so while im wiping down the bookshelves with the vinegar and borax and lemon juice and baking soda and paint mixture you all recommended it fell over on top of me and there sailor boy found me trapped by my own love of literature.
im in a full body cast and am typing this with my nose.
______________________________________________________
Or, um, I’ve got some sort of mystery ague, which resulted in me spending the day wrapped up in an afghan on the couch, watching the DVD of the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice for the two hundred and seventy-eighth time. Doesn’t matter how many times I watch this film. I always find something new to chew on.
It occurs to me that although we hear an enormous amount about people’s income in the story, we never know what the Bennets have. I know some of the people who read this blog know much more about life in Regency England than I do. What do the Bennets make? Mr. Darcy clears 10k per year, Mr. Bingley 4k/year, Mary King has a 10k inheritance coming her way (in passing, what’s the expected income on that? Is it enough to live on?) and of course, Georgiana’s 50,000 pounds. Mr. Wickham gets 3,000 pounds in place of the living the elder Mr. Darcy had wanted for him, which makes me wonder how much the living was worth (did he go down in the way that the “lump sum” lotto winners take a huge pay cut?) And if so, how much are the Collinses living on while waiting for Mr. Bennet to kick it?
When watching the scene where Lizzie turns down Mr. Collins, I always wonder what I would do in her position. I feel as if my experience is so vastly different than a Regency miss that I wouldn’t be able to relate. But I do see Mrs. Bennet’s position here. She’s looking ahead to that day when they are all shoved out onto the street. No one wants to end up like the Dashwood girls, you know?
Of course, at the place where the proposal occurs (at least in the movie, it’s been years since I’ve read the book) all the Bennets figure that the proposal from Mr. Bingley to Jane is imminent. There’s no reason to think that Jane and her husband’s 4k per year won’t be able to keep their family in the black without assistance from the inheriting cousin. So Mrs. Bennet can chill, thinking that Jane will save everyone from destitution should Mr. Bennet die.
That being said, I also see why Mrs. Bennet would be into the idea of keeping the family money in the family. That’s why they all married their cousins to start with. (Remember, Lady Catherine wants her daughter to marry Mr. Darcy, and they are first cousins.) But I think that Lizzie and Mr. Collins are actually second cousins, since his name is Collins, and his father is the one who had a “disagreement” with Mr. Bennet. If they were first cousins, wouldn’t he be a Bennet as well?
But I digress. I’ve always understood Charlotte Lucas’s choice to marry Mr. Collins. He’s not a mean man, he has good prospects, and her options are to a) get married or b) be forever a burden to her brother. The draw of being mistress of her own estate (in the same neighborhood as her family) with a family of her own must have been very inviting — no matter who the husband was that came along for the ride.
I think that Lizzie, in her decision not to marry Mr. Collins, is also relying a good deal on what she believes is the inevitable Jane/Bingley marriage. If Mr. Collins had delayed for a few days, would Lizzie have hesitated more? Would she have been so very adamant about not marrying him? (Though perhaps, if he’d delayed a few days, he may have directed his advances towards Jane instead, who I think might have snatched him up, out of duty to her family alone.)
Would I, in Lizzie’s place, have married Mr. Collins? Hmmm… food for thought.
Fortunately, I live in a world where I can make my own money and don’t need to get married unless I want to. Yay for women’s rights.
April 17th, 2007 at 8:30 am
what is a “mystery ague?”
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 8:36 am
Diana, there’s a huge (meaning set aside a few hours and prepare to get lost in it) website, The Republic of Pemberley at http://www.pemberley.com, a must-bookmark site for fans of Austen and especially P&P. According to a post linked from their FAQ section, 10,000 pounds in 1810 is roughly estimated to be worth about $450,000 today.
When my DH was overseas five years ago, I watched the A&E DVD of P&P every Saturday afternoon. It became so routine that come 3 pm each Saturday, my older autistic son would pull it out and bring it to me without my having said a word to him. (Mom’s enabler!)
I dare not say anything more about Pride and Prejudice because I may never shut up and you might need a court order to get me out of here.
Rest, get better, drink plenty of fluids . . . and watch more P&P!
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 8:56 am
Lala, it’s an undiagnosed illness. Undiagnosed from mystery and ague is a fever with chills and aches.
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 9:03 am
Hugs on being sick, Diana.
I now have a sudden urge to pop P&P in the dvd player. Must resist . . . must resist . . .
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Welcome to DC in the Spring (even if we have high winds and it is cold, we will call it spring). In the Spring, everyone in the DC Metro get the plague (or mystery ague)! You will know that Spring is over and Summer has arrived in DC when your no one in your circle of friends is sick and it is SO humid out that you can cut it with a knife.
