Reading Pride and Prejudice AGAIN

I have no idea how many times I've read Pride and Prejudice. The all caps in the title isn't meant to suggest exasperation but, perhaps, astonishment. It is just so good no matter how many times one encounters it.

But I feel so excited for anyone just reading this novel for the first time. Of course, the novel is so much a part of our culture (in the U.S. and England, particularly, but also world-wide) that I wonder if there is any reader who can truly read this for the first time. How many people reach adulthood or their late teenage years without encountering a reference to the novel? Does anyone NOT know how the story of Elizabeth and Darcy turns out?

It is a commonplace that Mr. Bennet likes Elizabeth more than his other daughters. And yet, if one were trying to read as an entirely new reader, the evidence (at least early on) is rather thin. All we get is a quick line about her relative intelligence--she "has something more of a quickness than her sisters" who are described as "silly and ignorant"--and a desire to put in a "good word" for her in the competition for husbands (Chapter 1). One can't help but wonder just how significant it is to be the favorite of such a father. How did the myth of this favoritism start and how does it color the way we now read the novel?

The passage that really gives me pause when I read the first few chapters occurs when Darcy slights Elizabeth at the dance: "Elizabeth Bennet had been obliged, by the scarcity of gentlemen, to sit down for two dances" (Chapter 3). Elizabeth, or Lizzy, has been briefly introduced as her father's favorite and, while trimming a bonnet, noted to be the Bennet's second daughter. But the last name here is jarring. Surely we ALL know Lizzy Bennet? Wondering why Austen feels that she needs to reintroduce Elizabeth as part of the Bennet family reveals that we come to this moment with a wealth of information and ideas and even images about Elizabeth. Not the least of that is that we know she is the main character in the novel. The last name signals that there were readers, once, who had to figure out if Elizabeth was a main character or if, perhaps, Lady Lucas was going to be more important. We, however, know that she likes to read, that she is witty and unconventional, that she has a "pair of fine eyes" (Chapter 6), that she refuses to marry her ridiculous cousin for financial security, and, well, we know the whole story, don't we? Wouldn't it be fun to be one of the early readers, or the rare reader who encounters this text without this previous knowledge of the novel?  Is it possible to discard everything we think we know about this character and read the story with absolutely fresh eyes?