The Genteel Reading Circle For Ladies

[EverySongbirdSays]

In which like minds will discuss Jane Austen and other such 19th Century Classics sparked from an unhealthy interest in the sex life of one Mr Collins, parson to her ladyship Catherine De Bourgh of Rosings Park

First up : Sense And Sensibility

Bring your love of Dashwood, Brandon, Willoughby, Farrars, and Emma Thompson's weird crying noise here!!!

I've thought about that, Trills - and clearly ET did when she was writing the Ang Lee screenplay, and decided to make her younger and a charming, forthright tomboy that Edward 'Yawn' Ferrars could interact with!

I think Margaret only exists for pretty incidental reasons, like to 'chaperone' Marianne on her walks around the countryside, as when she meets Willoughby, and make it plain that Marianne is in fact a respectable young woman, and all her improprieties date from her encounter with Wickham, not she she generally runs around the countryside by herself meeting roaming bachelors!

Also to make the Dashwoods' initial plight more poignant and make Barton Cottage more crowded, give Mrs D something to do other than think about her older daughters' marital prospects, provide a reason for Mrs D not to go to London with Elinor and Marianne (so that they are less 'protected' in the big city, so Marianne can be more defenceless and fall ill with only Elinor there on the way home) - Margaret's crucial plot point in the novel is to be the blabbermouth who lets out about Elinor and 'Mr F' at the Middletons' dinner table, which is how conniving Lucy Steele first grasps the threatening closeness between Elinor and Edward and drops her bombshell about the secret engagement.

How do we think that Lucy Steele and Edward actually got engaged? What's the backstory there?

Isn't Mr Pratt's establishment in Portsmouth (Plymouth?) where Edward meets Lucy Steele a fairly low-rent establishment for someone of Edward's social standing? I mean, I know some boys had tutors until they went to university, but is there a reason he wasn't at a major public school or tutored privately at home?

I've always vaguely had a backstory where he was considered too shy or awkward for school, was miserable at Mr Pratt's, and was grateful for Lucy's attention and too naive/gullible to shut it down when it emerged she had 'expectations' of marriage.

And I imagine Lucy, pretty and poor and conniving (and presumably, given her background, with few chances to enter society?) grabbing her chance to marry up with both hands and not letting go.

Hauls in a scuttle of coal for the fire and hopes nobody notices I'm dawdling to listen on the interesting discussions of my betters.

Malvolia

Edward's schooling is distinctly second rate, especially considering we're told his younger brother was sent to Westminster School. Dyslexia? Bullying? Fits?

But yes, my reading of the Lucy/Edward engagement is that it's all planned; Edward's there, miles from his family, and his tutor's pretty young niece just happens to visit a lot. Pretty sure there's a carefully orchestrated compromising set up and that Edward's been forced into the engagement.

According to Robert Ferrars, Mrs Ferrars was 'persuaded by my uncle, Sir Robert, against [her] own judgement, to place Edward under private tuition, at the most critical time of his life' He says that if Edward had been educated at Westminster, as he was, 'all this would have been prevented....and my mother is perfectly convinced of her error'
As far as I remember, we are never told why Sir Robert advised a private education for Edward.

I've just finished reading Longbourn by Jo Baker as recommended on the Mr & Mrs Collins thread (P&P from the servants' point of view). I really enjoyed it and couldn't put it down but although I was pleased with the ending, in real life, I don't think it would have turned out this way.

Now I can start on S&S.

I didn't like 'Longbourn'. It sucked all the joy out of the original story, and while I understand the concept, setting it in the P&P household was just a marketing gimmick. I probably would have enjoyed it more if it had been it's own story.

Have just started S&S. Austen wasn't subtle in her descriptions of any of the Dashwoods.

I didn't think Longbourn sucked the joy out of the story, it just showed that for all the entertaining, dressing up and going to balls etc. someone else had to do all the work with precious little recognition. My sympathy was with the servants probably because I would have been one of them if I'd been around at the time. My grandmother was 'in service'.

because I would have been one of them if I'd been around at the time

Me too, probably. I just didn't enjoy it (although I know a lot of people did).

I enjoyed Longbourne, but wonder (from pure ignorance) if there would have been so very few servants.

I'm enjoying What Matters in Jane Austen by John Mullan, but haven't come across anything relevant to this question.

Longbourn

Going on holiday soon and have been busily downloading books to the kindle based on suggestions from.this thread.

