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Posted by Kali on November 12, 1996 at 16:55:45:
With two brothers of my own, I know I missed having a sister. Maybe that's one reason why I enjoy all of you. We girls are in some ways more complex, are we not?
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Ditto. Except I only have one brother.
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I suppose we shall all just have to tune in more often to catch the threads. I don't mind; it will give me yet another excuse to come here more often. It beats doing the laundry!
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: Janet
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Ditto again. I will continue to work on my snipping (but not sniping. I'll leave that to the secret service on the White House roof).
- K
Posted by Anna on November 12, 1996 at 16:56:18:
: 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
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Thanks Genie, I 've looked at the FOF site and enjoyed some of their stuff, most of all the P&P2 1990s musical.
Anna
Posted by Annie on November 12, 1996 at 16:56:30:
A week or so ago someone mentioned that they had ordered the soundtrack to Pride and Prejudice. I was thrilled, especially when this very kind person added a link to where the soundtrack had been ordered from. The bad news (for me) was that to order it, you had to have a major credit card, which, with my bad credit, I do not have. (sob, sob) To my surprise, when I was wandering through a Best Buy, I found the CD! So I immediately went to the cash register and plunked down my fifteen dollars, took the CD home, and listened to it over and over for about four hours. I love it! I can recall just from listening to the music exactly what was happening while the music was playing (of course, the description helps). If the soundtrack's already been talked about on here (I was unable to keep up over the weekend due to work), then I just wanted to say that I liked it!
Annie
Posted by Tay on November 12, 1996 at 17:03:11:
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Tay,
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Calm down now, most likely when it does show it will be on the Canadian Public broadcasting station. I think it will be on our PBS here in Boston, MA sometime next spring? Your not a R. Graves fan now are you?
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Oh Yes, Speaking of R. Graves, named one of 100 hottest British actors going. But alas, no C. Firth.
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Laura M.
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Ummm. Exactly who is R. Graves? I regret to admit that I've never heard of him before. My excitement springs from my admiration of a novel, and not from the actor. But who is R. Graves? I see people gushing over him on this BB too.
Tay
Posted by genie on November 12, 1996 at 17:05:16:
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I better head this off:
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Anybody know if it took being nobility to become First Lord Admiral (despite the office and cleaning training described in G&S's Lord Admiral's song)?
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Not necessarily. Being a Gentleman or being rich may have helped originally with gaining a lowly rank. In JA's day ranks could be purchased. However I think hard work, audacity and leadership etc also enabled one to climb the ladder - read some of the "Hornblower" series. One of Australia's often maligned figures was William Bligh (yes he of "The Mutiny of the Bounty") who was an early Governor of New South Wales. Anyway there was this little thing called the "Rum Rebellion" - a coup d'etat where he was overthrown. Lucky chap still got to be one of the Lord Admirals, the Red or the Blue can't remember. Upon retirement he would have been allowed to retain his rank with the customary RN (retired), as he was well above the level of a Lieutenant Commander.
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Captain Wentworth in Persuasion seems to have done well enough without nobility behind him, but then he did have the advantage of active service in wartime.
Posted by Donna on November 12, 1996 at 17:07:55:
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Bernie, is R. Graves in the Bronte adaptation? If so, when will it come to America?
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Laura
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Yes. Auntie Beeb will start screening this Sunday. As to when it will be screened in the States, your guess is as good as mine! :·)
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Bernie
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Bernie is Auntie Beeb the BBC.
Donna
Posted by Stefanie on November 12, 1996 at 17:08:41:
I saw it too and I thought it was the cutest thing. They were all so cute in their little tutus and after your very thorough description, I think I recognised your daughter. She's beautiful, I hope you taped it.
Stefanie
Posted by Anna on November 12, 1996 at 17:12:46:
:: I *can't* believe they haven't kissed in the intervening 8 (or so) weeks. It *was* allowed between an engaged couple , and I think they both wanted it, although they were still a bit shy of each other immediately after the proposal.
:: Anna
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: Thank you, Anna. Mr. Darcy, as violently horny as we can all imagine he is, would certainly be man enough to extract a kiss from his equally-interested fiance.
: - K
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Another possible explanation for Darcy not attempting a kiss at that point ("Dearest Lovliest Elizabeth"), would be that he wasn't sure of his ability to stop at a kiss. Although I'm sure Lizzy had no lack of passion, there is such a thing as too much too quickly.
What think you?
Anna
Posted by Annie on November 12, 1996 at 17:14:09:
"Happy for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got rid of her two most deserving daughters."
