Hey Everybody,

Why don't you guys just e-mail Darcy and ASK HIM WHAT he thinks about Elizabeth and Liz?  That way you can get it settled for once and for all and we can get back to talking about Jane Austen and Willoughby!!!  :0)

Did any of you guys see Titanic?

Dear LL,

I assure you that I am in constant contact with Darcy and we are the best of friends. You can totally trust anything that I say about him. He is totally zonked on Elizabeth, but has never heard of Liz. (Actually, a number of Elizabeth's family members called her "Lizzy", but outside the family she was known as "Eliza".)

Your suggestion that we turn to something else is an excellent one as is your choice, Jane Austen's Willoughby. I think, though, that not many in our community will want to discuss Greg Wise, who was the actor who portrayed Willoughby in the film. To me, Willoughby was one of those guys that knows exactly what to say to a woman and exactly what to do in order to get her to do what he wants. Like a number of other men, I don't know why women like guys like that; although, I am sure that Jane Austen got things exactly right here as she did everywhere else. My question to you is this - I really am curious, what is you opinion - does a man like Willoughby really care for women or does he think of them much as he thinks about dessert? I mean does he think of a woman as something really nice to have around after a good meal?

Have you ever thought about reading the book? - Like for a book report or something? It isn't very long and fairly easy to read. Jane Austen lived about two hundred years ago in England. That was about the time that George Washington was our president. She was only eighteen or so when she wrote Sense and Sensibility, which is younger than either Leo or Kate Winslet is today. Pretty impressive, right?

I don't have immediate plans to see Titanic, but I have a question about that as well. Do you think that Leo received some money from the tobacco companies to do that chain smoking on film? It might have been a clever way for tobacco companies to circumvent the restrictions on advertising their products to young people. What do you think? <[|:o)

Dear Sir,

I came across the following comment by Ronald Blythe, in his introduction to Mary Russell Mitford's Our Village (Folio Society, 1998). He is discussing the house in which Mary lived, and from which she wrote:

Mary Russell Mitford wrote essays on the village life around her, not fiction works, but I think Blythe is right on the money with his last sentence.

Of course, he left out the snogging bit.
Julie

Dear Julie,

You have done a great deal for me in the few months that you have been posting and I am very grateful for all that. One thing that I am especially grateful for is your recommendation of Park Honan's biography of Jane Austen. One of the many things I admire is Honan's treatment of the novels. In fact, I believe that he is the only person I know of that sees some of the same things in them that I do. He says this about Pride and Prejudice:

It is not that I don't care for social commentary; on the contrary, I like Voltaire, Swift, Eliot, and Hardy. Lord, I even like - rather, I love Gilbert and Sullivan. It is just that I think that a novel that explores "the human problem" to be a higher form. I suspect that it is on that point that you and I divide. (If you think about it, you might agree that each of us is struggling to associate our Lady with a higher form.) In any case, I think of Jane Austen and the Russians as masters of what I think to be the higher form.

I looked through Honan's work and I am sure that he doesn't mention "snogging" either. If he had, I would have marked the place - I always mark the "good parts" in my books.

Dear Sir,

Re: Yours of 10/3/98.

With the greatest of respect, cobblers!  It is not necessary to 'search' Jane Austen's novels for social commentary - social commentary is the very fabric of her work. Tell me do you feel at home in Jane Austen's houses and villages and families, as you do in your own? Do you feel that she speaks as intelligibly today, to us, as she did to her contemporary audience?  Do you feel that you can 'connect' intimately with her characters, understand their values, their motivations, their feelings?  Of course you do.  That is why her writings give so much pleasure to so many people today. Why is it, then, that other novels of the period, wildly popular in their day, are now, to us, bloated, pointless and silly? Why do they almost need to be read with a translation close to hand? I could mention the novels of Mrs Gaskell, Sir Walter Scott, and many others - enjoyable enough works, but not at all in the same league, when it comes to portraying the societies in which their authors lived.

