P&P Annotations Part I

I’m reading Pride & Prejudice with Nicole and if it was done my way we would each have a physical copy of P&P (prob secondhand cos it’s easy to find in op shops) and we would highlight & annotate passages for spotlight discussion. Then at the end we would get together with our mugs of tea or coffee (dunno which you prefer really) and a plateful of madeleines and have an absolute uproar over literally everything in this book.

But alas, covid 19.

Or in actuality, ugh, real life.

Hey Nicole, how would you do it?

In any case, here are my P&P annotations so far:

“You have no compassion for my poor nerves.” (p.7)

• Next time whenever someone asks me to do anything, I’m gonna say this with histrionics thrown into play.

“As he spoke, he left the room, fatigued with the raptures of his wife.” (p.10)

• I can think of several persons whose raptures also tire me out. Why is this?

“She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me.” (p.13)

• Ah. Elizabeth’s wounded pride. The reason for all her actions.

About Sir William Lucas: “he had removed with his family to a house about a mile from Meryton…where he could think with pleasure of his own importance, and, unshackled by business, occupy himself solely in being civil to all the world.” (p.19)

• My appreciation for Austen nailing her side character description with a few simple strokes 10/10

Charlotte on Jane & Bingley: “Jane should therefore make the most of every half-hour in which she can command his attention. When she is secure of him, there will be more leisure for falling in love as much as she chooses.” (p.23)

• I don’t know which is funnier, how business-like Charlotte Lucas is about this or that she doesn’t forget falling in love is also part of the ritual 

Part two of Charlotte-ism: “If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass you life” (p.24)

• Someone get this girl a tonic for her cynicism

Darcy, observing Elizabeth: “But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she hardly had a god feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying.  Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to light and pleasing.” (p.24)

• i love how there’s the helplessly falling in love darcy and the mortified bystander darcy

Elizabeth, on the other hand: “Of this she was perfectly unaware; to her he was only the man who made himself agreeable nowhere, and who had not thought her handsome enough to dance with.” (p.24)

• Your pettiness is showing

The Bennets, while Jane is out walking in the rain: “Her sisters were uneasy for her, but her mother was delighted. ‘This was a lucky idea of mine, indeed!” said Mrs. Bennet more than once, as if the credit of making it rain were all her own.” (p.31)

• I used to think Mrs. Bennet ridiculous as a caricature but now I see that she’s all too real

When Darcy sees Elizabeth arriving at Netherfield with an inch of mud on her: “Mr Darcy said very little, and Mr Hurst nothing at all. The former was divided between admiration of the brilliancy which exercise had given to her complexion, and doubt as to the occasion’s justifying her coming so far alone. The latter was thinking only of his breakfast.” (p.33)

• There’s Darcy experiencing a major life crisis while Mr. Hurst is like, me hungry.

Describing Bingley’s sisters’: “their indifference towards Jane when not immediately before them restored Elizabeth to the enjoyment of all her former dislike.” (p.35)

• I relate. People I detest ought to stay in character! How dare they suddenly turn interesting!

Miss Bingley: “To walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is.” (p.36)

• HA. She doesn’t even try to hide she’s gaslighting (slow clap)