Blogging Pride and Prejudice as if it Were a Teen Novel: Part 8

Volume of the Second Chapters 1-4

Volume of the second! My boss says lots of juicy stuff happens in P&PV2: Intergalactic Downfall. I dunno. Sounds pretty boring to me.

Let's see here...

Jane gets a letter from Caroline Bingley saying that the Bingleys are officially settled in at London for the winter. Brrrrrrrrrrr! The only thing colder than an English winter is what this letter implies. Caroline basically writes, "My brother rejects you and is going after Georgiana Darcy instead, and we're all going to live it up at the city while you cry in your country bed made of corn."

As Lizzy suggested in V1, Caroline may be lying about her brother's crush on Georgiana. But if her bro does have feelings for Jane, why hasn't he written to her? I have two theories:

1. Caroline Bingley is intercepting Mr. Bingley's letters to Jane. Caroline grinds them up (in a butter churn) and pours little bits of the love letters into her brother's oatmeal every morning. Under her breath she mutters, "Eat your words, Charles Bingley."

2. Charles Bingley is on a secret FBI (Full Body Interception) mission to capture a deranged murderer at Ireland. Also, Charles is invisible. Double also, invisible people can't write letters (unless they have invisible pens, but those are so expensive!).

Pride & Prejudice experts, is one of my theories correct?

Oh, and...

Teen Novel Rule #26: At least one character should be reeeeeeal selfish.

We should have talked about this earlier, but we didn't because Oops. Caroline Bingley probably defends her heinous actions in her own mind, but we all know that at the core, she's different from Jane, Elizabeth, and even Charlotte. None of those girls would do whatever it takes to get what they want with no regard for who gets hurt in the process. Think about if all the characters in this book refrained from committing any selfish act they suspected might hurt someone. This novel wouldn't even be called Pride & Prejudice. It would be called Lizzy Bennet Goes to Her Big Sister's Tasteful Spring Wedding.

Excuse me while I barf into my shoe a little.

The point is, we need selfish Caroline Bingley even if we hate her.

In other Bennet news, Mr. Wickham has been hanging out with Lizzy and her family. He tells a lot of stories about how horrible Mr. Darcy is, and a skeptical Lizzy starts to wonder whether these stories are the truth, or truthiness. Still, Lizzy says Wickham is the most agreeable man she's ever met.

Still, what?!

I do not compute.

Wickham likes Lizzy. Lizzy's like no, but yes. But kind of. Then her aunt—Mrs. Gardiner—comes to town and warns Lizzy against him because he's broke. So Lizzy's like "okay, no prob, didn't really like him that much anyway, but I did, a lot, because he's charming." Then some other girl—Miss King—inherits sweet Benjamins from her dead grandpa and Wickham stops hanging out with Lizzy and goes to court Miss King instead. And through absolutely all of this I cannot tell how Lizzy feels about him.

Does she love him?

Does she miss him?

Does she want to kiss his forehead until her lips falls off?

Teen Novel Rule #27: Make it clear where our protag's heart is.

It's okay for Lizzy to be confused about a boy, but let her be clearly confused, not confused about being confused. Know what I mean? On the reals, JA, how can we know how to feel about what's going on if we don't even know how our main character feels about it?

I'm not going to smugly dance atop Jane Austen's grave or anything, but I do have to say:

EPIC RULE BREAK.

To the tenth power.

With maple sugar.

And... glitter!

While Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner are at Longbourne, they invite Jane to stay with them in London to take her mind off The Bloated Silent Fish Monster (ehem, Mr. Bingley) and have some fun in the city. Mrs. Gardiner means well, but asking brokenhearted Jane to take a vacation to the very place Mr. Bingley resides would be like sending me to Diet Camp on a plane made of cheese.

Obviously, Jane says yes, fastens her seatbelt, and safely devours the seat in front of her.

Once at London, Jane tries to get in touch with her good penpal, Caroline Bingley. But Caroline ignores Jane. Finally, after many, many days, Caroline stops by Mrs. Gardiner's place. Jane's thrilled to see her, but Caroline acts as if she can't wait to leave, and probably does lots of rude things like frown, and murder. However, Caroline does reveal that Mr. Bingley knows Jane is now in London.

YES!!!

Sweet, sweet purveyor of whip cream, we've got something to get excited about! Now that Bingleberry knows Jane's in town, he'll be able to find her and explain why she hasn't received any letters from him and what's going on with Georgiana (sorry I spelled it rong last time, guys). Jane writes to Lizzy to tell her the news, but mostly dwells on what a fail monkey Caroline was acting like.

Meanwhile, Charlotte and The Booger get married, and Charlotte moves to at Rosings. Lizzy reluctantly agrees to visit Charlotte and Mr. Collins. She also makes plans to stop in London and visit Jane. When Lizzy reaches London, Jane's super pumped to see her, and Jane, Lizzy, and their aunt make plans to hit up some lakes together in the summertime.

THE END.

...for today.

Jane Austen Rule Review:

CORRECTION: Teen Novel Rule #10: Our protag's bestie must be less clever than our protag.

• This was originally deemed a FAIL on JA's part, but now that Charlotte's gone and married that bonehead Collins, the verdict gets changed to a WIN!

Current Jane Austen Scorecard: Wins, 21; Losses, 6

How agreeable is this book? Check Real Alias's comment below! She's keeping track of the number of times Austen uses the word "agreeable." Probably almost as many times as I use "barf." Barf!