The comment on Jane Austen that I like the most says, 'she came without forebears, and she left without progeny'.  What a shame, it seems to me, to concentrate on only one aspect of her novels - the love interest.  The love interest is, of course, pivotal to the lives of the young adults who form the protagonists of her novels, but there is so much more!  If one reads - REALLY reads her works, there is so much detail and nuance on  the social structure of the England in which she lived. They are so subtle - Hannah, the young lass placed at Mrs Weston's; Mrs Charles Musgrave's nurserymaid being 'such a fine lady' in the eyes of the former's mother-in-law (that's a good example, actually - imagine having one's mother-in-law eyeing off one's domestic arrangements); poor Mrs Price and her household - which gives us an intimate vignette on poor gentry-life in the towns. Every novel is full of illustrations of my point - the hard part, I would think, is ignoring them!

Consider Mary Bennet. What opinion does the reader gain of her? Now think of how you gained that opinion.  Can you recall the paragraph?  You can't, because there isn't one. Mary is drawn for us in Chapter One, in very few words: '"What say you, Mary?  for you are a young lady of deep reflection I know, and read great books, and make extracts.' Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how."' Not very attractive.

What is Mary to do?  As the only plain member of the family, she had strived for accomplishments.  Why?  Her mother values beauty, which Mary does not possess:  'I often tell my other daughters that they are nothing to her'.    'I always knew you could not have been so beautiful for nothing (meaning Jane)!' Her father is a scholar - he 'reads great books' - possibly makes extracts, as well.  Mary strives for learning, and earns ridicule for her trouble. We all can call to mind such children - awkward, striving for approval, clumsy in their attempts.  I don't suppose that Jane Austen spent a month navel-gazing before drawing the accurate, sad portrait of Mary, but I would find it hard to believe that this picture was drawn at random. Anyone who cares to undertake the exercise can pick characters from her novels, assess them mentally, then try to find the background on them in the novels.  The material will be found in short, sharp, deadly accurate sentences.

Jane Austen wrote love stories, granted. She was, and is, a social critic.

My very dear sir, your great love of novels which have been my great love for over thirty years earns you my eternal respect. I don't want to dictate to you the terms of your enjoyment. I can only say that, to me, Jane Austen's considered, intelligent and humane observation of the society in which she lived has always been one of my greatest pleasures. And I'm delighted that Elizabeth Bennet had the hots for Darcy!

My Dearest Friend,

My guess is that Bob Dylan must have known someone like Jane Austen. The great man seems wearied of his own social commentaries and thinking of her when he wrote this:

Jane Austen was an artist, she was "true, like ice, like fire". How did you and I arrive at a place where you can believe that I don't understand that?
Love,
Ashton

To all who read this posting,

I am an English 'A'-Level English Literature student and would like to enquire about the role of marriage in Austen's Pride and Prejudice. It seems to me that Austen's view of the ideal marriage is one that requires an element of requited love to be present. Even so, there must still be more as it is not until Lizzy sees Pemberley that her metamorphosis of view concerning Darcy is fully initiated. Is Austen saying that financial security is also a prerequisite for a successful marriage or is the mixture of marital requirements more subtle. I realize that Lady Catherine de Bourgh sees the match in purely financial terms and Elizabeth may see it as a pure love match in which she has wed, "such a charming man".

My point is this: surely Austen hopes to communicate that there is more to a good marriage than JUST love or JUST financial security. It has been said that Austen presents at least three different types of marriage in Pride and Prejudice. This comment strikes me to be referring to the love match of Lizzy and Darcy, the 'dynastic' security of the proposed marriage between Darcy and Miss Anne de Bourgh ("Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?") and finally the financial and society based considerations of Collins' marriage with Charlotte Lucas. Are there further examples? Please e-mail me with your thoughts.