FEEL BETTER!!!
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 9:14 am
It would be easier to type with a pencil in your mouth than with your nose. I thought you were better at troubleshooting than this, Diana.
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 9:20 am
Is this the Maureen Canadian Plague? [ducking from Maureen...
] Hope you feel better!
Marley = )
…who just got over it on Sunday
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Would you have married Mr. Collins? Good God, woman, he’s _Mr. Collins_! Of course not!
Sheesh.
(But then I never could understand how Charlotte could marry him. Who the husband is would be very important to me. {g})
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 9:57 am
I forgot to say…no, I wouldn’t have married Mr. Collins. I likely would have started penning erotic novels under a penname and sold them under cloak of night in order to support my family. Which is why I prefer modern romance novels to the old ones, though P&P is a favorite and well…anything with Colin Firth.
Did I ever tell you about the time that I actually called in sick to school so I could stay home and watch this wonderful new discovery called the BBC version of P&P–I was a teacher at the time. No lie.
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Oh, Diana, I’m SO happy for you that you spent the day with Darcy. It makes me want to catch a cold and have to do the same. That moment when Lizzie is at the piano, turning the pages for Georgina, and Lizzie and Darcy exchange that Look, and Darcy actually smiles just a little–
SWOON!!!!!
I don’t think Lizzie would have married Mr. Collins no matter what. Even though she’s all innocent, you can tell she understands that marriage involves sex, and the thought of sex with my Comb-over–EWWWWW!!! Lizzie would rather walk in the woods until she starves and turns into dust. She loves her family, but no one is worth having to kiss Mr. Ick.
Jane might have married him, but then Jane didn’t have spunk. Lizzie would have interfered. She would have kidnapped her and made one of the younger sisters marry him.
Speaking of which, don’t you think the middle sister Mary had a thing for Mr. Collins? That match would have worked out very nicely.
Hope you feel better soon, but not so soon that you don’t get to enjoy another day of P & P. Nothing wrong with back-to-back marathons.
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 10:21 am
I’d like to comment, but I have never seen it.
Questions: Has SB seen it? Will watching it turn me gay? Will I immediately have to watch one of the Conan movies to feel masculine again? Is Hugh Grant in it?
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Oh, and being an admitted nerd, I searched the e-text of P&P, and found the exact numbers for the Bennets:
Mr. Bennet’s property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed, in default of heirs male, on a distant relation; and their mother’s fortune, though ample for her situation in life, could but ill supply the deficency of his. Her father had been an attorney in Meryton, and had left her four thousand pounds.
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 11:09 am
I think that being one of those poor Dashwood girls is still better than being married to Mr. Collins.
Furthermore, I think that Lizzie’s horror and discomfort (which I remember as being even more pronounced in the book) over Charlotte’s marrying him and having to visit them proves to me that she would have never caved.
Also, remember Mr. Bennet’s advice to her about not letting her be disappointed by her partner in life? And the way he destroyed Mrs. Bennet’s attempts to get them married? He might not have let her marry Collins anyway.
And also, wasn’t she interested in Wickham at that point?
(As a side note, in the 1940 version of P&P Mary and Collins do get married. But it’s a pretty silly movie).
Okay, I’m done talking now.
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 11:39 am
LOL re the bookcase attack!
I’m a P&P newbie insofar as film versions are concerned. Last week I watched my first: the version directed by Simon Langton and starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. I think it was put out by BBC/A&E. Is this the version I should have watched, or is there another one worth watching 278 times?
Kudos to Susan Adrian for zeroing in on the Bennets’ income. I had made an earlier guess which was wildly off, and have spared myself further embarrassment by deleting it.
And no, Lizzie would not have married Mr. Collins under any circumstances. She, too, has her pride, as well as her prejudices.
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Karen, that can’t be right. I know a couple of people who clear 450k/yr and they do not live in the splendor that Mr. Darcy does. Maybe Mr. Bingley… Although I guess servants were much cheaper then, too.
And I think I figured out the interest, too… Mr. Collins says to Lizzie “Your share of four thousand pounds in the four percents” is 800 pounds, which gives an expected annual income of 32 pounds. Ouch. Compared to Mary King, whom Wickham was after, who cleared 400 pounds a year, which is a pretty good start, I suppose, but I don’t know if a man like Wickham could live on it considering that the Dashwoods had 500. Too bad he missed out on Georgiana, who has 2k per year, which means they could live as comfortably as the Bennets just on that.
________________________
Nessa, I can figure out what’s wrong with me. Must be DC spring.
_________________________
Heather, I know. I’m such a disappointment.
