Let’s just imagine I’m more clever at computer stuff and that I’m drawing some flames over this crappy timewaster, ok?

The plot of Inferno simply doesn’t have the clever twists, pacing, or intrigue of Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, or even my personal Dan Brown fave, Deception Point. This is more like the lackluster “who cares” of The Lost Symbol. Population crisis, plagues, and Dante Alighieri? That sounds amazing. Except what we actually get are pages and pages of descriptions of European architecture, double-crossing sidekicks, unnecessary repetition and predictability, and convenient amnesia. I didn’t expect great literature, but MAN, I didn’t expect this dud either. This should have at least been a FUN read.

All in all, Inferno could have been good, given the author’s vast resources and ability to cull out interesting factoids about real places, but that simply never happens. Bleh. Over it. Although I may actually have to pick up The Divine Comedy for a Inferno WORTH a reread soon…

In this section, Darcy (and also his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam) visit Elizabeth and the Collinses at the parsonage. Charlotte wants to believe at first that this is because he is in love with Lizzy, yet none of his behavior — overall very abrupt, silent, and stare-y – can convince her of this. Charlotte even believes that if Lizzy knew it, she’d instantly start liking him back “if she could suppose him in her power.” Hmm, very telling that Elizabeth’s very best friend, a shrewd and overly practical woman, would believe this to be the case. Interestingly enough, just as Lizzy disapproved of Charlotte’s marriage to Mr. Collins, Charlotte prefers Colonel Fitzwilliam for Elizabeth. What is it with all the people in this book trying to fix/unfix each other up? Reminds me of middle school!

Elizabeth, oblivious, continues to walk in the park separating the big house at Rosings and Charlotte’s cottage. In doing so, she repeatedly stumbles upon Darcy along the exact same walk…even though they both find it a little difficult to make conversation. He implies that the next time she is in Kent she’ll be staying at the big house and his cousin lets slip that he keeps delaying their departure ….and thus his intentions become clear to everyone but our heroine. And yes, Lizzy, sometimes you are a dolt!

In the same vein, Lizzy unwittingly stumbles upon uncomfortable subjects of conversation during her walks with the gentlemen including the difficult behavior of Miss Darcy (the ward of Col. Fitz and Darcy) AND the true reason Bingley left Netherfield. Not realizing that Lizzy’s sister Jane is the subject of their conversation, Fitzwilliam sorta, not really, accidentally reveals that Darcy persuaded Bingley to leave to ensure he did not marry Jane.

Elizabeth is shocked but not surprised by this news and feigns a headache to avoid confronting Darcy. Undeterred, he comes to the parsonage specifically to confront her with the most atrocious, insulting marriage proposal ever. After outright ignoring her for several long moments, he then tells her how much he wished he didn’t like her but has found he does and begrudgingly, it seems, demands she marry him. And honestly, as much as I get Darcy’s behavior here, this is nearly unforgivable.

By the by, I stumbled upon this Sparknotes/Blogging P&P as a teen novel site when I was playing around in internetland and it has been keeping me up at night. Here’s their graphic for the Darcy proposal:

Love this!

So, anyway, Elizabeth reminds Darcy that she thinks he is lower than a slug and that she can never forgive him because he screwed up Jane’s love life. He scoffs and tells her that their breakup was like his greatest personal triumph or something and that he wishes he had been so kind as to put himself off her as easily as he got Bingley away from Jane. (At this point I make squinty, mean, glaring eyes at him. Not cool, Darcy.) Lizzy then stoops fairly low herself and reminds him that he has likewise wronged her other boyfriend, Mr. Wickham. This all sounds fairly middle-school angsty again, and I could respect her more if she’d never brought this up.

