Just delightful. =) ( )

from Bethany:

The timelessness of Austen’s writing is beautiful and astounding. Everyone knows of this classic. I myself have just now had the pleasure of reading this book for the first time. I assure you the time has been well spent. The descriptive nature of the book brings the author’s world to life within your own imagination. ( )

[Certain] cases testify to bad faith: for example the women whose disappointment in marriage has made them frigid—which is to say that they manage to conceal from themselves the pleasure they receive from the sexual act. For these women frequently, indeed, the husband reveals that his wife has shown objective signs of pleasure, and it is these signs that the wife, when questioned, fiercely endeavors to deny [. . .] The phenomenon here is clearly a case of bad faith, since the effort made to dissociate from the felt pleasure implies a recognition that the pleasure is felt, and implies it precisely in order to deny it.
— Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness

On Warmth

It is a mark of craft that Austen's novel begins with one of the most brazen shows of bourgeois sang-froid in literature: Mrs. Bennett sending anti-plain Jane out in the chilling rain to get her laid up with a fever in the abode of a potential suitor. It is humorous that she would risk her prettiest daughter in this way (conveying the chilling sense of "better dead than a spinster"), and it's somehow more amusing that the obvious calculation in this forward-froward gesture goes unremarked by the Darci entourage. One presumes it's a concession to good taste that one doesn't speak of such things in polite company.

"Good Taste" should be given its due as the so-called "ghost in the machine" of the (para-)Victorian novel. In these novels it seems to consist, for the most part, in freezing the nascent speech act, which accompanies the chilling of pleasure. This double movement seems to be entangled with what Sartre calls "bad faith" (we are also appreciating this term, in its original use (above), as a pejorative against Frigid Bitches.) "Bad Faith," and the violation of its protocol, is perhaps the reason why certain characters in Pride and Prejudice strike us as vulgar. Mr. Collins and his marriage proposal are ridiculous because, in making explicit his parvenu calculations, he says exactly what he means. (I don't know if schools teach how funny this scene is.) He has suppressed pleasure, but not its attendant speech act, and therefore speaks in bad taste (whereas he should have remained silent, per the rules of Bad Faith). Lady Catherine is an appropriate patroness for this gentleman since her dissuasive speech against marriage to Mr. Darci, this time on behalf of aristocratic primogeniture, is vulgar for laying everything out. Lady Catherine's remarkable speech, which can only have the opposite of its intended effect (Even the most cursory reader predicts this outcome, why doesn't Catherine?), is more remarkable for its depiction that the so-called upper classes seem to have no qualms displaying their own bad taste.

Sartre's "Bad Faith" as moderator of "Good Taste" is also the arbiter of its own exceptions — Bad Faith is always in good taste, but so is its opposite: outspoken, self-conscious independent movement is also worthy of approbation (at least in the Austen novel) — meaning it's possible to move behind the rule so as long as one is warm enough about it. (The link between warmth in the female protagonist and the tension between sexual gratification and "Bad Faith" in Sartre's text should not remain unremarked.) Elizabeth, who, against conventional taste, has traveled to the Darcy residence on foot, ends up dirtying her dress, yet shows up flushed and well-perfused and thereby acquits herself. Mr. Bennett who has had the good taste to hold his tongue about Mr. Collins, comes to speak his mind only after the young man has chilled himself in comparison, and carries it off with a warm turn-of-phrase. In such moments, characters like Elizabeth Bennet and her father are making themselves some of the best-beloved characters in fiction. This display of immaculate good taste (i.e. Be free! Speak and accept pleasure!) is good taste precisely because it is the inversion of the general rule (i.e. Hold your tongue! Deny pleasure!).

