Robert Rodi's Blog, page 10

Bitch break

Loyal readers may have noticed a longer lag time between the final entries in my autopsy of P&P; that's because outside projects are once again demanding more of my time.  Not that that's a bad thing...hell, Poppa's got bills to pay, and so far this blog has earned me a grand total of 17 cents.  (If you want to help change that, click on our right-hand-column ads, or check out my recommended Amazon products.  Maybe you can get me up to—oh, the sky's the limit.  A buck fifty!  Two dollah...

Pride and Prejudice, chapters 58-61

We've reached the point in Pride and Prejudice where every chapter seems to open with Bingley on the Bennets' doorstep, so it's no surprise that that's what happens here.  It is a surprise, at least to Lizzy, that he's brought Darcy with him, because after Lady Catherine's visit, during which that venomous old reptile did everything but torch the house and sow the soil with salt, Lizzy wasn't sure she'd ever see Darcy again.  But here he is, still parading around with his chin in the air...

Pride and Prejudice, chapters 54-57

Oscar Wilde famously observed that all women become their mothers, and we find the first terrifying hint of this in Lizzy as she reflects on Darcy's reappearance at Longbourn, where he comported himself with an air that might accurately be called "funereal" if what we're referring to is the actual corpse.  "If he no longer cares for me, why silent?" she asks herself  "Teasing, teasing man!  I will think no more about him."  Which has all the ringing finality of one of Mrs. Bennet's many...

Pride and Prejudice, chapters 50-53

Pride and Prejudice, chapters 46-49

"Lydia, oh Lydia, at risk of chlamydia / Lydia the SCAAAR-let lady / Any officer to offer / She'll let climb both on and off 'er"

Heh. I just now made that up. Apologies to the immortal Groucho.

And apologies to Lydia as well, because she's really not that free with her favors. Though she's not likely to be held up as a model of maidenly virtue anytime soon—as we, and her older sister, are about to find out.

Lizzy's still in Lambton with Aunt and Uncle Gardiner, and still looking...

Pride and Prejudice, chapters 42-45

Pride and Prejudice, chapters 38-41

Mr. Collins corners Lizzy on the morning of her departure, ostensibly to thank her for her kindness in visiting Charlotte, but really to twist the knife a little. Venturing to hope that she hasn't been bored by their simple, quiet life, he notes that of course there has been the compensating factor of their connection to Rosings, that Valhalla of all earthly glory.

"You see on what a footing we are. You see how continually we are engaged there. In truth I must acknowledge that, with all...

Pride and Prejudice, chapters 34-37

The big moment arrives—the crux of the novel.

Lizzy, pleading a headache, has stayed behind at the parsonage while the Collinses and Maria have gone to tea at Rosings…where, we know by now, even the most benign headache might turn lethal. Then, "as if intending to exasperate herself as much as possible against Mr. Darcy," Lizzy dives back into all the letters she's received from Jane over the past few weeks, to trawl them for signs of heartache and distress. She can contrast these with...

Pride and Prejudice, chapters 29-33

The Hunsford party is invited to dine at Rosings the day after their arrival, the unexpected honor of which has Mr. Collins in such a state he doesn't know whether to faint, burst into song, or just run laps around the parsonage waving his hands above his head. "The power of displaying the grandeur of his patroness to his wondering visitors, was exactly what he wished for," and the fact of it coming so soon is almost deranging—or would be, if he weren't deranged already.

Sir William...

Pride and Prejudice, chapters 24-28

"Hope was over, entirely over"—an uncharacteristically melodramatic outburst from this most astringent of authors; but it's in relation to Jane Bennet, so she has to use stronger verbiage than usual to convince us that Jane's still waters really do run deep. Some of us remain not entirely convinced that her desolation is as bad it as all that. Anything might snap her out of it. A hobby—say, butterfly collecting. If she could bear to put the pins in.

Anyway, the prompt for this...