Nah, he says, you’re just ticked because I told you I never wanted to like you and that I hate your family. She tries to one-up his insulting comments by telling him she hates him and can’t think of anyone else she’d rather marry. For once, her words seem to pierce his pride and he starts to get that he hasn’t acted as gentlemanly as he pretends. He storms out and she reflects on how easily she has rejected his suit, but then runs up to (cry in?) her room. Interesting…

Darcy and Elizabeth spend the next day again wandering outside (because, seriously, what else is there to do in the countryside for five weeks?) and he gives her THE letter. This is the letter which proves Darcy, while certainly proud, actually has a soul; he just has no social skills and therefore presents his thoughts best in writing. At first he IMMEDIATELY reassures her he won’t ask her to marry him again. I can’t decide if this is really respectful of Lizzy’s feelings or another dig at how inappropriate she is…

Anyhow, Darcy’s letter explains that his friend Bingley is OFTEN in love. Since Jane seemed unattached, Darcy thought there was time to get Bingley safely away from her admittedly distasteful connections (even EB would have to admit THAT much). And since they’d only been seeing each other a few weeks, and B was willingly led away, and Jane wasn’t really attached anyway, it didn’t seem a serious problem. That sounds…surprisingly reasonable-ish. Darcy also seems like the type of guy who is OFTEN making decisions for others (Bingley, his sister, etc.), so this is not out of character for him…what is surprising is that he wouldn’t have acted MORE strongly to separate Jane and Bingley if he thought the man’s sisters were ALSO displeased with Jane’s influence. He goes on about how he views the Wickham dissolution much more seriously since it was a family connection and one which had existed for far longer. Damn you Darcy! Again, here you go with the reasonable when I’m trying to hate you. He also gets in another biting remark, which is also inexplicably quite touching:  “I was not master of myself enough” because she rejected him…aw. I’m having a hard time NOT liking him at this point and I’m getting seriously irritated at Elizabeth.

Then we get the “was I wrong? Was I right?” saga of indecision that is Lizzy’s prejudice and again, Darcy’s pride. Except it seems now that Lizzy has for the first time realized and admitted this weakness in herself: “Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance…Till this moment I have never known myself.” Lizzy has been wrong in liking Wickham, hating Darcy, and deluding herself in both areas AND she just NOW realizes this…it’s no wonder that Mr. Collins liked her; right now, she is as self-absorbed as he is! And I just CANNOT get over how fickle and jerky she seems here!

Anyway, Lizzy picks up Jane so they can head home; eventually she also spills the beans about Wickham but leaves the knowledge of Bingley’s departure and Darcy’s involvement to herself. This seems conveniently selfish; after all, doesn’t Jane have a right to know about her own love life, even if the details are hurtful? Together, they decide the rest of the world should be spared the truth about Wickham because it might make him “desperate.” Excuse me, WTF???  This I-will-make-decisions-for-everyone-around-me-without-any-regard-whatsoever-to-their-feelings attitude is kinda what gets Darcy in trouble with Lizzy, right? That’s surely got to bite SOMEONE in the ass before long.

Anyway, back to the book review:

Whoa, dude. How did you get inside my head? Granted, I’m pretty sure I’m not actually a Jewish man, but still…Mr. Smith, I am amazed by how totally you GET my anxiety. What year were you born? I really truly think you might actually be my long-lost twin.

Anyway, Smith’s description of anxiety as a fight-or-flight response gone haywire seems apt. I also share his (and his friend Kate’s) “allergy to practical behaviors, such as opening one’s mail” and find that I am also a compulsive nailbiter and counter-phobic much like the author. However, I’m unconvinced that this is a bad thing; after all, if people didn’t rush headlong into their fears (like a flash mob!) sometimes, how would humankind progress? Does it matter that the person did so to soothe his own anxiety or squelch his own fears?

Creepy side-note: Do you think it means something that my great-grandma had this exact same chattering monkey toy which totally scared the shit of me as a kid? Is it significant that a version of this damn monkey also figures prominently in a work of Stephen King horror and the lives of me, Daniel Smith, and likely several other quite anxious adults? I wonder how this hideous piece of Americana was marketed, actually. Would you care for a little childhood trauma with your toys, anyone? Yikes. This deranged primate STILL gives me nightmares. Way to eff up your offspring, folks!

