Books As I See Them

   We left off, if I remember correctly, fanning over Darcy and his impossible adorableness. We now pick up with ...
Chapter 7!
   Plot stuffs: So we get some basic idea of the layout of the neighborhood and discover that the village of Longbourn, which is where the Bennets live is a mile from Meryton which is a town, I think. We learn that some nice young men in uniform have shown up and have been the talk of the younger girls in the house. And then Jane gets invited to the Bingley home estate which is called Netherfield. Okay some basic analysis here. Longbourn kind of sounds like long and boring and makes you feel well nothing. And then there is Mery-ton as in Merry town, as in happy place. Then there is Netherfield which is honestly very foreboding. Not saying that any of that has to do with the plot but I thought it was interesting... moving on.
   
    CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!!! 
Okay so this chapter is full of funnies (is that a word?). Anyway the first funny thing that Austen gives us is the description of the two youngest of the five girls Catherine (Kitty) and Lydia. Austen says that "their minds were more vacant than their sisters'." I found this very funny because in my opinion these two girls have thus far stayed out of trouble and out of the drama (I'm further than chapter 7), so maybe it is a good thing that their minds aren't as filled yet.
In between plot and character development: We also get to see a bit more of Mr. B's personality because when he finds out that these "vacant headed" little girls are swooning over low ranking soldiers he calls them silly and gets to have more old-married-couple banter with his wife. Mrs. B finds having a crush on a soldier acceptable and claims that even she has had one and "still does in [her] heart." Okay so what the heck? Poor Mr. B, all he puts up with with this woman's scheming and "nerves" and he gets to find out that his wife daydreams about some soldier. But what does he do? He ignores her and argues that indeed his daughters are silly and that he would rather be aware of it than ignore it or deny it. I love this man. 
Okay so Jane gets invited to the Netherfield house and Mrs. B makes her take the horse instead of the coach because it looks as if it might rain and if it rains than the Bingleys will have to let her stay there because she obviously can't ride back in the rain and the men already have their horses because they are eating out.
Mrs. B's maniacal scheme works out and Jane sends a letter the next morning explaining that she is sick and can not come back home. 
Okay so Jane is so much Tohru at this moment because when her mother is telling her to go and get stuck Jane spends a good amount of time trying her hardest to get the carriage. Her innocence is cute but in the end her mother pats her on the head, literally wishes bad weather upon her, and shoos her out the door.  
Lizzy also shows us her strong-woman-power strength, very Haruhi of her, and walks three miles in the muck to get to her sick sister in order to be with her. When she arrives the Bingley women are shocked and appalled by her appearance, while Mr. Bingley sees only the love for his sweet Jane. Darcy on the other hand is falling all the harder for her and her nice complexion and has himself a k-drama moment where he falls in love with her because she is sweaty... so adorkable!
The best moment by far however is meeting Mr. Hurst, the elder Bingley sister's husband. This man is quoted in chapter 8 to live only  "to eat, drink, and play cards." Hurst sees Lizzy sweaty and covered in mud and goes, "Hmm, I wonder what's for dinner." and later at dinner he finds out that Lizzy prefers plain food to fancy food and from there on out doesn't talk to her at all. Wow... just Wow.

Chapters 8-9
Okay so in the next two chapters all that really happens is that Jane gets sicker and sicker and therefor does actually have to stay at the Bingley house, and Lizzy being well Lizzy, refuses to leaver her and stays. This simple fact is very important because while she is in the house Darcy gets to admire her "fine eyes" and her interesting personality while Lizzy is starting to dislike him more. 
Lizzy is at first okay with the sisters until they start getting tired of keeping commoners for pets at which case they get a bit moody and apathetic and Lizzy goes back to "the enjoyment of all her original dislike" I love Lizzy too. 
  Lizzy and Darcy get to have a few bouts of witty banter most ending with her leaving the room fed up with the whole lot of them and Darcy staring after her trying to deny how much he is starting to like her. Often times when Lizzy leaves the room the sisters, who remind me of Cinderella's step sisters, start bad mouthing her. Darcy doesn't really say anything bad but he doesn't stand up for either of the  Bennet girls. Bingley on the other hand defends them both with all his breath and well acts like a prince, its why we love him too. 
Also we find out that Darcy loves books and has an excessive library, and then I start thinking hmmm, maybe this is Beast before he gets changed into beast... "EMBRACE THE SUCK!"

