Fall is Here!

“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!” wrote Keats in “Ode to Autumn.” In my opinion, if any season deserves an ode (written by an incredibly talented poet, no less), it’s autumn. I love love love the fall! It’s my favorite season. It makes me think of going back to school, the beginning of football season, fall carnivals, harvest, and the arrival of glorious weather. And pretty leaves.

Pride and Prejudice, Part 2

The elephant bookmark strikes again!

My thoughts: Ok, I finished rereading Pride and Prejudice. I should mention that I’ve only read two Jane Austen novels—this one, and Sense and Sensibility. I was supposed to read Northanger Abbey in a college Romanticism class, and didn’t finish it. I was also supposed to read Emma in another class, and, guess what? Didn’t finish. I used to be pretty bad about that.

I like Pride and Prejudice because it portrays how complex courtship and infatuation can be. “The course of true love never did run smooth,” wrote Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And that’s evident here. Jane and Bingley are kept apart because of the machinations of others, but also because of Bingley’s inability to stand up to Mr. Darcy and sisters (really, he needs to get a backbone). Elizabeth and Darcy are kept apart because, well, they both need to grow up a bit and get over themselves. However, reading the last half of the book, it’s easy to see why people (well, women) idolize Mr. Darcy. He behaves like a grown-up in situations when many people would act like children. He is really nice and accommodating to Elizabeth and her aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, when they bump into him during their tour of his home, Pemberley. This is after Lizzy coldly rejected his proposal. Most people would not behave with such maturity toward someone who turned them down (and some would, no doubt, have had Elizabeth and the Gardiners escorted off the property). Darcy had trouble expressing his love for Lizzy verbally, but he proves his loyalty to her by saving Lydia and the whole Bennet family from ruin following her tryst with Wickham—proving that actions really do speak louder than words.

My loathing of Mrs. Bennet and Lydia are pretty constant during the length of the book. I never lose the desire to climb into the pages and slap them down. Speaking of Lydia, I think it’s realistic that she does not change her undisciplined ways after said rescue from Darcy. She does not even realize that she is being rescued or why she needs to be. As I observed while reading Bonjour Tristesse, people usually don’t change their behavior when they should—this can be said of Lydia. Come to think of it, Cecile from Bonjour Tristesse is a lot like our Lydia Bennet—both act like they are adults, but are not ready to grow up.

In the final chapters is my favorite moment of the book—Elizabeth’s verbal smackdown of Lady Catherine de Bourgh when the latter practically marches into the Bennet home and tells Lizzy that she, Lady Catherine, forbids Lizzy from marrying Mr. Darcy—before they were even engaged. Lizzy tells her off in such a well-worded yet respectful way—would that all of us could be as eloquent as her when confronting someone who wants to tear us down. Elizabeth stands up for herself, basically tells Lady Catherine to mind her own business, and does not cower before Lady Catherine as many others (like Mr. Collins) do. Perhaps this is why Elizabeth Bennet is such an admired character. Their confrontation is one of my favorite moments in literature ever.

Now, a word about Mr. Wickham. Before, I mentioned that every woman has met someone like Mr. Collins. I wonder if the same can be said for Mr. Wickham. He’s like the popular high school jock that everyone believes to be good and no one can see is really a jerk until it’s too late. The “moral” of Pride and Prejudice is not to judge others until you really know them. This can be said of Darcy—who, though flawed, proves to have a better character than almost anyone else in the novel. But it can also be said of Wickham—no one who, when they first met him, would have believed that he was an incredible liar who preys on naïve young girls. Jane Austen tells us not to be taken in by a stranger’s dazzling smile and tale of woe. He may be hiding something…

Great passage (from the confrontation between Lady Catherine and Elizabeth—really, it’s a thing of beauty):
“Miss Bennet, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such language as this. I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world, and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns.”
“But you are not entitled to know mine; nor will such behavior as this, ever induce me to be explicit.”
“Let me be rightly understood. This match, to which you have the presumption to aspire, can never take place. No, never. Mr. Darcy is engaged to my daughter. Now what have you to say?”
“Only this; that if he is so, you can have no reason to suppose he will make an offer to me.”

Up next: I’m not sure, but I’m thinking of rereading Sense and Sensibility

Chicken & Dumplings!

I love my owl trivet.

Technically, this was a recipe for "chicken soup with herb dumplings," but let's not split hairs. It was delicious. Here's the recipe.

Pride and Prejudice, Part 1

Author: Jane Austen

Category: I’ve read this book twice before. Also, I really needed a break from The Guns of August. I looked over at my bookshelf, and Pride and Prejudice called to me.

My thoughts: It’s such fun to reread this book. It’s chock full of goodness. I forgot how funny Jane Austen is. She is hilarious when observing the oddities and quirks of human behavior. In this post, I’d like to mainly focus on the characters in Pride and Prejudice.

Both the primary and secondary characters are very well sketched. Sometimes I think of the characters in Pride and Prejudice as being a bit one-dimensional. In the back of my mind, I have this stereotype (prejudice, if you will) that Elizabeth Bennet is written to be a perfect heroine. Upon rereading the novel, I found that this is not true. Austen writes Lizzy as a sensible but imperfect heroine. She has a great deal of sense, but she is a know-it-all. She thinks she can perfectly surmise the character of others—and maybe she can with the simple Mr. Bingley, but she is wrong about the characters of both Darcy and Wickham. She also has a strong ability to hold a grudge, as she does against Darcy for his insult to her when they first meet (“She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me”). From this moment, Lizzy is bound and determined not to like Darcy, even though he makes friendly (in his own awkward way) overtures to her afterwards. But the fact that she is flawed makes her more likeable. Also, I usually think of Jane Bennet as being a milquetoast—and she mostly is. But she was the only one who, upon learning of Wickham’s accusations toward Darcy, thought there must be another side to the story. And so she was right. But of course, she was not one to gloat.

