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Posted by Kim on November 11, 1996 at 12:07:09:
£ I have compiled a list of names from current and past posts (if I have missed anyone - I'm so very sorry but could only go by the info at hand). I have included the age and location of each person if it was available to me. Anyone who would like to add info -- just enter a post and I will add you (or update the info).
£ [TABLE SNIPPED -- see the original posting]
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I live in Tennessee
Posted by Eric on November 11, 1996 at 12:44:34:
£
£ ;
£ ; SCENE: Hunting Party at Netherfield
£ ; Roger: What are those men doing?
£ ; Father: Hunting.
£ ; Roger: Are they shooting peasants?
£ ; After I got done laughing, I explained that shooting peasants went out of style (except in Russia, China and a few other places) about fifty years before the events of this movie. Pheasant, however, are still shot.
£ ; _______
£ ; How wonderful. I am always amazed at how children hear/interpret many descriptions.
£ ; After I became an Austen addict (34 years ago), I managed to get my mother to read most of the novels. Now we discuss them over the phone. (She recently lost her eyesight, so I have loaned her my audiotapes -- all the novels except NA. I am planning to view S&S w/ her over Christmas; I will explain the non-dialogue portions, and I hope she will enjoy it.)
£ ; kathleen
£ _______
£ I've got a younger sister who's only four, but even she tells me, "I like Mr. Darcy!" You should hear the way she pronounces his name, it's so adorable!
£ Tay
_______
And Amy thought maybe there were not enough younger folk enjoying P&P2...
My eight year old daughter likes to play Mrs. Bennet to my six year old's Mr. Bennet. We were riding along in the car today when out of the blue, my six year old son says "And I will never see you again if you do." Right away "OH MR. BENNET!"
Eric
Follow Ups:
Posted by Eric on November 11, 1996 at 12:47:39:
£ I've had troubles deleting the original post too - I hope that following up Donna's message works!
£ I'm turning 20 this Thursday.
£ Saman
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Happy Birthday. May you live happily yet four times over.
Eric
Posted by genie on November 11, 1996 at 12:48:00:
£ I have compiled a list of names from current and past posts (if I have missed anyone - I'm so very sorry but could only go by the info at hand). I have included the age and location of each person if it was available to me. Anyone who would like to add info -- just enter a post and I will add you (or update the info).
£ [TABLE SNIPPED -- see the original posting]
_______
Genie ---California --- 50 <>
Posted by Bernie on November 11, 1996 at 12:51:53:
£ I have compiled a list of names from current and past posts (if I have missed anyone - I'm so very sorry but could only go by the info at hand). I have included the age and location of each person if it was available to me. Anyone who would like to add info -- just enter a post and I will add you (or update the info).
£ [TABLE SNIPPED -- see the original posting]
_______
Anne,
I've tried to add the relevant information to the table, but just incase it hasn't appeared,
I'm currently residing in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire in the UK. (For any English lurkers out there, no jokes about concrete cows please!)
Bernie
Posted by Genie on November 11, 1996 at 12:56:50:
£
£ : I wonder if Lady C dared to use such language with Darcy when she related her conversation with Lizzy to him? Wouldn't it have been nice to see Darcy's reaction to that speech?
£ : Cheryl
£
£ ___________________
£ The first time I saw P&P2 I was hoping that this interview between Darcy and Lady C would form one of the added scenes - Andrew Davies inserts are, for the most part satisfactory to enthralling, and I would have loved to have his interpretation of this scene. The other scene I would really have liked to see in episode 6 is the interview between Darcy and Mr B, when Darcy asks to marry Lizzy. After all, the main fault of P&P2 is that it is *much* too short. If the above scenes, and all the dialogue between Lizzy and Darcy in the text had been included (and I wouldn't be averse to some made-up stuff between Darcy and Lizzy after they're engaged either), surely they could have extended it to 7 hours.
£ I dream of persuading them to shoot some extra footage.
