This is my first post for The Classics Club.  I’ll be reading one classic book a month for the next 4-5 years.  Here’s the list of all the books I’ll be reading.  I’ll try not to include too many spoilers in my review but I may need to discuss some in order to fully review the book. I’ll warn you if I’m going to mention one.  

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

He nurses, I read!  (And yes, I actually bought that book in England in 1999, when it only cost me 99p, or around $1.50 at the time.  What a deal!)

• Year Written: 1813
• Re-read? Or new to me?:  Re-read (maybe my 3rd or 4th time?)
• Number of Pages: 299
• Date Finished: January 18, 2014
• Number of Days it took me to read it: 3
• Page/Day ratio:  100:1
• Would I want to read this in English class?: YES!

Review:  I don’t remember loving Pride and Prejudice as much as I did this time around.  Even though I knew how the book would end, I found myself racing through it, just wanting to read the words again to find out, “What will happen to Elizabeth?  Will Jane and Bingley ever find love?  Who will fix the problems that the scoundrel Wickham has caused?”

Although I haven’t been contributing to the discussions over at the Motherhood and Jane Austen Book Club, it was interesting to read this book again through the lens of motherhood.  In particular, I thought more about the mothers who are not mentioned: the mothers of Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley.  Particularly in Mr. Bingley’s case, why did Mr. Bingley turn out so wonderfully and his sisters so horribly?  Was it because they have a fabulous father and a terrible mother?  Or vice versa?  And how did Mr. Darcy’s sister cope with losing her mother when she was young?

I found Mr. Collins to be particularly absurd and funny on this re-read.  [SPOILER] I was laughing out loud at his refusal to believe that Elizabeth was actually refusing his offer of marriage.  His insistence that she was just being coy and trying to make his love for her even strong was both so sad and so laughable at the same time.

Finally, although Mrs. Bennett is usually seen as a money-grabbing insensitive crazy mother, I found myself feeling really sympathetic towards her.  If you had five daughters who had no way to support themselves and a husband whose income would disappear upon his death, wouldn’t you be out to marry off your girls as best as you could, too?  Her situation felt so precarious and helpless to me, perhaps because I now have children of my own to consider.

I definitely enjoyed my re-read of this classic.  And now, onto my next book!