Uh-huh. Let's start with "Happy for all her maternal feelings..." I take that to mean that Mrs. Bennet is happy for herself. It is okay to take pride in your accomplishments, and her main goal at this point in life was to get her five daughters married off. That's okay, I can understand that.
"...was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got rid of..." Wait a minute. What maternal feelings make you happy that you "GOT RID OF" any child? A truly excellent line of Jane Austen's, one that I think is representative of Mrs. Bennet as a whole.
"...her two most deserving daughters." In terms of Mrs. Bennet, that makes less sense. It is stated in the book that Elizabeth was her least favorite child, and Mrs. Bennet spends a good portion of the book being angry at her for not marrying Mr. Collins. So why would Elizabeth be considered one of her most deserving daughters? Jane I can understand being one of Mrs. Bennet's most deserving, but not Elizabeth.
Annie
Follow Ups:
Posted by Grace on November 12, 1996 at 17:15:58:
£ JA does have ideas about what is right and wrong, but she NEVER seeks to impose her ideas on others.
£ £ -Arnessa.
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£ Thank you all for your comments. I agree with you, Arnessa. at.
£ Hilary
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: Hilary, I keep drifting back to the Conrad essay and trying to decide what to think. I have no time to write anything profound (or non-profound, for that matter). Just wanted to thank you for introducing Conrad's interesting ideas. Grace
Follow Ups:
Posted by Anna on November 12, 1996 at 17:18:04:
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From my murky recollections, Episode 5 was only 50 minutes long, whereas Episode 6 was a full 60. So this sequence of events makes even less sense, since the BBC could have screened the extra 5 minutes at the end of Episode 5.
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Bernie
In that case I must assume the apparent out of sequence was intentional, although it still plays awkwardly to me
Anna.
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PS. Anna, the BBC still don't show commercials. Hurrah!
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Hurrah! indeed
A
Posted by kathleen on November 12, 1996 at 17:19:59:
£ &< -----------------------------------------
£ £ Darcy's mum was Lady Anne before she married. As Darcy is not titled, neither will Elizabeth be titled.
£ £ Your humble servant, etc.
£ £ kathleen
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£ Won't Lizzy now be Mrs Fitzwilliam Darcy?
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Indeed, but she won't be Lady Elizabeth or Lady Darcy. Actually, since Darcy has no brothers and his parents are deceased, Lizzy will become Mrs Darcy (no need for his first name).
Yours, etc.
kathleen
PS I am always pleased to see all the "overnight" postings from those of you in other parts of the world. It makes the reading enjoyable at 5 am in my time zone (USA east coast).
Posted by Grace on November 12, 1996 at 17:25:51:
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I recently said something about the dangers of putting all of us 'women of an age' together. I was thinking then of how bawdy and funny we would all be, but I think we would also have much to share that is not so funny about the process of arriving at this point in our lives.
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Grace
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I think you are right. Somehow talking of premenopausal hot flashes would not seem out of place here, though it might gross out our male and younger female friends. I also love the recent big sister threads about love and waiting and knowing thyself. We have made a community. Cool, huh?
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Amy
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: Definitely. I'm fascinated to watch as the group evolves.
Grace
P.S. No talk of hot flashes, please. Henry might get confused and think we're back to another ourbreak of anthrax!
Posted by Arnessa on November 12, 1996 at 17:28:12:
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I would agree that JA is not writing PRIMARILY to dispense her beliefs on how others should live. She cannot, however, escape doing so in the course of her stories. And in that sense, she does intend to teach us how to behave. But JA wants us to see how we should behave in a real world where we are, as Darcy says, none of us without fault rather than in the world of a Mr. Collins where somehow he (and his benefactress) alone manage to escape fault while the rest of us live rather sordid lives requiring his correction. If presuming to a moral superiority is a requisite of the moralist, then JA was no moralist, but if one may teach as one who is also faulty, then JA was a moralist.
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As for a system, I would not say that JA is offering a solid system. To be sure, the ten commandments are wonderful - but in the befuddled lives we tend to live, their precise applications can be puzzling to say the least. How, for example, does one in Elizabeth's position honor her mother? Was E responsible for bearing false witness against Darcy, or was Wickham, or both? And was Darcy not partially to blame for rendering the lie so believable? If JA had intended to write a systemic moral work, she would not have written novels. [snipped]
Eric
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Well, for your concession that JA is not primarily writing to tell us how to behave, I'll concede that she is probably oftentimes an unwitting moralist (if there can be such a thing). The rule of behavior that she presents seems so right that we are drawn to try to emulate it.