Good taste is habitually defining its own discourse — even in its state of exception. In the Austen novel we are always wondering what a character is doing in the moments in which we are not observing him; what will the curious behavior of a character skirting the boundary to good taste come to mean when his reasons are revealed. The occasion will never arise when we are able to ask certain other questions. It will always be inappropriate, as Edward Said notes (Culture and Imperialism, 1993) to inquire how Mr. Darcy makes his "ten thousand a year." (One must presume these are from his colonial holdings, just offstage). One imagines the Austen-ian colonial subject in her double bind with respect to imperial good taste. She has managed to preserve her life from day to day, we say if she has a problem she should speak up. Those who are toiling in a warm, shall we say sweltering, environs perhaps don't have the resources to do so, yet, granted that she does somehow speak, her statements are already in bad taste. She could speak truth-to-pleasure like Elizabeth only if she could also act like her in freedom. Of course this is the beating heart of the problem with which she began: being always already compelled to perform the "false" act. That we are demonstrating how the colonial subject is bound to a lower stratum is perhaps not so interesting in itself. What's more remarkable is how this person, as we imagine her place in the Austen novel — all fixity and false consciousness — is precisely the warmed-over silhouette of the hated upper classes against which the Bennet family (and reader) have defined themselves. In this relation we perceive Lady Catherine (and the subaltern in her shadow) as primitive accumulator(s) who, for the sake of good taste, ought to be finagled out of their allotment.

Mr. Darcy's anti-social silences are a problem for good taste, but not of this type. We are in alliance with him by the end of the novel because his refusal of social niceties seems to be because he feels it all so much. In this form, Darcy is the anti-model of Sartre's waiter who, in lieu of a tip, has found himself immortalized as the caricature of Bad Faith: acting the part but feeling nothing,"So we should make ourselves be what we are. But then what are we, if we are constantly obliged to make ourselves be what we are? Consider this café waiter. His movements are animated and intent, his voice and his eyes expressing an interest in the customer’s order that is a bit too solicitous. His behavior throughout strikes us as an act. He is playing, amusing himself. But what, then, is he playing at? One does not need to watch him for long to realize: he is playing at being a café waiter" (Being and Nothingness, 1943). Sartre's "Bad Faith" is perhaps useful for understanding bourgeois Good Taste (already an impoverished heuristic for middle-class socialization). It seems, however, an impoverished way to go about understanding a human being. One imagines Sartre conceiving the "human being" in his "true form" acting intentionally, perhaps at home where He [sic] is free to be himself. We are still on the lookout for this ubermensch who is free to act without always already "acting out" a social role. When we question this (subaltern) waiter possibly we learn something more than his caricature can tell us. There is a relation between the habits of labor and self perception; it may be that this waiter feels like his "true self," solicitous, acrobatic, perhaps a little genteel, only when he is on the job. At home watching television with the wife and kids (which he chooses with the choice of existentialist gravity) — this is the act. The forces of habit are perhaps the sole determining forces. We still allow certain people to wear their habitual labor as a personality, military men and doctors (such dispensations only seem to apply to men [sic] in respectable positions, why is that?) The demented person, on the return journey toward vegetative life, possesses only his habits of social nicety; such possessions become his "true self," as perhaps they always were.

We are digressing here from our discussion of Mr. Darcy — absent niceties — whose about-face, brushing against the grain of habit, is therefore dubious. We are impressed by his magnanimous act, forgiving Mr. Wickham who has done him wrong, and allowing news of this to reach Elizabeth only by third-hand rumor. He acquits himself admirably; our only problem being that he pulls it off as cleverly as he might play an immaculate hand of bridge to solve a contrived plot in a novel. Returning to his estate, secure in his victory, one imagines Mr. Darcy relapsing to old habits. This is not so hard for us. What may be more difficult is to imagine the world for Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy, constrained in wealthy marriage, forthright, unimpeachable, her parochial squabbles, sometimes in less-than-good-taste, unimpeachable (again), protecting her colonial holdings, losing warmth. We have known such couples. ( )

I am not a natural classics reader and only read this one because it is a book club choice. There is also nothing I can say that has not already been said about the book. It has been studied by academics and enjoyed by very many people so this review is really a list of thoughts.