Well, Caroline Bingley has persuaded Mr. Bingley to leave town to marry Darcy’s sister, and Jane’s deludedly nice and doesn’t blame Caroline and is all martyrish sweetness and YAWN. Caroline is a much better character than boring old Jane, because you get to enjoy hating her! Anyway, I’m not sad that Bingley has left, because all I can think of when he’s mentioned now is this:

Charlotte Lucas has managed to snare Mr. Collins after a whirlwind romance that takes all of about a day, and Lizzie’s kinda mad at her for being so stupid as to marry someone so ridiculous. Not for the obvious reason, which is that CHARLOTTE GETS THEIR HOUSE WHEN MR. BENNET DIES. (note to self: I need to look up entails, because wtf?)

So Lizzie goes to visit Charlotte and Mr. Collins, and between him being ridiculous and us finally being introduced to Mrs. Catherine de Burgh, it’s hysterical. This book just gets funnier and funnier! I’ve never heard of P&P being funny, but man it’s been cracking me up.

This whole section was kind of slow, actionwise. But, we got very many descriptions of Mr. Collin’s insanely unhealthy obsession with Mrs. de Burgh, so it all balances out!

Panda Facepalm

So, since I am compelled to post SOMETHING about this section by today since this is MY dumb challenge, I am forced to do a quick reread. Hopefully, I took some notes or made some highlights on my Kindle that are clever enough to use…let’s see.

Um, is it normal that I sort of want to buy all the pillows on this site???

Ohhhhkay. There’s nothing clever or helpful in my notes because NOTHING of consequence happens in section 3. Basically, this section should be called “crap we need to have happen so later plotlines will work that no one really cares about right now.”

I SUPPOSE we could count Charlotte’s hasty acceptance of Mr. Collins’ rebound proposal an “event,” except I don’t really care about Charlotte, and after all, she’s OLD (ha!) at 27, so what choice does she have really? Good riddance to both of them; they’re annoying.

And then the bitchy Bingley biddies send Jane a series of snarky letters explaining ever-so-nonchalantly that their brother has ditched town FOR NO REASON AT ALL (BTW, not cool, Charles, not cool), he is NEVER coming back, and that they can’t wait to become sisters-in-law with Georgiana Darcy. SUBTLE, right?…Anyway, while it seems implied that they’re planning to marry off their brother to the young Ms. Darcy, I’m sure Caroline has other designs which could accomplish that same goal…ahem.

Then the whole Bennet family decides it is a good idea to ship Jane (in all her brokenhearted misery) off to London where she might, you know, use up all her moping on someone else so they don’t have to be bothered with it, and oh, if it’s convenient and all, pop in on Bingley. Jane jumps at the chance, probably to get away from her MISERABLE excuse for a family, and yeah, maybe to get a peek at (or a well-deserved explanation from) Bingley.

There’s some drama when Lizzy goes off to meet Charlotte Collins (nee Lucas) and her new husband, gets invited to meet and dine with Lady Catherine de Bourgh (twice!), and is effectively warned off Wickham by her aunt. Overall, bleh. Bleh, I say on section 3!

More bitching about at Netherfield. Mean girls, mean Darcy, clever Lizzie. (I’m guessing that could sum up most of the book from here on out). There’s an awesome scene where Darcy directly calls Caroline Bingley out on her plan to walk around the room in front of him so that he can watch her and fall in love with her.

Jane and Lizzie finally escape from Netherfield, where their mother has been forcing them to overstay their welcome. Mrs. Bennett, not caring at all about her daughters or how desperate she looks, refuses to let them use the carriage to get home, because she wants them to round out their stay to a full week.

Lizzie meets the “charming” Mr. Wickham, who instantly starts complaining about how mean Mr. Darcy stole all his money. Whine whine whine. So our dear Lizzie, who may not be the brightest crayon in the box after all, instantly believes him and starts to hate Darcy even more. Darcy, on the other hand, politely(ish) won’t discuss it with her or badmouth Wickham. DUN DUN DUN I wonder which of them could be the evil one?

The ball at Netherfield. Mr. Collins hilariously stumbles around like a social-climbing Mr. Magoo, expounding pompously on topics that no one cares about. Lizzie squirms with embarrassment when her entire family acts insane.