£ Anna
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Anna,
If you would like to read someone's fantasies about the scenes left out of P&P, go to Friends of Firth (link here somehwere, I think) and to More Colin. They are sometimes over-the-top but fun to read nonetheless. Of course, I agree with you, Davies should have invented and filled in more. Seven hours wouldn't even be long enough to safisfy me! Genie
Posted by Eric on November 11, 1996 at 12:59:24:
£ This is a good analogy, and I agree with you and Eric. The argument about JA not being in control of her characters seems to me the easiest to refute, but it is also unfortunately, the one I care least about, if you understand?
£ The thing I like best about JA is that among all the thoroughly enjoyable irony, comedy, and all the sharp observations of the idiocy surrounding us, there is this gleam or thread of sanity, goodness, wisdom, and knowing what is right and striving for it, which wins out in the end. I know this puts me in the pitiably incurable idealist catagory, but there it is! And its an attack on that sense of hope that I find difficult. I guess I like the assumption that JA had a similar idealism. In one way, it doesn't matter too much if you can draw what you want out of a story, but then 'what becomes of the moral, if our comfort springs from a breach of promise....This will never do'
£ Hilary
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I intended to refute more than just the notion that Jane Austen was not in control of her characters. Mr. Conrad also mistakes the place irony takes in her stories. It is not necessarily the language of the underdog, but at times the language of the keenly observant. Mr. Collins, for example, is incapable of understanding Lizzie's ironic comments not because Lizzie is at a disadvantage, but because he is. He simply cannot see himself nor how stupid and silly he appears. Similarly Mrs. Bennet's difficulties in comprehending her husband. Nor is irony necessarily a language of hatred. An ironic or sarcastic comment can turn a potentially painful critique into a joke to be accepted in good humor without lessening the force of the critique or the lesson to be learned. Used well, irony can be a tool which allows the one critiqued to "save face" and thus can be very loving. Jane (Bennet) comments to the effect that she misses Lizzie BECAUSE Lizzie makes her laugh at herself, i.e, Lizzie's ironic notes on life make it easier for Jane (and later Darcy) to take themselves less seriously. I cannot imagine that someone as compassionate as Jane would appreciate Lizzie or Mr. Bennet as much as she obviously does if irony were, in Austen's usage, a language of hate driven by the oppressed (Lizzie, Mr. Bennet) at the oppressor (Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Collins, et al). As I sais earlier, Mr. Conrad grossly underestimates Jane Austen and thoroughly misunderstands the usage of irony in her novels.
Eric
Posted by Cheryl on November 11, 1996 at 13:04:16:
£ I've got a younger sister who's only four, but even she tells me, "I like Mr. Darcy!" You should hear the way she pronounces his name, it's so adorable!
£ Tay
_______
And Amy thought maybe there were not enough younger folk enjoying P&P2...
My eight year old daughter likes to play Mrs. Bennet to my six year old's Mr. Bennet. We were riding along in the car today when out of the blue, my six year old son says "And I will never see you again if you do." Right away "OH MR. BENNET!"
Eric
_______
Oh my. Have we become a cult, indoctrinating our young?
Cheryl
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Posted by Kali on November 11, 1996 at 13:09:00:
£ £ She has been flatly rejected by a worthy man. How must that feel?
£ Speaking of Miss Bingley, she was also jilted at the altar by Charles (Hugh Grant) at 4 Weddings & a Funeral.
_______
Not a role I'd like to make into a profession. She should talk to her agent about this typecasting business.
- K
Posted by Eric on November 11, 1996 at 13:15:47:
£ Anyway, I don't agree with Conrad either on the moralist bit. If JA is a moralist incognito, then she's done a good job of hiding it from me. Mary Bennet is a moralist. Mr. Collins is a moralist. JA would not want to be classed with them, it seems to me. JA does have ideas about what is right and wrong, but she NEVER seeks to impose her ideas on others. We might conclude that she is right in her ideas. (And those who love her usually realize very early on that JA is never wrong.) But JA never really seems to care if we think she's right or not. She never makes any threats that we, or any of her malicious characters, will burn in hell for not taking her word as gospel.