Would still like to hear views on Emma please !

John Sutherland and Deirdre LeFaye's 'So You Think You Know Jane Austen?' is also fun for Austen novel trivia which turns out not to be so entirely trivial in some ways. (It's set up as a series of quiz questions on each novel ranging from easy to hard, with lengthy answers at the back). I does cover some of the stuff we've talked about here, like why does Wickham elope with Lydia, why isn't Mr Collins's name Bennet, and things like who tells Lady Catherine de Burgh that there's rumoured to be an engagement between Lizzie and Darcy (presumably Charlotte Lucas via Mr Collins?)

Though some of their answers are debatable and some plain wrong - they appear to think that when Darcy says at the Assembly ball( when Bingley suggests he dance with Lizzie, who isn't dancing) that he doesn't want to give consequence to 'young ladies who are slighted by other men', he's suggesting that someone has been spreading rumours or gossip about Lizzie.

Which I think is nonsense. Darcy is just saying he doesn't want to dance, and if he were going to, he would definitely not be taking pity on a wallflower like Lizzie who's sitting out a dance because there aren't enough men. (Charming! Even Mr Knightley takes pity on poor, slighted Harriet Smith when Mr Elton rudely refuses to dance with her.)

How many servants does Longbourn depict the Bennets as having, then?

How many servants does Longbourn depict the Bennets as having, then?
A housekeeper, butler/handyman (Mr and Mrs Hill), maid of all work (Sarah), skivvy (Molly who had to change her name from Mary) and eventually a manservant/footman (James. They all seemed to have to turn their hand to anything required and worked very hard. At Pemberley, later in the book, there were a lot more servants and consequently it was easier. It wasn't me who asked the question but I'd also be interested to know.

I'm about a third of the way through S&S now. Is it just me or is it written in a much more convoluted, wordy style than P&P? I have to keep re-reading passages to get the sense and I didn't have to do this with P&P.

There's a lot of places in S&S where you have to read carefully to catch the sarcasm, I think.

Well, Pemberley is what we would now class as a stately home occupied by a wealthy family, and at the centre of a huge estate, so it would be crammed with servants. Presumably part of what Pemberley's nice housekeeper who shows Lizzie and the Gardiners around means when she gushes about what an excellent master Darcy is that he's retained a big household staff after he inherited and he and Georgiana were usually somewhere else, so could have had just a skeleton staff at Pemberley and more at his house in town...?

Whereas Lonbgourn is a modest gentleman's house on a presumably fairly small estate where the horses have to double up as workhorses and carriage horses, and where Mr Collins can assume (even though he's crass to say it aloud and Mrs Bennet indignantly denies it and says they are perfectly able to keep a cook) that some of the daughters help out with cooking. So a much more modest establishment. (I do think that one of the problems with a lot of TV and film adaptations is that Longbourn is far too large and glossy!)

And if Mrs B's slightly bitchy suggestion that Charlotte cooks at the Lucases is true, it's possible we should be seeing the Bennets keeping a cook is part of Mrs B's extravagance. In fact, if Charlotte does do some of the cooking at Lucas Lodge, she would have been far better prepared for the modest life at Hunsford Parsonage than if say, Jane, Lizzie or Mary had accepted Mr Collins. Obviously Jane and Lizzie won't need cooking skills in their marriages, though...

There some reference to a maid helping the girls dress/do their hair somewhere in P and P, too, but even though the hairdressing skills suggest a proper lady's maid, it does sound as if all the ladies share her services...?

Sarah is the maid's name. And I think she's only mentioned by name once in P&P. Obviously in Longbourn she gets the starring role.

IIRC, JA mentions specifically in PP that there's Hill (housekeeper), maids (plural), and a manservant (who is to meet the girls to escort them home). I'd assume the manservant is a footman-type rather than an 'official' butler, as he's someone who could be dispensed with to go collect the girls. There could be a cook, or Hill could be a cook/housekeeper.

One would assume that there are 'outside' servants, such as a groom and gardeners.

I haven't got a copy of P and P to hand, but I thought the manservant that gets referred to as an escort on a journey was the Gardiners'? Doesn't the divine Lady Catherine de B seem rather surprised that Lizzie's uncle keeps a manservant, which I think was a sort of social barometer, hence her raising her eyebrows that someone so ungenteel as to be living in Cheapside has one?