I first read this book in my early teens. Well over 50 years ago, then... It was assigned as a class text, and we were given chunks to read week by week. I have a distinct memory of myself, standing for some reason in an empty classroom waiting for something, and wolfing through the chapters.

Since then, I've seen the BBC adaptation, more than once. But I've never re-read it.

So why now?

-- Its author, Jane Austen, was born 250 years ago (expect lots of celebrations -- it'll be like Kafka all over again). She lived from 1775 to 1817, and I find it incredible that this sparkling, witty prose was written so long ago by such a young woman.
-- Haley Larsen was organizing a group read.
-- And we've not long come back from Derbyshire, which is important in the plot. (See this post on the question of whether Bakewell is "Lambton"; this one on Matlock; and this thorough discussion of the River Trent -- which some people argue Jane Austen actually never went north of -- and of the strong likelihood that Pemberley, which is Darcy's noble Derbyshire pile, is modelled on Chatsworth.)


Chatsworth, 2019

In 1796-97 (ie, when she was 21 or so), Austen wrote First Impressions. This was then later revised and published -- in 1813 -- under the title Pride and Prejudice. It was her second novel.

And the rest is history... Everyone knows the story. There's the Bennet family, and their five girls. Five girls who must be married, because what else can a girl do? Five girls whom it's even more important to marry off in this case because their father's estate is entailed (ie, can only pass to a male heir). Five girls whose marriages constitute their mother's only waking thought (and we laugh at her -- but if her husband had died, while the girls remained single, they would all have been wholly dependent on their relatives).

Hence Mrs Bennet's mission. Hence that famous opening line, when a promising new man shows up in the neighbourhood: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

Jane is the most beautiful (and also the kindest) of the five. Elizabeth is by far the smartest (and the most outspokenly intolerant). Mary combines indifferent looks with a precociously sententious manner. Lydia is infinitely the silliest of the family. Kitty is the most malleable one, silly when with Lydia, more sensible in the company of her older sisters.

The young men on the scene are Bingley (the new kid on the block, charming, and instantly in love with Jane, but too easily persuaded that the marriage would be a bad idea); Darcy (initially the pantomime nasty guy, whom we all want to boo, but later the great hero, and the one whose character undergoes the most development); Collins (unbearable throughout in his obsequiousness and sanctimoniousness); and Wickham (initially delightful company, but turns out to be a thoroughly bad egg).

Eventually, Jane ends up with Bingley (but only after a big hiatus in the middle when the two are separated by Darcy); Elizabeth with Darcy (but only after she has been cured of her prejudice, and he of some of his pride; and Lydia with Wickham (but only after scandalously running away with him, necessitating Darcy, for love of Elizabeth, to offer financial incentives for the young man to return the youngest Bennet sister to some degree of respectability).



So, what surprised me, after all these years?

1.

First time round, I'm sure I read the novel primarily as a romance. Now, horribly older, I'm more intrigued by the commentary on social power and money. There's SUCH a lot about money... How much people have; how they got it; how their holdings might be consolidated by judicious marriages; how they might lose it (for example, through entailment -- or, of course, through gambling habits such as Wickham's); how dependent they are on the goodwill of richer, more powerful people... And people are minutely aware of the situation of others (Collins is the arch-example here, incorporating in his proposal to Elizabeth the little nugget that "one thousand pounds in the 4 per cents, which will not be yours till after your mother's decease, is all that you may ever be entitled to").

When Elizabeth rejects Collins's offer, and family friend Charlotte Lucas agrees to be his wife, we groan. But Charlotte is just being pragmatic. Turning down a proposal is risky. She may never get another one, let alone a better one. Anyone reading the book when it came out must have been aghast at Elizabeth's temerity in turning down not just one but TWO proposals (she rejects Darcy first time round, too), because of her insistence on placing love, not finance, at the top of her wish list... This could have gone so badly wrong... Mrs Bennet is aghast (and she doesn't even know about the second one). She is not at all bothered whether her daughters end up happy. She just wants them to end up MARRIED, because marriage equals financial security. As far as she is concerned, all's well that ends well with Lydia.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, is revolted by the whole Wickham-Lydia business: "For THIS we are to be thankful. That they should marry, small as is their chance of happiness, and wretched as is his character, we are forced to rejoice."

Lady Catherine (Darcy's aunt and Mr Collins's patroness) is another who illustrates very clearly what is what in contemporary society. She makes very clear to Elizabeth that she will be upsetting a major apple cart if she accepts Darcy's proposal (which at this point he has not even yet reiterated). She brings to bear on poor Elizabeth the whole weight of the family line, hereditary power, the possibility of amalgamating ancient estates, even destiny itself. For putting cats among these time-honoured pigeons, she warns, Elizabeth will be socially ostracised. Again, contemporary readers must have cheering and quaking in equal measure.



2.

