I am expecting to be doing some heavy medical stuff this month, which means I'll be laying around with nothing to do in between treatments. Against the prospect of potential boredom, or daytime talk shows, I have ordered 3 DVDs of Austen novels from Amazon. One is the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice. I have the bodice ripping version where Mr. Darcy eventually shows up walking towards Elizabeth through the mists of the moors with his shirt open at the neck looking all wet and sensual. There is a nice moment there just as Darcy leaves the room following Elizabeth's rejection of his proposal of marriage, where both of them look like they really wanted the scene to turn out differently. It is not a scene true to the book, of course, nor is the sensual Mr. Darcy. Somewhere, in one of these films, Mr. Darcy leaps into pond - probably at Pemberly.

P&P with Firth was $13.00. Sense & Sensibility was about $6, an Persuasion around the same. Free 2 day shipping. I have the BBC set, but I was not happy with several of them. I'll watch them again too, I suspect, in the days and weeks to come.

The current edition of Pride and Prejudice has two introductions. The original, written some years back, and a new up-to-date one. The new intro discusses the book as it relates to women's issues during the time it was written, and has some very interesting extracts and information.

But, when it comes to interpreting the story, I have some problems with the analysis. Speaking of the incident at the Meryton Assembly when Darcy declined to dance with Elizabeth "for the experienced romance reader the story really gets underway with this early confrontation between Darcy's snobbish indifference and Elizabeth's angry pride." The experienced romance reader probably needs to read more carefully for "Elizabeth remained with no very cordial feelings towards him," which does not sound like angry pride to me. What's more "she told the story, however, with great spirit among her friends, for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous." She told this story at the dance, it seems, for "the morning after" the Miss Lucases visited the Bennets to talk over the dance and Charlott Lucas, refers to the story. Where do we find the "angry pride" in all this? Elizabeth does make a bon mot when they are discussing Mr. Darcy's pride. "I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine."

But the experienced romance reader" knows more. "Darcy's arrogance only serves to enhance his desirabilty and confirm his status as hero... the heroine will learn to reinterpret the hero's bad manners, his 'shocking rudeness' as a seductive sign of his repressed passion for her." Regretfully, this is not true. His arrogance and shocking rudeness mean he is not suitable as a husband. Why not? Because once Elizabeth marries Darcy he will be her master, the head of the household, making decisions such as whether her aunt and uncle can visit her. She believes they would be "lost" to her. She will have some funds dedicated to her in the marriage articles, but if he remains as he is, she will only enjoy the marriage when her husband is not around - precisely the situation Charlotte Lucas finds herself in after marrying the foolish Mr. Collins. Elizabeth, a rational creature, seems to judge young men in terms of eligibility for marriage, but she will accept only an affectionate marriage. One in which there is not only mutual love, but one in which she can look up to her husband - not suffer his inconsideration. When he proposes she refuses him saying "from the first moment I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and ;your selfish distain of the feelings of others" which grew into "so immovable a dislike" that" I had not known you a month before I felt you were the last man in the world whom I could ever have been prevailed upon to marry."

Perhaps at this point the romance reader, half-way through the novel, expects that soon enough Elizabeth will "reinterpret" his manners. No luck, romance reader, for the next thing that happens is that Darcy takes her opinions to heart and chances his ways, becoming considerate and pleasant in company. Only then does she really start to reconsider his proposals.

Our introducer will not conceed the point, however. She believes that after the Meryton Assembly incident that Elizabeth and Darcy have a "fraught fascination with each other" which generates a tantalizing sexual energy [which] finds expression in a series of highly articulate confronations." I find it difficult to believe that I would miss such sexuality but i can not find it. More about this later.

There is an English way of writing that falls into the category of understatement, I guess. "The compliment was not unfelt" they say, meaning, of course, that it was felt. But it leaves open the possibility that it got a neutral response - neither felt nor unfelt. So here we go:

Darcy was "not unwilling" to receive Lizzy's hand and dance with her, early on.

Lizzy expects to see Wickham at Bingley's ball because she does not think of the things that "not unreasonably" might have alarmed her (reasons he would not come).

For Lizzy the prospect of leaving her family to visit Charlotte was "not unwelcome"

Charlotte "not unseldom" might have been embarassed by her husband, Mr. Collins. This is the use I will want to discuss.

Sir Lucas finds that manners like Lady de Bourg's are "not uncommon" at the court of St. James

Miss deBourgh "not unfrequently" stops by the Collins' house while riding in her phaeton.

Lizzy hears the doorbell while at the Collins' and thinks it "not unlikely" to be Lady Catherine.

Reading Mr. Darcy's letter a compliment to Lizzy and Jane is "not unfelt" by Lizzy.

Mrs. Gardener finds Mr. Darcy's air "not unbecoming" when she meets him at Pemberly

Bingley asks Lizzy about her family, and she feels his interest in Jane is "not untinctured " with tenderness (i.e. he still loves her)
Darcy's keeping the news of Jane being in London from Bingley "not unjustly" offends Bingley.

What makes "not unseldom" stand out of these 10 uses of the construction? It clearly is meant to convey the idea of "often" - i.e. Mr. Collins often says something which embarrassed his wife. But "not unseldom" when you sort it out, means "seldom" and that is not what Jane Austen meant. The phrase works in the context of the book, so long as you don't stop and think about it. The other 9 all mean what they should.

I have no idea if "not unseldom" to mean "often" is idiomatic or not. Do you?

Jane Austen, especially in Pride and Prejudice, but in all her novels to some degree, presents people who want to be judged, who ought to be judged, by the content of their characters rather than their positions in society. I do not mean she is a universalist, ready to approve the rich girl marrying the farmer's servant, on the grounds that God created us all equal. But I think she would agree with the proposition in the Mark Twain story where a prince and a pauper trade positions, that given the proper circumstances the servant of the farmer could be as good a marriage prospect as the richest man in the country.

There are two basic points of view in her novels. One is the classist view: Mr. Collins expresses it well in his praise of Mr. Darcy for having wealth, property, and extensive patronage in the church - all that mortal man can want. Jane's women want something other than social status, social connections, and wealth. They want intelligence, an amiable temper, gentle manners, and a disposition to use their power and wealth to help rather than to display.

more later.

Just back from a second viewing of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival staging of Pride and Prejudice. It's an ambitious undertaking to cut this novel down to 2.5 hours, and they did it partly by getting rid of one of Bingley's sisters & her husband, and the Phillps family. Also this is a P&P in which Wickham becomes engaged to Mary King, (thereby jilting Elizabeth creditably as her father predicted) and in which Elizabeth does not accuse Mr. Darcy of not acting like a gentleman. Also missing, Mr. Bennet's prediction that Darcy would rant about his love for Elizabeth and refuse repayment for the expense of getting WIckham to marry Lydia.In short they follow Elizabeth and Darcy, skip most of the delicacy of manners (Elizabeth tells her father that Darcy paid the Wickham expenses before her father gives his consent to her marriage with Darcy etc.)

Nevertheless a good presentation. They are proud to have had no narrator in the stage show, and some clever staging presents actions in the background which take chapters in the book. They got a hearty standing ovation from the sold-out house.