_________________________
Marley, I don’t think it’s that. I’m just achy and tired all the time. No cough or anything. I’m almost ready to think it’s mono, but I already had mono, and Sailor Boy had better not be going around kissing someone else!
__________________________
Susan, I just think that’s so easy to say now. I always think of that scene in Moulin Rouge where Ewan McGregor says, “A life without love — that’s terrible!” and Nicole Kidman responds, “No, living on the street, THAT’S terrible.”
I used to feel the way that Lizzie does — indeed, the way that all Jane Austen characters do, where they are miraculously able to turn down suitable offers (even if they are abused for it, as Fanny is in Mansfield Park) and I took this amazing class at school called WOMEN AND THE RISE OF THE NOVEL, and it had three girls in it and we all took the class because we loved Jane Austen. The prof had us write out our thoughts at the beginning of the class. And the professor proceeded to beat it out of us by giving us all these books that were contemporary to Austen but didn’t end that way to show us what the lives of women were like beyond the mannered world of Austen. The Pricess of Cleves and Clarissa and, most importantly, I think, Millenium Hall, which had inside of it allt ehse stories that were almost the exact same premise as Jane Austen’s stories but ended badly. theere was no Colonel brandon to save Marianne, Wickham did succeed in destroying the family, seduction and abandonment and poverty and all the bad things that could have happened to these ladies on the edge of society did happen. And at the end of the class, we all felt very differently about what we would have done in the Austen girls’ situation and couldn’t believed that we would have written that at the beginning of the class. Because marrying Mr. Collins might have sucked. but being impoverished and winding up on the streets (and perhaps prostituting oneself to a variety of people WORSE than Mr. Collins) would have really, REALLY sucked.
I think some of my feelings to that effect were reflected in this critique I wrote almost two years ago about one of my favorite romances, Susan Squires’s The Companion.
_______________________
Julie, no, I’ve never heard that story, but I’m not surprised at all. And of course, there were enterprising women like you — Aphra Behn springs to mind immediately — but at the same time, her life wasn’t all roses and she did take lovers for their ability to support her literary efforts. Being a woman kind of sucked.
_________________________
Bill, that’s the one. It runs circles around any other version I’ve seen, including the new (awful) Austen-meets-Bronte version where keira Knightley giggles throughout the whole thing. I can’t for the life of me figure how she got an Oscar nom out of it.
____________________________
Robin, that’s my favorite scene too. And yes, I think that Mary and Mr. Collins might have worked out nicely. At least the way the actress playing Mary made it seem in the BBC version. I think Jane would have done it, too — not for lack of spunk, but because she did feel a strong duty to her parents. then again, she thought she was going to marry Mr. Bingley at the time.
______________________
Patrick, SB has seen it a bunch, and so have my father, and both of my little brothers. My father loves it, and my one little brother rocked his highschool class on it because he knew the story so well from the movie. His teacher said he’d never participated so much (my brother is a Math Person). SB thinks it’s funny. They’re all quite straight. And no, Hugh Grant is not in it, though he *is* in the fabulous Ang Lee-directed Emma Thompson/Kate Winslet/Alan Rickman (Ala Rickman! Sigh!) version of Sense and Sensibility. Which I highly recommend. I think Emma Thompson was nominated (or did she win?) for an Oscar for doing the screenplay. I know she got a husband out of the proceedings, since she ended up marrying the guy who played Willoughby.
_________________________
eatrawfish, that’s a good point about Mr. Bennet. Then again, he doesn’t hide the fact that Lizzie is his favorite. He may have thrown his other daughters to the wolves.
And true, she is into Wickham at that time… but then again, he has nothing. so is she really thinking there’s a chance there? She doesn’t seem disappointed when he leaves to chase down the heiress, as if she knows quite well that they never could have married for monetary reasons.
One thing I never see discussed is how I remember reading the book that a lot of time is spent on Lizzie musing about marrying Col. Fitzwilliam, whom she gets along with famously at Rosings. I think at one point both she and Charlotte think that the Col. is going to propose, but in the movie, that whole thing is relegated to Maria saying “the Col. waited for you for over half an hour.” But I wonder if that really is all in their head, since the Col. drops many hints that Darcy is talking about Lizzie — he’s “surprised” to hear that they don’t get one, and keeps talking about this magical piano playing that all the Darcys seem to think Lizzie can do.
Also, I don’t think Mary marries Mr. Collins in the 40s version — the one with Olivier? No. Because at the end, the Bennets stick their head in the door and mary is flirting with a flute player and Kitty is flirting with some other guy… I do know they all end up with someone.