Mr. Collins tries long-windedly proposes to Lizzy, and it is perhaps the funniest scene I’ve read in a book, ever. First she tries to flee the room so he can’t ask, but her mean mom makes her stay, and he insists on “assuring her of the violence of his affection.” So Lizzy’s all “um…thanks but no.” And he’s like “oh girls are so silly, I don’t believe you!” and she’s like “…no, really, I mean NO.” And THEN he’s all “well I’m awesome, so I still don’t believe you.” And eventually she just leaves the room and figures she’ll get her dad to break the news to Collins.

Then we get more complete awesomeness from Mr. Bennet, when Mrs. Bennet vows to never speak to Lizzy again if she doesn’t marry Collins, and HE says that he’ll never speak to Lizzy again if she does marry him. Hee! Mr. Bennet needs his own spinoff book. I wish people would concentrate less on stupid zombies and more on Mr. Bennet when writing books in this universe!

A total digression, but here is a series of ridiculous photos of him from the P&P miniseries I watched this weekend. I cringe even more when he comes onscreen in his Puritanical parson’s getup. He’s a simpering idiot who reminds me incredibly of Wormtail in Harry Potter. I wonder, do all noncharacters in Britain go to the same acting school???

Of course, we do get to meet the dashing and debonair Mr. Wickham in section 2, the soldier “in regimentals” who manages to sweep Lizzy and her sisters off their feet. He’s flattering and charming and everything his dreaded former playmate from Pemberley is not. Again, like the smarmy preacher Mr. Collins, Wickham’s character here seems placed primarily to highlight flaws in Mr. Darcy and to let us know just how unforgiving Darcy can be to his enemies. More on that and “dear Wickham” in future posts, though, to be sure

Finally, Lizzy receives, and refuses, her first offer of marriage here. This, I believe, is a very bold move given her standing in society…no money for a dowry, no rich connections to recommend her, a family (mostly) full of socially inept dingbats, and soon, it would seem, not even a home to live in. While she has charms enough, her outspoken nature would seem yet another deterrent to men of her time looking for a docile and obedient wife. Still, I admire her boldness AND her smarts as she turns down a lifetime of pedantry and ickiness with Mr. Collins and his noted patroness Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

I’m on to more interesting sections…with less of the dreaded Mr. Collins and more of Jane missing Bingley, Charlotte’s upcoming nuptials, more pettiness from the Bingley sisters, several visits from Wickham, and much gallivanting around the countryside by (most of) the Bennet girls. Except poor Kitty and Mary…left out again

So, character introductions, Mrs. Bennet being a busybody, Mr. Bennet sitting around trolling everybody (hee!). We’re introduced to the horrible Mr. Darcy and the terrible Miss Bingley. Darcy stomps around being a dickhead to everyone he sees, and Caroline Bingley very amusingly throws herself at him desperately while casting dispersions on Lizzie every chance she gets. It is hilarious.

Bingley is rumored to be showing up at the first ball with 12 ladies and 7 gentleman, and no one bats an eye. Who just travels around with their 19 closest friends in tow???

When Jane is invited to go have dinner with the Bingley sisters, her mother gets all excited and makes her ride a horse instead of taking the carriage, because she figures that if it rains Jane will be stuck at the Bingley house forever.

While that is clever, she also shows no interest at all when Jane actually gets sick from riding around in the rain, which makes her a really terrible mother. All Mr. Bennet has to say about it is “well when she dies it’ll be your fault,” which kind of makes him really awesome. So Lizzie goes (uninvited) to the Bingley house to take care of Jane while she’s sick, and there’s lots of yapping about how all the girls hate each other. And that’s a problem that keeps irritating me. Even though this book was written by a woman, it STILL regulates most of the female characters to catty, silly, empty-headed gossips.

Lizzie’s a nice, sensible, clever main character, and I like her already. But Darcy, mannnnnn. I have this vague knowledge that this is going to turn into some great love story between the two of them, but from what we’ve seen so far, I don’t find it likely that I’ll able to be convinced that he’s misunderstood and at all deserving of Lizzie’s (or my) love. HE CALLED HER UGLY WITHIN HER HEARING!! Well, I’m pretty engrossed in this book so far, so Ms. Austen can give it her best shot!