Now for the annoying/irritating characters. Jane Austen portrays them very well too. Mrs. Bennet, Lydia Bennet, Mr. Collins, Lady Catherine, and Caroline Bingley all fall into this category. Every time I read this book, I get the urge to climb into the pages and slap Lydia and Mrs. Bennet. I think Mrs. B would win the “Most Embarrassing Literary Mom” award. And Mr. Collins…haven’t we all met (or tried to avoid) guys like him? His clumsy proposal to Lizzy and his refusal to take no for an answer are hilarious. Mr. Collins is the guy at the bar who won’t leave you alone when you’ve made it clear that you are not interested. And everyone knows someone like Lady Catherine, who thinks she knows everything. Sample Lady Catherine statement: “There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.” Lady Catherine reminds us that, like Lizzy, Darcy has an embarrassing relative too. Finally, there’s dear Caroline Bingley, the book’s resident mean girl. Her bitchiness is fun to read, and the scenes where Austen describes Caroline’s futile attempts to flirt with Mr. Darcy, and his kind but terse responses, are classic.

One character that I completely forgot is even in the novel, but who is intriguing to me, is Colonel Fitzwilliam, Darcy’s cousin. I think he is a foil for Darcy—Colonel Fitzwilliam is easy to talk to and makes it clear that he enjoys Lizzy’s company (as opposed to Darcy, who also enjoys Lizzy’s company, but is so awkward around her).

I am thoroughly enjoying rereading this novel! I think what makes this book so great is that the feelings of the characters are universal. We have all been a bit (or very) awkward or said something silly around someone we like.

Great passage: More than once did Elizabeth in her ramble within the Park, unexpectedly meet Mr. Darcy.—She felt all the perverseness of the mischance that should bring him where no one else was brought; and to prevent its ever happening again, took care to inform him at first, that it was a favourite haunt of hers.—How it could occur a second time therefore was very odd!—Yet it did, and even a third. It seemed like willful ill-nature, or a voluntary penance, for on these occasions it was not merely a few formal enquiries and an awkward pause and then away, but he actually thought it necessary to turn back and walk with her.

P.S. Part 2 is coming soon!

The Guns of August, Chapters 10 – 14

My thoughts: This section was a bit difficult to get through, to be honest. Chapter 10 starts off discussing Turkey (who ended up taking sides with Germany), then segues into a naval battle (which involved Turkey) between Britain and Germany. The section about the naval battle was cumbersome for me—I suppose that means I wouldn’t make a good sailor. One notable thing about this chapter is that Tuchman mentions that passengers on an Italian steamer witnessed part of this naval battle. Among these passengers, writes Tuchman, were “the daughter, son-in-law, and three grandchildren of the American ambassador Mr. Henry Morgenthau.” Barbara Tuchman, our esteemed author, was one of those grandchildren of Henry Morgenthau! But she was only two years old at the time, so I’m pretty sure she remembered nothing.

These chapters also mention the German invasion of Belgium. Perhaps I should back up and explain why the Germans decided to invade Belgium in the first place. The Germans wanted to stick to the Schlieffen Plan, which decreed that Germany would invade and defeat France, then focus on Russia. This was designed to prevent Germany from fighting a two-front war (because those are NEVER a good idea). And the way to France was through Belgium.

Chapter 11 documents the battle at Liège in Belguim, about which Tuchman writes, “The prodigal spending of lives by all the belligerents that was to mount and mount in senseless excess to hundreds of thousands at the Somme, to over a million at Verdun began on that second day of the war at Liège.” In other words, the prototype for how brutal World War I was to become began in that Belgian city. Although the city’s citizens had some fight in them, they eventually fell to the Germans, who mercilessly shelled the city. Their defense of the city reminds me of the poem “If We Must Die” by Claude McKay (which was written in 1919). The last lines of the poem are “Like men, we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,/Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!” The brutal treatment of the Belgians by the German army did not stop at Liège, and the invaders cut a deadly path across the country.

Chapter 14 documents the Battle of the Frontiers, which was when things got really ugly. The French were slaughtered by the Germans in the Ardennes forest (which, because I’m a huge fan of Band of Brothers, I know was the sight of The Battle of the Bulge thirty years later during World War II). We see that the desire to stick to military plans by both the Germans and the French led to really bad consequences. The French’s military plans did not include plans for defense—they were really big fans of offense. So they didn’t plan on how to respond to German attacks. The Battle of the Frontiers was the moment, perhaps, that everyone realized that it would not be a quick war. It was when a war of movement became a war of attrition. The French, at least, realized at this moment what happens to the best laid plans of mice and men. Tuchman writes, “Human beings, like plans, prove fallible in the presence of those ingredients that are missing in maneuvers—danger, death, and live ammunition.” That is a very hard and age-old lesson. But, unfortunately, no one knew how long the war would be or how many lives it would cost.

This part of the book, while interesting, was not as engaging to me as the first ten chapters. I think that’s maybe because the beginning of the book was more history related, whereas Chapters 10 – 14 are more about military strategy. But Tuchman proves time and again that she was a wonderful writer. And because of this, I kept reading. The most striking thing about this book is that Tuchman wrote with her eye to the future—she constantly reminds us why the first month of the war is so relevant to how the rest of the war, which in turn influenced the entire 20th century, played out.

Great passage: The German march through Belgium, like the march of predator ants who periodically emerge from the South American jungle to carve a swath of death across the land, was cutting its way across the field, road, village, and town, like the ants unstopped by rivers or any obstacle.