But I hate that version, since in that version lady catherine is acting mean as a test of some sort to see if Lizzie really loves Darcy, and that’s just… weird.
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Diana:
Yes…and I can see how that class would have changed your perspective.
BUT Austen draws both Elizabeth and Mr. Collins so clearly that I just _can’t_ see how she ever could marry him. As you say, Jane, yes, or even Mary. But Elizabeth just wouldn’t do it, I don’t think.
Oh, and Col. Fitzwilliam? I have NO idea why I think this, but I always had an idea that the good Colonel was gay. {shrug}
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
I may be wrong, but I believe that Mr. Collins is actually Mr. Bennet’s cousin. I recall having read this somewhere. Perhaps the P&P wiki page, not sure. Which could explain a name difference. Perhaps he was the son of Mr. Bennet’s sister.
*shrug*
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Diana, I’m going to have to call you on a comment foul…
You have exceeded 1000 words in a comment on a post of 725 words or less.
Multiple posts…
I’ll put in a good word for you with the blog owner this time, but really… Multiple posts…
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
I’m a huge fan of the book and read it often, but clearly I’m going to have to invest in the movie!
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Alas, I have not read Pride and Prejudice. The only Jane Austen book I’ve read is Sense and Sensibility. Usually too buried in a new fantasy book to read the classics.
Recently I saw an advertisement for the Pride & Prejudice movie with Keira Knightley which made me interested in both the movie and the book, so I’ll have to check it out.
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
ht but at the same time, her life wasn’t all roses and she did take lovers for their ability to support her literary efforts
And this is bad…why? I mean, if she had her pick…
Mary, do NOT get the Kiera Knightly version. Say it with me, “Colin Firth.” It’s the only one. Erica–it’s worth every penny. I’m swooning from the memories.
And hell, but Alan Rickmann is at his sexiest as Colonel Brandon. I do think Emma won the Oscar for that screenplay…had no idea she’d married Wiloughby!
[Reply]
April 17th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
I actually like the Kiera Knightly version (I know! Normally I’m the negative one).
For two reasons:
1) I’m just a huge sucker for the story. Total sucker. You want to re-enact it with Hamsters? Sure, I’ll bite. I think I even saw the Wishbone version.
2) Kiera Knightly actually feels 21 (which is how old Elizabeth is supposed to be). I loved Jennifer Ehle, but she does not feel 21 to me.
BUT, I do not compare that version in any way with the Colin Firth version.
[Reply]
April 18th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Hey, Marley. I take full responsibility for your cold but I think Diana’s is far enough removed from seeing me. I can’t be blamed for every cold in the future
[Reply]
April 18th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
I’m with eatrawfish on the Keira Knightly version.
I went in prepared to hate it and ended up loving it. I agree that she’s the right age and I loved that they let her be not so pretty. Messed up poorly cut hair. Flat chest. Darkish circles around her eyes. In the BBC version, Lizzie is prettier than Jane which always bothered me.
As much as I heart Colin Firth, I have to say I liked Matthew Macfadyen just as well, but in different ways. I loved the slight vulnerability he brought to the role and I really believed that he loved her. I was never quite so sure with Colin Firth.
I love some of the choices the director made too — like the dancing scene where everyone else in the room disappears or little touches and glances the director draws our attention to… Overall, I thought it was a really good film. (And I normally find Knightly annoying.)
As to Diana’s question… I think if the circumstances were slightly different… Lizzie may have said yes to Mr. Collins. She’s very practical and loyal to her family and fiesty enough to have known that even if it would be a loveless marriage, that she could get amusement elsewhere and that it would be easy for her to control the marriage. I actually believe that Lizzie would have married him more than I believe Jane would. Jane seemed more of a romantic to me. (although not as romantic as Marianne Dashwood.
[Reply]
November 11th, 2010 at 2:14 am
uggs on sale,uggs outlet,ugg bailey button triplet,ugg bailey button,cheap ugg boots,uggs boots,ugg boots sale,cheap uggs are retailed online now,naturally seek the ultimate in durability,you can wear these cheap uggs everywhere,as they are so warm.uggs on sale,cheap uggs,cheap ugg boots,ugg boots sale are your best choice as gifts to your close friends or parents,we can see these uggs on sale,discount uggs,cheap ugg boots,ugg boots on sale,Ugg Bailey Button Triplet should be sung,but no uncomfortable,uggs on sale,cheap uggs toe and heel are reinforced by double stitched.
[Reply]
January 23rd, 2011 at 10:14 pm
new era hats from us in lower price.
cheap new era hats should be a better choice.
Get discount through new era caps .
Would you like to new york yankees hats , we are the best supplier.
[Reply]