I did enjoy Lydia and her loud ignorance. It is refreshing to know that this type of person was around in the 1700s. It must have been particularly racy at the time to write about a woman who went and lived with a man but had not married him. And it is her lack of understanding about this and its consequences on her family that I enjoyed. She sounds just like her mother!

I laughed at Mr Collins and his proposal of marriage to Elizabeth. So they had pompous asses in the 1700s too. His refusal to take no as an answer, with his understanding that she really meant yes but was just playing to the romantic notions of the day, the modesty and desire to heighten a man's interest, when read with the present-day filter, is a little alarming, but in the context of the book is farcical as there is no sinister follow-up once the notion of no is received. His perception of himself is dependent on the status of those that he has contact with and his squirming self-importance knows no bounds.

The first sentence is fantastic and really sets us up to understand that this is a story where there are misunderstandings galore but all will be righted in the end. It is a comedy and there are some elements that made me laugh - mostly the characters. In fact, the characters are very well observed and described and are part of the universality of the book that make it a classic.

Although I am not sure whether Austen was the first to use the structure of the romance - two people who appear to hate each other but then realise they were wrong and admit they are in love - it is a structure which is frequently used in romances. So if the definition of a classic is that it's impact is seen in writing today, this one definitely hits the mark. I did find the novel a bit slow in book 2 and enjoyed book 3 the most probably because all the action and undoing of the previous mistakes misunderstandings occurred in it.

I found it quite a challenge to read, having to slow down and reread sentences where I wasn't totally sure of the use of the vocabulary or the syntax. An example of this is when Lady Catherine, having vehemently told Elizabeth of her disapproval of an engagement between her and Darcy, it occurred to Elizabeth that Lady Catherine would need to:

. . . meditate an application to her nephew
p340

I doubt this is about sending a thought to her nephew as waves from one mind to another, or sitting cross-legged chanting an Om. Words have changed in meaning and this required a little care.

For me this is a book about marriage and the role of women, manners and to some smaller degree inheritance. We have marriages stemming from eloping and in Lydia's case passion, from an acceptance that a place in the world can only be gained through this institution, the prudence of Charlotte to use an Austen word, marriages stemming from misunderstandings - Jane and Elizabeth but also dependent on social class where Darcy and his cousin were promised to each other at birth. It seems that marriage absolves all sins. In Lydia's case it wiped away the social impropriety of living together even though their behaviour did not change.

Elizabeth's parents' marriage was not a happy one, passion and imprudence, with her father tiring of her mother after about five years and absconding to his office/library to read and take little part in the family life. Usually inequality in marriage is shown through wealth, as it is here due to the inheritance laws, but also inequality in interests, knowledge of the world and of feelings.

Elizabeth's marriage is one of respect for each other, as is Jane's, accompanied by the idea that people can change their minds. The lesson in Jane's courtship is that if you don't show your feelings clearly they can be misinterpreted and in Elizabeth's that speaking your mind is one way to gain respect with your future husband if not Lady Catherine. One of the symbols of this idea that minds do not have to be small and narrow is the size of Darcy's library. It suggests broad-mindedness and because it was built up over generations, a steadiness in the person and family and their ideas.

So, the marriage that contains both passion and prudence is the winner! One we should strive for and probably not the sort of marriage that was all that common at the time the book was written. It's yet another universal theme.

Our key question for book club is what makes a classic? Here are some of my ideas so far:

The universality of the story, be that characters, plot, themes or structure

It translates well to other media

You can see traces of the novel in present day books

It bears a rereading and you see more in it each time you do

Anything can be classic or a modern classic - each person can decide for themselves what a classic is

Classics are not always the same as those books that make up the literary canon. If a book is in the canon it will usually be a classic but not all classics are in the canon. ( )

EVERYTHING happens in this novel. Is incredibly readable and funny, mostly from Mr. Bennet and Elizabeth wich have a very sarcastic sense of humor. It seems that Jane Austen is talking through them and telling us how ridiculously superficial most relationships and judgment of people are, so much so as to be fearfully fragil. There is gossip a plenty, as for the name of the novel. ( )