I do particularly love Darcy's observation that "every disposition has a tendency toward some particular evil, a natural defect which not even the best education can overcome." Truer words never spoken.
I also believe almost all moralists do presume a sort of moral superiority. I mean, how can you presume to teach others how to behave unless you're pretty sure that you know the best way for them to behave in all situations? I hardly ever see JA making that kind of presumption.
Nice analysis of the ambiguities of culpability in P&P, by the way. I think it adds to my argument despite your admirable attempts to make it seem otherwise.
I also think you're right in saying that JA's world is rounded and full of gray areas where a solid moral system would often falter. You're right that if JA had intended to write a systemic moral work she wouldn't have written novels. But she did write novels! And these novels are of such richness and complexity that I think tacking a moral intent to them diminishes them somehow, puts them in the category of children's books or fables. Any moral lessons we draw from them must be our own doing.
It's interesting at the end of P&P that Darcy and Lizzy have a light-hearted conversation about the moral of the story. Lizzy's says that the moral will be to break promises as her aunt promised not to tell anyone about Darcy's involvement in recovering Lydia, and she told Lizzy. And Darcy says, "The moral will be perfectly fair." and mentions Lady Catherine's interference as removing his doubts.
But the fact that the conversation is so light-hearted (Lizzy seems to be mocking the whole idea of a moral to the story.) seems to me to suggest that JA didn't give a hoot about what lessons people drew from the story as long as they loved her dear Lizzy.
Arnessa.
Posted by Anna on November 12, 1996 at 17:29:44:
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One could argue that to Mrs Bennet, the wealth of the husband determined the worth of the daughter.
Anna
( I assume the absence of the previous text at the top of the follow-up is a new experiment in pounds and snipping, so I'm leaving it as it is)
Posted by Anna on November 12, 1996 at 17:33:25:
] Oh man. Sorry. Continu on as well as you can. I better take a break and start fresh later.
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Variety, new challenges - this BB gets less virtual every day!!
Anna - 0930, 2 cups of coffee into the day
ps Amy - however it comes, this is a great BB
Posted by Amy on November 12, 1996 at 17:36:46:
Grace said:
I keep drifting back to the Conrad essay and trying to decide what to think. I have no time to write anything profound (or non-profound, for that matter)
Me too, Grace. I don't want this to evaporate. I think I will put up the thread in a way that it will not disappear so we can attend to it and the moralist thread. Maybe tomorrow. After get quoting enabled again. Although, maybe I should leave it off for a while and see how it works this way. Cutting and pasting is always a option.
Posted by Anna on November 12, 1996 at 17:41:21:
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G'day G,
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You're opening a bastion of male chauvinism throughout the ages. Suffice to say only men (except a Queen) can pass on their title. However that depends on if the title was inherited, devolved(?), or bestowed.
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Lady C. gained her title through marriage to her husband. But as he was the lowest of the Knight's Order then his title did not necessarily pass to Anne de Bourgh. Darcy's mother would have retained her title on her marriage, but it did not transfer to her husband or pass to her son.
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Then again I'm just one of those colonial Aussies, so I could be telling lots of untruths! :)
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Lady C was Darcy's mother's sister. Both Lady C and Lady Anne had their titles from their father and kept them after mariage as their husbands were of lower rank. If Lady C had her title from her husband she would have been Lady De Bourgh (like Lady Lucas). As you say the title did not pass to the grandchildren of an Earl through his daughters. It wasn't entirely sexist however - only the eldest son carried on the title - other sons of the earl were merely Honorable, and their children also were commoners.
All-in-all a confusing and clumsy system!
Anna
Posted by Donna on November 12, 1996 at 17:44:57:
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Dear Janet and Donna,
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The above messages are a perfect example of not snipping. The subject of the thread had changed somewhere along the line from when to snip to ages and sex of children. When this happens, the posts about when to snip should have been deleted, since that now had no bearing on what was being discussed.
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I'm with Amy on this, that it is very tiring to scroll through pages to get to the new info. I'm sorry if I seem to picking on you two, there are many of us who are not as careful about this as we should be, you just happened to be here with a great example!
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I say this with love to my sisters and brothers in Jane Austen: Snip, dammit, snip! :-)
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Cheryl
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Thanks Cheryl after I posted the last message I should of changed the subject.
Donna
Posted by Donna on November 12, 1996 at 17:50:29:
Do you think perhaps that tall hat crammed low on his forehead might make his face look somewhat rounder? That is my impression.
I agree
Also the high collar on his shirt plus the hat. The turtleneck effect.
Donna
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