Synopsis:
Chapter 7:
A militia regiment has made Meryton its winter headquarters, and Catherine and Lydia are enjoying the society of the officers. The Bingley sisters invite Jane to dine at Netherfield; Jane gets caught in the rain on the way over, gets sick, and is forced to stay the night. Elizabeth walks over the next morning to see how she’s doing. Jane is still very ill, so Elizabeth remains at Netherfield to help care for her.
We learn that Longbourn is entailed to a distant relation (more about entails in the notes) and learn about Mrs Bennet’s connections.
Chapter 8: The evening at Netherfield. A discussion of reading and “accomplishments.”
We learn that Darcy has a younger sister, and that their house in Derbyshire is named Pemblerley.
Chapter 9: Mrs Bennet comes to check up on Jane.
Chapter 10: Elizabeth’s second evening at Netherfield. A discussion of handwriting leads to a discussion of character. Miss Bingley plays the piano-forte. Mr Darcy asks Elizabeth to dance but, with an arch joke, she declines.
Chapter 11: Jane is recovered enough to join the party that evening. Elizabeth and Darcy discuss character and temperament.
Chapter 12: Jane and Elizabeth leave Netherfield.
Notes and comments from Peony:
Chapter 7: Entailments were legal restrictions placed on inherited property to keep it in the family. For example, an owner might be unable to sell or mortgage his property, or — in this case — leave it to a daughter. Since Mr Bennet has no sons, and since he inherited Longbourn with these “strings”, when he dies their distant relative will inherit Longbourn. (Keep in mind the implications for the financial security of his widow and his daughters.)
The horses: Longbourn is part of an agricultural community — Mr Bennet farms his propery, and the horses are needed to help get the harvest in.
Jane’s cold: When Jane takes to her bed, she is not being a drama queen. The people of that time didn’t always use the same words for illnesses that we do now, so a cold could mean anything from a drippy nose to a serious case of influenza (and Jane is described as being very feverish.) Disease was nothing to underestimate, as a bad cold could turn into a serious — even fatal — case of pneumonia. For all Bingley’s four thousand a year, he cannot even offer Jane a Tylenol for her headache. “Draughts” are medication.
Chapter 8: “Accomplishments” — last week we talked about how young ladies usually studied music. Here we see some of the other things they are usually expected to study, including art and handwork (Bingley talks about covering screens and netting purses), modern languages (usually French or Italian) and dancing. Some of these were very practical — for example, in an age before photographs, drawing was a very useful art to possess. (Jane Austen’s sister Cassandra painted Jane’s only surviving portrait.)
Elizabeth and Darcy use “comprehend” in the sense of “encompass.”
As soon as Elizabeth is out the door, Miss Bingley refers to her as “Eliza Bennet,” omitting her title and her full name. Given the formality of the time, and the fact that Miss Bingley and Elizabeth are not intimate friends and is speaking of her in front of others, including gentlemen…well, this shows us how superficial Miss Bingley’s manners are, even down to basic social skills.
Cheapside is an unfashionable commercial neighborhood in London.
“Playing high” — loo is a gambling game. (It was common to wager when playing cards.)
Pemberley is Mr Darcy’s home in the county of Derbyshire. From his own comments and the admiration of Bingley and his sisters, we can draw the conclusion that he is of an old and established family, and that Pemberley is quite a place.
Chapter 9: Mrs Bennet just makes a complete fool of herself. The spectacle would be even funnier if Elizabeth weren’t standing right there (and trying not to cringe too obviously.)
We see that Lydia is not shy at all. “Stout, well-grown” here just means that she’s healthy and sturdy-looking, not that she’s fat (though emaciation was far from being the standard of feminine beauty that it is now.)
Chapter 10: The shrubbery — one of the large gardens in the path of the house. I always picture little gravel paths in a pattern, lined by cute little boxwoods.
In these chapters we get to see much more of Bingley, his sisters, and Darcy. We also get to measure our impressions against Elizabeth’s. For example, I think we would agree with Elizabeth that Bingley is a very kind and genuine fellow. We see he doesn’t care for conflict — when the discussion starts getting heated, he changes the subject — and he himself confirms our impression from Chapter One: that he’s prone to hurrying, and that his decisions are easily influenced.
The Bingley sisters (particularly Caroline Bingley) are really pieces of work, aren’t they? Their ridiculing Elizabeth’s uncles for being “in trade” is particularly hypocritical, since their own father was in trade and their family’s fortune is so new that Bingley doesn’t even have an estate yet — they are hardly landed gentry. One wonders about Louisa Hurst’s choice of husband, as well — Mr Hurst was described as being a man of “more fashion than fortune” earlier, and when there is no loo to be had he just plops down for a nap on the sofa.
Caroline’s blatant (and catastrophic) attempts to win Darcy’s attention always make me chuckle, especially when she resorts to dragging Elizabeth with her on her little promenade around the room. It’s funny how every time she tries to attract Darcy’s attention, she ends up getting left behind while Darcy and Elizabeth get into a very involved conversation. Even when she plays the pianoforte, her display leads to Darcy asking Elizabeth to dance. (Poor Darcy. He just can’t win, can he?) By the way, this is now the third time an invitation to dance has been refused. I think this would qualify as a Recurring Theme, wouldn’t it?
I’d like to suggest that we take a close look at Darcy and Elizabeth’s conversations as part of this week’s discussion. Is Darcy being fair to Elizabeth? Is Elizabeth being fair to Darcy?