One of the funniest parts of this chapter happens at the end when the morning after Lizzy came to be with her sister their dear mother shows up and embarrasses everyone in the room, most of all Lizzy.  
So Lizzy gets labeled as a "studier (its spelled wrong in my book lol) of character" when she points out how predictable Tama-- I mean Bingley is. Her mom goes off and then Darcy makes a comment which is pretty much well how can you be if you live in the country and there aren't that many people out here. He didn't mean it as badly as it sounds but Mrs. B took offense thinking he was saying nobody lived in the country but common hicks and starts freaking out. Poor Darcy, this is the first time he actually intentionally sort of starts a conversation with Lizzy and her mom freaks out and he just "turn[s] silently away" and Lizzy blushes and tries for almost three pages to make her mother shut up. 
Okay so we all hate Mrs. B at this point but she does say one thing that's pretty good. To get back at Darcy she talks about Sir William (lucas) and how genteel and nice and talkative he is and then says, "That is my idea of good-breeding and those persons who fancy themselves very important and never open their mouths quite mistake the matter." OH SNAP! Take that Mr. Prejudice maybe you should talk more. Again, I feel bad for Darcy but at the same time, that was a good come back. 

Love! Okay so there is another good line while Lizzy is trying to shut her mother up when Darcy says that he always thought of "poetry as the food of love" and all the fan girls swoon, and typical Lizzy goes, well sure "everything nourishes what is strong already." She follows that up with a comment that is pretty much if you don't mean it it doesn't count. And Darcy's only return is a smile.

So then Mommy dearest finally leaves taking Lydia with her, who's empty mind was thinking of the promised upcoming ball. Bingley promises to throw one as soon as Jane is better, and we are left with Lizzy and Jane at the Bingley house... Duh Duh Duuuuuuuuu what will happen next? Will Jane get better? Will Darcy finally admit he loves more than just Lizzy's eyes? Next time in P&P.

Thanks for waiting everyone and welcome any newbies. I have a physical book now so chapters will start coming a few at a time and more on schedule. If you are new you can follow me on the tweeters at @KauruRoss if you want to know when the updates happen!
Your Fella Writer Forever,
Ross

Chapter Five:
                   Okay I love this chapter. We get started with the introduction of a few new characters the Lucas family. Sir William Lucas who used to own a large business but once he got knighted decided that he owed it to the rest of society to retire and become really good at being a Knight... Um okay drama queen you go ahead and leave your job and your nice town house just to be nice to people who live in the country, that makes sense. Then we meet Charlotte who is the daughter of the Lucas' (Luci?) and who was the first person to dance with Mr. Bingley (Tamaki for those who need faces). Now Mrs. B is talking to Charlotte and Mrs. B would not be Mrs. B if she left out an opportunity to brag, a lot. So she actually makes Charlotte admit that Mr. Bingley was overheard saying the Jane was the prettiest girl in the room and that it was obvious that he (Mr. Bingley) liked Jane the most. Charlotte returns by adding in that Mr. Darcy had been caught saying Lizzy was ugly and Mrs. B shrugs it off, she doesn't really like Lizzy anyway so who cares. 
          Okay now lets take a breath. I am beginning to have mixed feelings about Mrs. B. Part of me agrees that she is a jerk because she treats poor Lizzy like a second-rate-daughter just because she isn't as pretty as her older sister (oh and she has a mind of her own), but on the other hand she is also ridiculously clever when it comes to shoving her good news in peoples faces.
     We get to hear some gossip that Darcy might not be as disagreeable with his friends as he is with everyone else. But the most important part of this chapter is that we learn more about Miss Lizzy the Proud. First she makes her first vow *spoilers she breaks it* to never dance with Mr. Darcy and explains her dislike for him by saying she "could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified [hers]." I have decided to use Haruhi as Lizzy for lack of a better character to use as a stand in visual she is the most like Lizzy though I admit it was hard to think of another female character from anything that is so rationally prideful and yet awesome at the same time.
        As a side not we get a definition of Pride via Mary the every present dictionary/show-off. Also we get a laugh from Mrs. Lucas and her son who argues that Mr. Darcy has a right to be prideful without caring about a reputation and the young lord argues that if he were that rich he would "drink a bottle of wine a day" to which his mother replies, and then you would drink too much. I wish little Lucas would show up more often in the book. 