_____________
I disagree slightly. I think JA prefers to let the lives of her characters demonstrate the truth of her moral convictions - and the lives of her characters are so true to the lives we all live, that this is effective and sufficient. This is in contrast to those who spout moral platitudes devoid of context, from a position of one who has never had to make painful moral choices themselves. Jane and Elizabeth at their best stand for truth, nobility of character, integrity, compassion, honesty and all virtue - but they stand for it by living it. And they live it as people who recognize their own failures. Mary and Mr. Collins seek also to stand for these virtues, but from a position of presumed superiority and by preaching it odiously rather than living. As the prophet says, God does not want sacrifices and feasts and attention to silly laws, what God wants is to love justice, to seek righteousness, and to walk humbly with our God.
If I may offer an analogy of sorts. I am a tolerable baker, but I require a recipe. I measure out amounts precisely, cook for strictly defined time-periods, use exact calculations, and voila! a rather ordinary apple pie or chocolate cookie. My mother, however, rarely uses a recipe card. She goes a dash of this, a touch of that, about so much of this other, and so on. VOILA! Superb apple tarts, or whatever else she's preparing. I bake cookies the way Mary and Mr. Collins try to lead a moral life - and their lives are very ordinary. Edible, but plain and ultimately not satisfying. Jane and Elizabeth live the way my mother cooks - and their lives are beyond ordinary. Both pursue the same ideal, and in that sense, both are moralists. But one fails to grasp the essence of morals in his heart and soul.
Eric
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Posted by Eric on November 11, 1996 at 13:19:17:
£ : : I have thought that this scene was to illustrate the growing tension/interest between Elizabeth and Darcy. By this time in the book (and the scene in PP2) Darcy has already admitted to admiring Lizzy's "fine eyes" and is attracted to her wit and sponteneity. The anger (frustration) he shows I believe is toward himself: as he battles his attraction to Lizzy with her "unsuitability." It is a very thought-provoking scene and I would love to learn of other takes on it. Louise
£ :
£ : ___________________
£ : That's what I thought.
£ : Eric
£ :: ____________________
£ :: Wouldn't Freud have analyzed it simply as man wants woman and his only available (sublimated) recourse is to shoot the ball into the pocket? (But then he thought cigars were symbolic too; a one-track-minded fellow!) Darcy, of course, and Austen would be too genteel to think along those lines.
£ :
£
£ ___________________
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I flatter myself that I am also. ;->
Eric
Posted by Ann on November 11, 1996 at 13:20:31:
£ £ Does anyone agree with me that Susannah Harker (Jane) was just a bit to homely for her role. I actually thought Jennifer was the more attractive of the two. Or would Susannah be beautiful in a classic, 18th century fashion? I also think that Bingley could have been more attractive.
£
£ _______
£ No.
£ Jane would have been regarded as more of a beauty in her day with her fulsome figure. It's only our modern views that distort our perceptions into thinking only thinner females are beautiful.
£ Bingley's nature and looks probably befitted his status as a gentleman and therefore he would have been regarded as a good catch. Darcy the more complex of the two was presumed too proud (although his shyness overcame any affability) and in many pictures in older versions of P&P he is portrayed on the podgy side.
_______
You seem to make the assumption that those who regard Jennifer Ehle as the prettier of the two, do so because she is thinner! I think her face, eyes and smile (which may be due to the role and not due to the actress) are superior to Ms. Harker's. My belief that she is the more attractive has nothing to do with their respective weights.
Ann
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Posted by Ann on November 11, 1996 at 13:25:24:
: I've sort of passed on marriage for now, a la Emma, becuase I have impossibly high standards and don't feel a particular need to get hitched (plus, it's a lot more fun to set up my friends!).
: K
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Easy for you, at age 21, to say!