Is it wrong that I will forever picture this t-shirt and this face whenever I read the famous opening line of Pride and Prejudice from now on? Also, I want her hair. And probably also her eyebrows.

Anyway…let’s get back to discussing the first ten chapters of the novel, shall we?

I love all the ways that Austen makes the Bennet women (minus Jane and Lizzy, of course) seem insipid and Darcy and the lady Bingleys seem pretentious. It’s all so very subtle but also important for creating the later drama. Still, I always feel a bit bad for Mary, and even Kitty, during this part. Lizzy, Jane, Mrs. B and even Lydia get personalities, while the other two seem so dull. (Ha, I can totally see why the webshow cut them, but I digress…again).

I also like how, even this early on in section one, Lizzy (who clearly has a fairly unfavorable impression of Darcy following his comments about her and the Longbourn/Meryton townspeople at the ball) defends him against her mother’s insults. I mean, why do that? It seems like a little too much effort just to irk the Mama. Methinks the evidence suggests she likes him even now…

However, I do get annoyed with the whole Jane-is-sick-and-unable-to-go-home subplot. I know this is essential for getting Jane to spend time with Bingley and his family and build their romance and yet I cannot help but feel this part is a little forced. I remember thinking (the first time I read this) that Jane must be taking a page from her mother’s book and faking her illness to prolong the stay. After all, who gets that sick from a “cold”? SHE MUST BE FAKING. Except she is Jane, so we know she is not, but I still don’t buy it. Even in the early 1800s (or…whenever. BTW, when the hell is this book actually set anyway?), that level of cold simply from riding a horse in the rain seems ridiculous! (Also, does anyone else find it interesting that the author named her meekest, most lovable, and incredibly long-suffering heroine after herself???)

I also always wonder where the Bingley parents are. Are they deceased? I know that these folks are all adults, and Bingley is a guy and in charge of his own fortune so technically he needs no guidance from his parents, but how come they aren’t around to have an opinion on who their son marries/shares his fortune with? Is this why he needs Darcy? Ewww. But actually, the Darcy-as-surrogate-parent thread seems to be woven pretty heavily throughout this novel. Hmmm.

I’m off to section two when the Bennet sisters head home and the story starts to progress in more logical ways…even though I don’t technically have to read this part until next weekend!

P.S. I just LOVE Mr. Bennet. After Elizabeth, he’s surely my favorite character. I adore how calm and clever and even playful he manages to remain in a house full of SIX women! (Oh, CORRECTION. I love every Mr. B except the Donald Sutherland one. He was skeevy and would make a better Haymitch Abernathy than father to Lizzy Bennet!)

Eww.

I’m not really sure I have much to say about Requiem. I didn’t like it. I just feel rather blah about the whole thing, and I’m really only writing this review because I commented on the first two. I found it hard to stay focused on it and it kind of bored me.

So the Hana storyline was pointless. In the beginning she was worried that her Cure didn’t take…what happened to that? That  was just dropped.

It is rather bold to switch up each book the way Lauren Oliver did. The first was from Lena’s POV, the second one was back and forth from past to present, and this one switches between Hana and Lena’s POVs. It is also bold to attempt to make us forget Alex and love Julian. NEVER! Never never ever never. I am not as fickle as Lena!!!!

All throughout this book, I couldn’t even tell if Lena liked Julian or not. Or if he liked her, every scene seemed to feature him pulling his hand away from her or something. I guess that’s done on purpose and supposed to show how conflicted she was but…this is not even a good love triangle!

The end. I don’t think that there was a satisfying ending to this book. So they take a city. Ok…but they took ONE city. Good for them, but I feel like whoever’s running the other cities all across America will now bomb it to smithereens.

I just…I don’t like it. I was really disappointed by Requiem. Pandemonium was sort of OK, but Requiem…just yuck. I can’t think of much redeeming about it.