Dear Ben,

Welcome to the community. First of all, a bit of explanation for our foreign correspondents: "English A" is the first English course given at American universities. It is usually required of freshman students during their first term.

I don't agree with many of the suppositions implicit in your posting and I will explain what I mean in that regard. It certainly is true that your attitudes are typical enough and will not get you into difficulty if they are reflected in your English A essays. But then, there is the truth. This idea that Elizabeth does not begin to contemplate a union with Darcy until her visit to Pemberley is quite common and always mystifies me a bit, although I know the source of the misinterpretation. The misinterpretation results from a superficial reading of a conversation between Elizabeth and her sister Jane near the end of the novel. Elizabeth has just confided in her sister about her engagement and Jane asks when Elizabeth first began to realize that she was in love. Elizabeth replies that she probably would date it from the time she first saw Darcy's "beautiful grounds at Pemberley". ITS A JOKE, Jeeeze!

You must study those chapters when Elizabeth reads and reacts to Darcy's letter. In my opinion, those are among the most beautiful passages ever written. (Incidentally, she wasn't much older than yourself when she wrote the first draft of this novel.) There, Elizabeth has an epiphany; later she would say, "until then, I did not know myself". Her own foolish reliance on first impressions weighs upon her and she begins to understand Darcy's true nature and what a wonderful nature it is. She also begins to explore her own feelings and might have admitted her love for Darcy if not for the fact that Darcy had been instrumental in separating Bingley from Jane Bennet. But the feelings were there long before that. In that regard, I would point to the very last angry thing that Elizabeth said to Darcy at his disastrous first proposal, "... I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry"--What a beautiful Freudian slip. So, she had contemplated marriage with the very man whose reputation she was spoiling had she? And, it took her an entire month to come to the answer did it? I have expanded on this view in another place and here is the link to that. Incidentally, there are person's in this world who will contend that it is impossible for Jane Austen to credit a Freudian slip to one of her characters because Freud had not yet lived. People like that should actually read Freud to understand just how often he referred to classical literature in order to make his points. (He referred most often to Shakespeare, but he certainly could have referenced Jane Austen.)

Jane Austen wrote love stories, Ben.

Jane Austen wrote about the psychology and the ethics of love and she did it with such simplicity and humor that she is difficult to read. Most seem to see only the jokes and the other surface features and are pleased enough with that. If, somehow, it is proven that the prevailing view of Jane Austen is correct and mine is wrong, I will lay down the burden of maintaining this web site.

If you insist upon an accounting of marriages, I think you missed two important examples--the Wickham-Lydia marriage and that of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. Neither is subsumed in the categorization of your posting.

Incidentally, I have posted my interpretation of the personal events in Jane Austen's life at the time she wrote Pride and Prejudice and here is the link to that.

Dear Ben and Ashton,

First, I'm going to disagree with you, Ashton. Not about Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice, but about Ben! I don't think he is in his freshman year at University, I think he's in his last year at high school- in England. For this reason, I'm going to take a slightly different tack, as university study is not quite the same as high school papers. -)

Ben, you haven't given the exact title of your essay/paper, so I cannot be sure. Is it something like "Examine the various aspects of marriage portrayed in Pride and Prejudice?" If so, have you had a look at the marriage of Elizabeth's parents? What is Jane Austen saying there? You could try and compare it with the other long-standing marriage in the book - that of Mr and Mrs Gardiner. That was a love-match of compatible souls if ever there was one. What about Mr and Mrs Hurst? Can you tie together any of these older marriages with that of the various younger relationships going on in the book? If you can, you'll have a better idea of your three "types" of marriage.

Good luck with your essay, and if I read you wrong, and have demoted you, I apologise.
Caroline

From the Meister: Oh Caroline, thank you for correcting my error.
My apologies to Ben for misinterpreting his e-mail address.

Dear Julie,

I apologise for this late reply to your posting of 9/19/98. Blame the person who sent my son "Die Hard on the Internet" for his birthday. Boarding school is looking more attractive all the time.