Ann
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Posted by Bernie on November 11, 1996 at 13:25:40:
When I showed a tape of the film in class, many students (who had presumably already read the book and some had seen the Garvie/Rintoul version) finally saw the light. In a sense, Ehle and Firth salvaged at least some students who might never have read another Jane Austen. After seeing the possibilities presented by the film, they were at least open to the notion that they might read another. Those (sadly, few) students who had loved the book as they read it, adored the film.___________________That's beautiful. I know my HS classmates were dead from the a-- down both ways when it came to P&P, which really teed me off.- K
___________________
I can relate to those classmates who weren't bothered about reading JA. Can you believe that I actually hated P&P when I had to read it as part of my "O"-level syllabus. I was 15 at the time. I went back to it whilst I was doing my PhD and really loved it. It is now my favourite novel. I think that I disliked having to read P&P the first time round because it was forced upon me -- teenage rebellion maybe!
Bernie
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Posted by Eric on November 11, 1996 at 13:26:13:
£ £ Youngster here - I'm 32
£ £ NYAH! NYAH!
£ £ Eric
£
£ _______
£ You know, Eric, gloating is unbecoming in a man of your occupation and station in life. ;-)
£ Cheryl
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Forgive me. If you thought I meant any slight upon your most excellent arrangements, I assure you.......
Such gloats are short-lived, I'm afraid, and I thought I might enjoy it while possible for soon some 20-yr-old will come 'round to give it back to me. My son already comments on my fading hair. My daughter teases me that I cannot bend quite as I used to. It will only get worse. :-(
Eric
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Posted by Kali on November 11, 1996 at 13:27:00:
£ : : : : : : : Is this meant to allow that although one does not benefit from an ideal upbringing, one can grow up to overcome despite the constraints of society? This may have been a rather revolutionary concept in a society in which wealthy and powerful families were expected (and hoped) to rule all forever and ever. Indeed, there was a fall-out in P&P. Any thoughts or am I just expounding/reaching?: : : It is indeed interesting to speculate to what degree JA made this, her favorite character, the proponent of her own particular position in these matters. I, myself, would like to believe this to be the case.: : : Joan, too: : : : ___________________: : : : It seems that Jane Austen is very sympathetic re: human constraint. But how revolutionary is she? This is a question I've seen discussed elsewhere, and now you guys have me thinking about it again (I know this isn't quite what you guys were dealing with, but it relates so I'll go with it!). I believe that the merit of a novel rests on its ability to illuminate the universiality of the human condition, which Austen, and so many authors before and after her, have done well. I don't think her ideas re: understanding between humans and self-realization were so much revolutionary as progressive, and certainly they weren't new to literature or theory. She is very comfortable writing from within the normalcy of polite society, and her themes deal more with the complexity and irony of life in the community of man than with societal reengineering. To Austen, it seems that life in society can be ironic, frustrating, amusing, unfair, and wonderful, for both men and women of many walks of life. : : Her message, in my eyes, at least, is that human beings should do their best to understand others while trying to make for themselves the best existence possible. Austen seems to understand that life can be crappy no matter who you are, especially if you are intelligent: Parents can be dorks (The Bennets, Lady Catherine, Sir William L., etc.); So can the men who are interested in you (Mr. Collins, Wickham), and especially your boyfriend (Mr. Darcy); Some people can be real morons (Mrs. Bennet, etc.); Etc. These and other situations can be explored through the eyes of many of the characters, and not just the smart ones or the "favorites" (Darcy, Lizzy).: : The fact that P&P ends happily, with the main characters enlightened and generally content with life, seems to indicate that while Austen understood the problems living in society can create, she was generally optimistic about life in society. It is easy, especially is the blurry-line area of novels, to attribute specific intentions and beliefs to an author when no certain, specific message is intended. Literature provides a process of experimentation and exploration for the writer and the reader, which encourages insights but does not necessarily indicate the espousal of certain beliefs or theories. Austen is more commentator than instigator, which leads me to think that she is not the revolutionary that many people think she is (not that you guys do - but, again, I must say that your comments got me thinking about this question!). I'm of the "slice of life" school of literature, I suppose. : : - K: : _________: And so was JA. Her own metaphor for her writing was "two inches of ivory." She compacted a microcosm into her rather narrow slice of time and space. I have read that she really had no intention whatsoever of making any statement of any kind. It's just my own overzealous analysis I suppose. This may be one definition of a classic to seem more important than was intended. But then we do pick over it, don't we?: : Janet: ________________________The only way to truly know something is to analyze it to death. It's the experimental process! Exploration is a good thing, as Martha Stewart would say. - K
£
£ __________
£ Now that's an interesting introduction, Kali. I know you did not mean to compare them, but what two people would be further apart than JA and Martha Stewart? I can almost see how she would describe her as a character in one of her novels, can you? Come on, let's hear it. Parodies can be fun, too.
