Anipal Book Club - Pride & Prejudice - Post No. 1

We read a lot at our house. Michael cancelled the cable subscription last year because he was mad at them. Something about “down time” and “wonky menus”. That’s fine with me. We do other stuff and have a much better time than we would if we were watching the t.v.

I was excited to show Diana the news about the Anipal Book Club. Even more excited to show her they had picked on of her favs, “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen.

We dug out her pocket size copy, the pretty red linen one with the golden edges, and started reading it again. This small version has hand drawn pictures. Diana shows them to me. I wag my tail and pretend to enjoy the ones that don’t have a dog or horse in them. While she is reading out loud to me I wondered which of the people would play with me if they were real. Here’s what I think:

Elizabeth Bennett is a lovely lady. She is intelligent, beautiful, funny and loyal. But she is human so she has faults too. She is hasty in her judgments and will apply them harshly. Then she gets herself stuck. I bet she would play squeaky toy with me if I asked her nicely.

Mr. Darcy makes me growl...Grrrr….he is so proud it makes my teeth hurt. I think his voice would scare me and I probably wouldn’t do play bows to ask him to play. I think he has a right to his opinions but he shouldn’t share them so openly, especially when they are mean about others. I don’t think he meets his own standard of behavior when he is rude to Elizabeth at the dance. Oh, sure he’s a handsome devil but it’s going to take some time to realize that he is a victim of his own words - just like Elizabeth.

Mr. Bingley seems like a good guy. We’d like to play with him for sure. He’d throw the ball at the park. I do wonder why he settled into this small neighborhood though…

Mrs. Bennett is a bit weird by our standards today, until you realize that her educational opportunities were limited by the times and her only “job” in life is to make sure her daughters are secure. We don’t fault people now for being single minded in their pursuit of their career goals - so I guess we can’t be mad at her, even if we don’t really like her and would bark at her if she came to visit.

Jane Bennett is all that a girl of her age is supposed to be. Beautiful, loyal, smart but not educated. I would sit quietly beside her and let her pet me but I wouldn’t play with her the way I would Elizabeth or Mr. Bingley.

Can’t wait to see how things develop.