(Let’s keep in mind that, before Elizabeth’s stay at Netherfield, we’ve only seen two encounters between Elizabeth and Darcy. The first was at the Meryton ball, when Darcy wouldn’t dance with or talk to anyone (his flat refusal of Elizabeth was not meant for her to hear, and he almost certainly doesn’t know he was overheard); the second, at the Lucas party, when Darcy asked her to dance and was refused.)
At the end of Chapter 12, Jane and Elizabeth are preparing to leave. Bingley is genuinely sorry to see them go. Miss Bingley is glad to be rid of them.
Darcy is also glad to see them go. In Chapter 11 we are told that Darcy believes that “the inferiority of her connections” (their relatives in trade) is what keeps him from being in “real danger” of falling in love with Elizabeth. (If he is really so invulnerable to her charm, why does he have to reassure himself of the fact?) I like this line in Chapter 12: “Elizabeth had been at Netherfield long enough. She attracted him more than he liked — and Miss Bingley was uncivil to her, and more teazing than usual to himself.” Even when he’s wishing her gone, part of the reason he’s wishing her gone is — he doesn’t like Miss Bingley’s being so mean to her!
Since Mr Darcy does not wish to fall in love with Elizabeth, he decides to make good and sure that she doesn’t get the wrong idea, so he ignores her through the last day of her visit. Is Mr Darcy being completely honest with himself? How will his action affect Elizabeth’s opinion of him?And how accurate is his perception of Elizabeth’s opinion of him?
At this point I’d have to say that I am enjoying Peony’s commentary far more than I am the book. I’ve found that I have to read the assigned chapters and Peony’s commentary right before commenting on them myself or I’ll lose any memory of the story. I think the problem continues to be the considerable difference in fiction techniques between Miss Austen’s day and our own. Practically everything but actual dialogue is told, not shown. The dialogue itself is troublesome to follow because there is not a logical progression between speakers that I can discern. Someone who I didn’t realize was part of the conversation — or even in the room — will hop in; or the conversation will suddenly shift and leave me behind.
As a side note on the dialogue, I find it amusing to see that there are some similarities between modern genre fiction and Austen’s fiction. One of the notable similarities is Austen’s affection for a certain pet dialogue tag. In one modern romance author I’ve read, I’ve been annoyed that her characters run around announcing their dialogue. For Austen, her characters cried so much that I was tempted to pass around a box of Kleenex. Yes, yes, Austen means cried in the sense of exclaimed. It is still disconcerting to envision a roomful of sobbing people. These days, conscientious authors try not to overuse the affectation of assigning action to dialogue tags and realize that said is sufficiently invisible for the purposes of attributing dialogue.
For me, the best scenes are the interaction between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. Mr. Bennet is a long-suffering, indulgent father who amuses himself with dry remarks that often fly over his wife’s head. For all her flightiness, ambition for her children, and general busybodiness, Mrs. Bennet is a loving mother and wife. It is with their sparring that Austen is at her best.
Michelle,
some suggestions, if I may — and apologies if I sound a little clipped — I accidentally deleted this the first time around, so this is a rewrite and I’m running a little short on time.
As far as forgetting what happened, perhaps reading ahead would help. You may be getting a little bogged down simply because our speed right now is somewhere between glaciers and plate tectonics.
Fiction techniques do differ greatly between JA’s time and now. Part of it was that she was helping to develop the art of the novel itself — the first novel in English, Robinson Crusoe, was not even a century old. JA was still working on perfecting narration, point of view, and other technical issues.
If the bulk of your fiction reading up to now has been in contemporary genre fiction, you are also developing new habits of reading. Your patience and persistence will be rewarded. Contemporary fiction can be fun and entertaining, but for the most part it also doesn’t make a lot of demands on the reader. It’s a step up from TV, but it’s still pretty passive. Now you’re not only reading writing from another time, with a very different (and much more complex) manner of expression, about a society very different from our own, but you’re also reading a book that rewards the active, alert, thoughtful reader.
As far as people “crying” too much and the dialogue being a little unclear, even Homer nods 🙂 I think that one chapter at Netherfield, when Mrs Bennet and Elizabeth both “cry”, is probably the worst for that. (At least she doesn’t overuse adverbs, Peony cried affectionately.) I’m sure that if Miss Austen had had a little more time for revision, she would have taken care of that. And as you continue to get used to Miss Austen’s style, you’ll get the knack of keeping up with the repartee.
It might help if you put on your contrarian hat and tried to lay aside that “show don’t tell” thing as much as possible. For one thing, the phrase was not even coined until at least seventy years after JA’s death. I don’t think it really became the shibboleth it is today until after Hemingway (who omitted narration because he stank at it) became so popular and after the creative writing industry got started. Remember, that industry specializes in cranking it out and getting published. It is an important principle, but, as s this writer points out, it can be over done. Terry suggested last week, and I agree with her, that contemporary fiction frequently tends to overdo it. When SDT is over used, it comes off (to me at least) as grating, spoon-feeding, entertainment for the passive reader — and, ultimately, padding; it’s not necessary to “show” everything if it doesn’t directly advance the plot or provide a truly deeper understanding of the character. It doesn’t give the reader a chance to use his own imagination and enter into the book. And when a writer is judicious with description, it makes the moments when he does describe something in detail that much more memorable.
Miss Austen shows us mostly dialogue because in this book about relationships and perception, that’s how the plot gets advanced. That’s how we learn about the characters, by seeing how they interact with each other. For example, that’s how you’ve been able to draw conclusions about the Bennets. (And please, hold those thoughts on the Bennets, we’re going to need them.)
I would love to hear your thoughts on the scenes between Miss Bingley and Darcy. They crack me up — the contrast between her well-bred pushiness — look at ME! pay attention to ME! and Darcy’s cool, knowing, “Yes. No. Perhaps.”