£ : Janet
£ P.S. I'm sorry I haven't really responded to your lengthy post. As usual, I agree with you and you make a very good stand for JA's ability to enliven her characters with believable personalities of their own. They almost make their own statements as they make their own way through the story. It is fun to read more into it once in awhile, and by the sign of this BB once is not enough and the list keeps growing.
£ _________
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Janet,
Glad you're back! Don't worry about not responding to the post - you're not required to! ; ) But I'm glad you did.
And yes, going deeper becomes necessary (and fun!) as we begin to run out of stuff to talk about. Speaking of which, your Martha Stewart character sounds intriguing. How do you see her? As whom, doing what?
- K
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Posted by Eric on November 11, 1996 at 13:27:45:
£ £ £ Youngster here - I'm 32
£ £ £ NYAH! NYAH!
£ £ £ Eric
£ £
£ £ _______
£ £ You know, Eric, gloating is unbecoming in a man of your occupation and station in life. ;-)
£ £ Cheryl
£
£ _______
£
£ Cheryl -
£ He'll grow out of it. Boyes do take longer to mature than girls.
£ Anne ;-)
_______
The first premise has yet to be demonstrated. The latter is undeniable. That's why we get to have all the fun - you girls are out there being responsible and all that. ;->
Posted by Kali on November 11, 1996 at 13:30:02:
£ : I've sort of passed on marriage for now, a la Emma, becuase I have impossibly high standards and don't feel a particular need to get hitched (plus, it's a lot more fun to set up my friends!).
£ : K
£
£ _______
£ Easy for you, at age 21, to say!
£ Ann
_______
I know. But you might be surprised at how early some of my peers are marrying or seriously discussing marriage. It's scary!
- K
Posted by Eric on November 11, 1996 at 13:32:13:
£ £ I've got a younger sister who's only four, but even she tells me, "I like Mr. Darcy!" You should hear the way she pronounces his name, it's so adorable!
£ £ Tay
£ _______
£ And Amy thought maybe there were not enough younger folk enjoying P&P2...
£ My eight year old daughter likes to play Mrs. Bennet to my six year old's Mr. Bennet. We were riding along in the car today when out of the blue, my six year old son says "And I will never see you again if you do." Right away "OH MR. BENNET!"
£ Eric
£
£ _______
£ Oh my. Have we become a cult, indoctrinating our young?
£ Cheryl
_______
Might as well. Indoctrinating the old geezers is next to impossible. We do not, however, serve kool-aid as part of the ceremony - might spill on the carpet.
Eric
Posted by Marsha on November 11, 1996 at 13:43:54:
£ £ This is a matter from way back in the much discussed Music room at Pemberley. But I must ask if anyone but myself has been contemplating where Lizzy was going when she was so rudely interrupted by the insinuations of Miss Bingley. (Are the militia still ...)
£ £ As I see it there is one empty space on the sofa between Mr Gardiner and Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy straigth forward in her direction!! Would she have cuddled up so near him?
£ £ There is another sofa with some space (not much either) between Mrs Gardiner and Mr Hurst, the white whale. And then there is Bingley in an armchair... Opinions ?
£ £ Ann2
£
£ _______
£ Yes, I had considered this and in my mind had determined that she would probably have been on her way to rescue her poor aunt from the sole company of the white whale, whose presence would really qualify more as an absence. (This would also have been a more or less safe perspective from which to further observe Darcy.)
Maybe one of the gentlemen (that excludes Mr Hurst) would have offered her his seat?
Marsha
£ Joan, too
_______
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