I remember, as a teenager, falling right in with the narrator's initial view that Mrs Bennet is a very stupid woman, while her husband is quite a cool customer. Re-reading, I feel rather sorry for Mrs B... Mr Bennet is actually quite nasty to his wife. And so is the narrator: "She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news." Yes, she's limited in her understanding, but she probably didn't choose to be uninformed and uneducated. She does care about her children, and has no choice but to follow the system of the day. And he must be pretty annoying, looking down on her the whole time, and ridiculing her to her children.

They're a sad pair -- in many ways the saddest of the book. This is what happened to them: "[He], captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humor which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence had vanished forever; and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown... To his wife he was very little otherwise indebted, than as her ignorance and folly had contributed to his amusement. This is not the sort of happiness which a man would in general wish to owe to his wife; but where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given."

Towards the end, when he doubts Elizabeth's affection for Darcy (who by now has proposed for the second time), he tells her, rather poignantly: "I know that you could be neither happy nor respectable unless you truly esteemed your husband -- unless you looked up to him as a superior... My child, let me not have the grief of seeing YOU unable to respect your partner in life."

The problem is, though, that he's not just disappointed, which has made him cynical and rather cruel; he's also largely ineffective as a father, abdicating responsibility for his daughters, rather than attempting to guide and restrain them. Even when Elizabeth expressly urges him to stop Lydia going to Brighton, he makes light of her reasoning, remaining aloof, diffident, and reluctant to take the lead. The bad behaviour of one young woman in the family can -- according to the mores of the day -- make it more difficult for the others to attract suitors. So his hands-off attitude is imperilling the whole family's marriage project -- which, as we've said, is the only game in town for our characters.

Even when he "repents" -- after Lydia's debacle has brought disgrace on them all -- it's in a cynical manner: "Let me once in my life feel how much I have been to blame. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression. It will pass away soon enough."



3.

This time round, I really wondered how much Darcy's apparently proud and haughty manner is related to his shyness and introversion (this impression was also corroborated by one of the members of the reading group): "'I certainly have not the talent which some people possess,' said Darcy, 'of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.'" This doesn't excuse the insulting terms of that first proposal (which he himself is later very embarrassed about), but it does partly explain them. Darcy is perhaps not socially attuned enough to know what he can say out loud, and what he can't. What's more, he's smart enough to resent, for his own part, the way the women (and their mothers) objectify him, and anti-social enough to make that resentment apparent.

4.

I had forgotten many things about Elizabeth. How interested she initially was in Wickham, for example. And how gullible. How wilfully she swallows his sob story, cranking up her disparagement of Darcy another notch when Jane, Charlotte, and Miss Bingley variously offer countervailing arguments. Mrs Gardiner, too (Mrs B's sister-in-law, and Elizabeth's aunt), warns her off Wickham -- although the motivation here is financial rather than ethical ("you must not let your fancy run away with you... your father would depend on your resolution and good conduct"). At one point, Wickham begins to pursue someone else, who has just come into GBP 10,000, leading Elizabeth to query: "What is the difference in matrimonial affairs, between the mercenary and the prudent motive? Where does discretion end, and avarice begin?" Hmmm. Good question.

Elizabeth is also much more cutting than I remember her, really quite nasty about Sir William Lucas ("Elizabeth loved absurdities, but she had known Sir William's too long"), and his daughter Maria ("as empty-headed as himself"). Preparing to visit Mr Collins and Charlotte, and disillusioned with the hypocrisy of everything, she exclaims: "I am going tomorrow where I shall find a man who has not one agreeable quality, who has neither manner nor sense to recommend him. Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing, after all." She plays cards with the party at Rosings, and finds her table "superlatively stupid". We love her, and cheer her on. But she would probably have been hard work in real life.



5.

As a (huh hem) no longer young person, I had to laugh at the way Elizabeth looks forward to travelling with the Gardiners, and resolves to keep all her recollections in order: "Oh! what hours of transport we shall spend! And when we DO return, it shall not be like other travellers, without being able to give one accurate idea of anything. We WILL know where we have gone -- we WILL recollect what we have seen. Lakes, mountains, and rivers shall not be jumbled together in our imaginations; nor when we attempt to describe any particular scene, will we begin quarrelling about its relative situation. Let our first effusions be less insupportable than those of the generality of travellers."

That has to be a young person writing... Those of us who are more mature know only too well how the arguments go: "This one was taken in A." "No, it was B. It was the following year we went to A." "No, it's definitely A. Effalump is there, and she didn't come to B." "Yes, she did." Etc.

6.

I found this context on the military background to the novel really interesting:

"Pride and Prejudice... describes the disruptive effects of the militia (the equivalent of the Territorial Army) on civilian life and morality... By 1813, the south of England resembled a military camp: in 1793 there had been only 17 permanent infantry barracks; within twelve years there were 168. Soldiers overran the smallest towns, drinking and womanizing." Wow, plenty of room for plots for novels there.



***

I rarely re-read things. There are so many books out there, after all, and I have too little time for the ones I've not read, let alone revisiting ones I have. But this has been very much worth it. It was great to have a guide to point things out, and great to have a community of readers chipping in their twopence-worth from their different perspectives.