. Darcy corrects her and tells her that he was actually thinking about a pair of “fine eyes”. He admits outright to her that he was thinking of Miss Elizabeth Bennet, and Miss Bingley proceeds to mock him with the thought that Mrs Bennet is to be his future mother-in-law.


Favourite quotes:-

“Elizabeth was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an object of some interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty; he had looked at her without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes.”

“I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.”

I am so enjoying this re-reading of P&P mostly because I already know the story so I can relax and enjoy the sarcasm and the humor. Am loving it.

I'm the same. Ive only read it once before properly and because I was so focused on the story ans getting used to the language, I feel I missed a lot of the humour in it!

I find it interesting that Charlotte portrays the lady as prey in the marriage hunt, who ought to give the hunter a little help in catching her when in Jane Austen's novels it is clearly the women that are the real hunters.

Let us rejoice that we do not live in an age that a fortnight of knowing someone would then be followed with discussions of marriage. Thank you, Lizzie, for understanding how ridiculous this is.

Favorite line: "'Mr. Darcy is all politeness,' said Elizabeth."

I hadn't thought about Charlotte's opinion like that before, actually. She really does portray women as these feeble creatures who can't have any say over their own paths. Which is a stark contrast to Lizzie, obviously.

I think it's really good foreshadowing with Charlotte's comments here - Lizzie discounts her ideas and is a bit oblivious that Charlotte is maybe partly serious! If she'd listened and questioned her a bit more perhaps the whole Collins debacle wouldn't be such a shock?

I agree with Rebekah about the foreshadowing. That's what came to my mind, too, when I read it.

Even though Charlotte obviously has a very different view on relationships, I love this quote, because it still holds true today (sometimes ;) )
"In nine cases out of ten a woman had better show more affection than she feels."
And then she continues: "When she is secure of him, there will be more leisure for falling in love as much as she chooses."

With an opinion like that, I don't understand why she is still unmarried. She knows exactly how to handle a man's ego. Which is why I don't think that she sees the woman as prey. It's the woman who "traps" the man ;)