I don't know if Julian Holland was the son of Oscar. I do know that one of the letters Wilde sent to Bosie from his prison cell contained a request for a set of Austen novels. I hope that if this Julian was Wilde jr. he passed on his father's known sentiments to the odious Tynan.

I agree with all you say about Emma. In fact there are few of your opinions so far with which I have not nodded in sage agreement, saving that of Hamish Macbeth. I'd rather snog Wee Jock, frankly. Now his mate the local doctor-------

But back to Emma. I've always preferred this to any other of the novels because of its depth of plot and characterisation. It's a bit like one of those old Whitehall farces, so delightfully and ridiculously complicated, with all the characters deceiving themselves as well as trying to mislead other people and being misled in their turn. As you say, most of them seem to be operating on various levels of conscious- ness.

Which reminds me about something you said in another posting about how Elizabeth and Darcy were attracted from the start. Again I'm with you, but I hope you know that you are asking for trouble by saying this. There are ravening hordes of Austen lovers out there who take exception to anyone expressing the opinion that Lizzy was in any way attracted to Darcy pre-Pemberley. I know this having recently emerged bloodied but unbowed from a discussion in another forum which got downright heated.

They argue that Lizzy felt only pure dislike. How could she possibly do otherwise, as at this stage Darcy is rude, arrogant and therefore unattractive to a clever, independent-minded woman such as she? In any case the notion of subconscious attraction would not have been understood by Jane Austen, as she lived before Freud. Quotations by the score are trotted out to prove that both what Lizzy says and the authorial voice make it clear that no interpretation such as yours and mine ought to be made as it clearly wasn't Austen's intention that we should.

I'd enjoy hearing your view on this, and Ashton's. Personally, wild horses couldn't make me read the book this way. It is certainly difficult to support my argument with references to the text. There really is nothing which is said or hinted at. I think the clues are in the body language of the novel, if that doesn't sound too daft. It's the blushing the anxious looks in his direction when mama is misbehaving, that odd inability to avoid speaking to him, the way his presence inspires her to greater heights of wit and subtlety.

And am I alone in thinking that even clever women can be fascinated against their will by a powerful, physically imposing man, even if he also happens to be thoroughly unpleasant. I thought it happened all the time. Think of Jane Eyre and Rochester or Cathy and Heathcliffe. As for Jane Austen not understanding the subconscious, I think she understood it very well. Emma Woodhouse experiences unconscious feelings emerging into awareness when she realises her love for Mr. Knightly "She saw that in persuading herself, in fancying, in acting to the contrary, she had been entirely under a delusion, totally ignorant of her own heart". That old device, dramatic irony, strikes again. It's fun to be "in the know" before the characters are, and I think Jane knew we wouldn't need any help from her to work out that Lizzy was on Darcy's line too.
Regards,
Kate

P.S. If the ravening hordes ask for me, I'm in the shower, OK?

From the Meister: BIG MISTAKE! I should think that is
exactly where the ravening hordes would wish to catch you.

Dear Kate,

Freud wrote about the subconscious, he didn't invent it. People have always understood what motivates behaviour. When I was practising as a psychiatric nurse, it was striking how often, after months of expensive testing and erudition by psychiatrists on the subject of a patient's delusions or whatever, great aunt Maud, or the next door neighbour, would come to visit, replete with fruitcake, and say, 'of course, dear, it's not surprising - his mother/father used to do such-and such- to him when he was a child'.  These 'old wives', if you like, were often spot-on.

And Jane Austen is spot-on when it comes to understanding what motivates people. Perhaps it is because she is so good at it that readers sometimes miss the point, and therefore, the depth of her characterisation and plot. I'm happy for people to enjoy her novels at whichever level they choose, but it is a pity that they miss out on so much by only thinking about the 'love interest'.