Chapter 6
     This starts with the Bennets getting to know the Bingley girls more. These girls manage to deceive Jane by flaunting their brother in front of her but Lizzy sees them as many of us see the plastics in Mean Girls. In other words they are stuck up snobs who wish to encourage Jane liking Bingley for the mere fun of having something to do.  
    This chapter is important because we get a working definition of love from Miss Charlotte. Charlotte argues that women have to express more love than they feel to win the affections of men and then after they have it they can see if they actually like the guy. Charlotte needs therapy,but because of her time era I suppose we can give her a break. I can not find you a stand in image for her because she is impossible and annoying with how, as my English Professor would say, pragmatic she is about everything.  
     During this conversation of love we see Lizzy and Charlotte's friendship and Lizzy's love for her sister. Lizzy says that Charlotte has a good plan if you take emotions out of it, but Jane is full of emotions she cannot control and she lacks a lot of experience with Mr. Bingley. Charlotte, ever the annoying one, says that  four dinners, four dances, and an appearance at his house is plenty of time to get to know a man enough to start throwing affection at him. There is a lot of differing ideas about marriage in this chapter such as how well should you know someone before you marry them. Lizzy is obviously in-tuned to the fact that emotions come into play and should be considered but Charlotte argues that the less you know about someone the happier your marriage will be.
  Chapter 6 is wordy but relatively important in relation to how the characters are viewing love and it leads up to why they make some of the decisions that they do latter on in the book. The best part of this chapter is Mr. Darcy.
     Mr. Darcy gets the chance to silently stalk Lizzy. He watches her as she watches her sister and Bingley and tries to convince himself that she isn't pretty and fails. He finds her eyes "intelligent" and "beautiful" and then he says well her body isn't perfect but its "pleasing" and tries to convince himself that her manners are bad and then allows that it is adorable because of its "playful" nature. So in other words, he begins to fall in love with her and she has no idea. Thus starts the agonizing cat and mouse chase. He loves her, she is oblivious, and you are frustrated and end up dead on the floor screaming "THE FEELS". First, after deciding that she was now attractive to him, he tries to get the courage up to talk to her via listening in to her conversations with other people. Than he tries to accept an offer to dance with her and Lizzy, still thinking that he is trying to make fun of her or some other mean thing, she refuses to dance with him. He falls harder when she plays hard to get and when the unmarried Bingley sister assumes he will agree with her that the people there are annoying (after acting like they are friends) he surprises her by saying (I imagine dreamily) that he is quite content with the people in the room, mainly with Lizzy. Darcy ignores Miss Bingley as she drones on about how bad it would be to be married into Lizzy's family and though no one can tell, he is secretly dreaming of Lizzy.

Okay everyone sorry this one was really long and only covered two chapters but I will hopefully get us caught up soon. I hope you enjoyed the edition of Pride and Prejudice as much as I enjoyed writing it, although at this point it would be quicker to read the book. But hey then what would I do? ^_^  For noobs you can follow me at @KauruRoss on twitter or as I like to call it tweeter. 
Your's ever more,
Ross

Alright everyone lets jump back into the thrilling epic of P&P. These next couple of chapters group together very nicely because they cover the meeting of the Bingley's and the Bennets for the first time and each person's reactions to each other,

        Alright, So for our first book review I will be looking at Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I would like for the record to state that I am only a sophomore in college and am by no means an authority on literature past the point that I love it (literature). Also I have not studied this book in any detail so it will for the most part be my initial reactions to the books that I will be reviewing. 
         I will be looking at Pride and Prejudice ( from this point on P&P) for two main reasons. One because I am reading it for English class, and two because a good friend of mine (Merlin) has expressed interest in me giving her notes (which I have to many to put on Twitter). 
         So first things first, Chapter one.

* The first Characters we are introduced to are Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. Very quickly we can see that Mrs. Bennet is crazy and annoying and that her husband takes great pleasure in either ignoring her nicely or messing with her for the joy of seeing her freak out. They have a typical old-married-couple relationship that is usually pretty funny. 
    Then we are introduced a little to Mr. Bingley. The first thing we know about him is that he is rich and that he is single. This obviously means that he has to marry someone and why not one of the Bennet's FIVE daughters (poor Mr. Bennet). 
      There is an allusion to some other characters but nothing really telling except for the first instances of Mrs. Bennet's love of Jane (the pretty daughter) and Mr. Bennet's love of Lizzy (the smart/proud one). 

^The main plot of this chapter is simply that Mrs. B. thinks that Mr. B. should prance over to young, rich, single Mr. Bingley and introduce himself and his family, full of FIVE daughters. Mr. B. laughs and says no, but what he is thinking is "Muahahahah Muahahahah, this time I will make her so angry her head will spin!" since he has already decided to go. 

~Honestly the first few chapters are dry and slightly confusing. As you get into the next couple of chapters all of the Mr.'s and Miss's get jumbled and it can sometimes be hard to figure out who is talking and who is offended.

That's it for the first chapter, I may lump the next couple together to make this go faster, also I have to catch up since I am on chapter 27 and must catch this up to where I am currently reading. 

If you are new, because if you aren't Merlin you are, you can follow me on Twitter for notifications as to when these will get posted. Hopefully in the future they will get more scheduled and less hmm, NOW. But for now just keep an eye on the Tweeters. @KauruRoss