Great Book Club Salutes

From time to time, Great Book Club will also post select links that might be of interest to our readers.

Today, we'd like to direct your attention to The Top Shelf, a blog about K-12 school libraries published by a director of library services who provides services to some 35,000 students.

What caught our attention first at The Top Shelf was the post, "Ideas for Elementary Book Clubs", which encourages picking year-long themes and linking books and activities to appeal to younger readers.

Several categories caught our attention, including the Books and Reading section (the most recent post featured a listing of the names of the American Library Association award winners) and the Book Discussion section.

A Horse or a Carriage - Comments on Chapter 7

Reading through the section immediately after Jane is invited to Netherfield (pt 5), I am slightly confused. Who wants Jane to ride a horse (Mrs. Bennet), and who wants Jane to take the carriage (Jane)?

Mrs. Bennet is rather obvious, because the scheme was contrived by her to strand Jane at Netherfield until the weather should clear. Jane is also obvious ("I had much rather go in the coach.")

Mr. Bennet seems to distance himself from the whole matter. He does not eagerly participate in Mrs. Bennet's scheme, and yet at the same time, he does not seem to need much persuasion.

What brings me to a point of confusion is the remaining prominent character in this scene. I am somewhat confused about Elizabeth Bennet; I could not imagine her being in favor of this idea at all. My thoughts seem to be confirmed by how she at first responds to her mother's plan: "That would be a good scheme... if you were sure that they would not offer to send (Jane) home." (That is to say, the plan to strand Jane at Netherfield might work, if one could guarantee that the Bingleys would not send Jane back in their own carriage.) Then, after Mr. Bennet makes a joke out of his wife's rationale for the unavailability of the horses for the carriage ("They are wanted in the farm much oftener than I can get them"), Elizabeth responds:

"But if you have got them to-day... my mother's purpose will be answered."

She did at last extort from her father an acknowledgment that the horses were engaged. Jane was therefore obliged to go on horseback, etc.

As I read it, Elizabeth would seem to be the one who finally presses the matter, so that Jane ends up riding (in the rain) on horseback to Netherfield. Am I following this correctly?

Catherine and Lydia - Comments on Chapter 7

The focus turns briefly to the less prominent Bennet daughters, Catherine and Lydia. Austen tellingly describes them: "Their minds were more vacant than their sisters'". These youngest Bennet girls make it their chief occupation to be the bearers of gossip - regularly visiting their aunt in Meryton in order to return with news for evening conversation. "At present, indeed, they were well supplied both with news and happiness by the recent arrival of a militia regiment in the neighborhood; it was to remain the whole winter, and Meryton was the head quarters."

An Entailed Estate - Chapter 7 Discussion

MR. BENNET'S property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed, in default of heirs male, on a distant relation; and their mother's fortune, though ample for her situation in life, could but ill supply the deficiency of his. Her father had been an attorney in Meryton, and had left her four thousand pounds. - Ch. 7 pt 1

A similar problem besets the main family in Sense and Sensibility, where the husband, by his second marriage, has only produced daughters. His decease takes place early in the novel, and his estate quickly passes along to his son, born of a previous marriage. This son is more or less talked completely out of helping his father's widow and her daughters. The women must survive on the good graces of other relatives, hoping and praying for wealthy spouses who might relieve them of their poverty.

While Mr. Bennet's decease does not at all seem imminent, the thought is no doubt prominent that the Bennet women will be pressed into a situation similar to that of Sense and Sensibility when the unfortunate event should finally take place.

Out of curiosity, would anyone be able to shed light on what this somewhat morbid beginning has to do with the rest of the chapter?