Elizabeth Bennet is an interesting point.  She is attracted to, and attracted by, (at different levels) almost every eligible man she meets!  Apart from Mr Hurst and Mr Bingley, there are degrees of reciprocal attraction to every other man - Mr Wickham, Colonel Fitzwilliam, Mr Darcy.  When she is indifferent, they are almost invisible to her.  Can you imagine, for instance, her being piqued by overhearing Mr Hurst call her 'not pretty enough to dance with?"  No.  If you will forgive the anachronism (apparently) of my using a little psychology, the fact that Elizabeth did notice, and was attracted to, at some level, Darcy, from the beginning, is illustrated by the way she employs what we would call today a defense mechanism after her pride and feelings had been hurt.  She talks about, and laughs about, the incident with her friends, but she does not forget it - she has a go at Darcy on the subject, months later at Rosings.  That does not bespeak indifference.  And, as you say, she is 'at' Darcy whenever they are together - and I actually think that on many occasions he shows some forebearance towards her!  I have said before that the early stages of their relationship remind me of Tracey/Hepburn movies, with a superficial dislike covering a vibrant sexual attraction, and both characters verbally sparring.  In short, I believe we can see that Elizabeth does 'care' (I don't mean 'loves') about Darcy by contrasting her behaviour to him with her behaviour to men about whom she does not 'care'.  If Mr Hurst and Mr Collins were to drop dead at her feet, she would simply step over them!

People who dislike the Brontes may wish at this point to retire and contemplate the binary nature of the universe. I believe that the Rochester/ Jane Eyre situation is different - the story is straight wish-fulfilment on the part of the author.  Rochester is Rhett Butler, The Professor, and countless other romantic male leads - idealised man.  Apparently the formula is stock-in-trade for the writers of pulp romance (they are sent the recipe by the publishers):  the male hero must be powerful, good-looking, rude, arrogant (except, eventually, to the heroine) and, preferably, rich.  Max de Winter is another good one.  This is not to knock Jane Eyre, which I admire - especially as the author turned the tables on the hero before granting him the heroine!  Charlotte Bronte is another author of depth, but I believe that that depth can only be understood by reading her life as well as her novels.  She, however, is a troubled, neurotic soul. Her defensive reaction to Jane Austen's writing is interesting - does she, like many people, find it uncomfortable to be confronted by people who seem to 'know what other people are thinking?' Jane Austen in life apparently affected people this way.

I'd forgotten about the doctor in 'Hamish'!  Actually, if you like,  Hamish is another of those 'Rochester' types, in some ways - God knows, he gives Isabella a hard enough time in return for all her trouble!
Julie

From the Meister: Yes, yes, that is all well and good, to the point,
and eminently acceptable, but you have completely failed to explain
the meaning of "to snog". I was also appalled at the frequency of your
use of the "B"-word. I seem to recall that you promised to ration your
use of the "B"-word. Was that the proverbial red-head's promise?

Snogging is .... er...what I believe American teenagers used to do at drive-in theatres in the back seats of their fathers' cars.  Actually, wee Jock is eminently snoggable - Kate shows good taste!  I've often said that dogs are sometimes preferable to men - at least with dogs, we know where they have been.

I do most humbly and sincerely apologise for my unbridled use of the B-word.  I shall be very careful about how I use 'binary' from now on.
Julie

Meister: What? "To snog" means to eat popcorn!? Is that all
you women ever think about? Men think about sex. Have you
ever heard the theory that Charlotte Binary maliciously
destroyed the manuscript of a second novel by Emily?
Ummm - don't answer that.

Hi Everybody,

This is so cool!  I just got my own computer at home so now I can post instead of just reading it at the library!  And I rented Sense and Sensibility so now I finally know what everyone is talking about all the time!

I want to say first that that guy Willoughby was FINE!  And second that I thought Kate Winslet did almost as good in that one as she did in Titanic!

Can't wait to chat with you guys!!!

Bye,
LeoLover :)

From the Meister: have you seen Leo's
performance in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

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