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Aug. 17th, 2003
book review
Aug. 17th, 2003 07:48 pm(bah, all the links are broken. so i'm taking them away.)
I've almost finished Mr. Darcy's Daughters, a -- what's the in-vogue term for this now? -- well, frankly, a fannish continuation of Pride and Prejudice (which you didn't need me to specify, of course).
In general, as you might guess, I approve of This Sort of novel (or play). Grendel: fabulous. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead: loved it, loved it. Wicked (recommended to me by the lovely![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
darthhellokitty) and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister: excellent. I liked The Red Tent, the story of the Biblical Jacob's only daughter, Dinah, who has only a walk-on role in the Book of Genesis. I haven't read Jane Eyre, so there'd have been no point in my having read Wide Sargasso Sea; I believe my mother likes it quite a bit, and taught it at least a few times, but I think ellen_fremedon didn't care for it. I have no idea, myself. I also haven't read The Wind Done Gone, but I haven't heard anything complimentary from anyone who has read it -- but I approve of the genre, is the point, even if I don't always enjoy the specific products of it.
Mr. Darcy's Daughters isn't bad. Not great stuff, and especially it starts out slowly and looks like it's trying to be a little too cute, but it's not bad. Certainly the drama is right out of Austen. The set-up is that Lizzy and Darcy have five daughters (and two sons, but who cares about them): Letitia, as Mary Bennet; Camilla, as Elizabeth Bennet; Belle and Georgina, twins, as (Kitty and) Lydia Bennet; and Alethea, as Margaret Dashwood. The girls are in London while their folks are in Constantinople (presumably accompanying Mr. McGuffin, or else going to meet him), and in addition to the armies of original characters -- okay, originally-named instances of familiar types; there's two ministers, one much more pleasant than Mr. Collins and the other much more unpleasant, and a cousin's fiance, Mr. Wytton, in the Darcy role -- a number of barely-introduced Austen characters are given more personality here (Caroline Bingley, Colonel Fitzwilliam, Aunt Lydia, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner).
The story is ... not unpredictable, and the too-cute-ness doesn't entirely go away -- there's an air of Look How Well I Did My Research To Make This Historically Accurate that comes out more often than I'd like -- but it's just about as engaging as the original (the wit isn't quite as sparkly, but the prose isn't as wordy, which seems to me a more or less fair trade). I'll go ahead and recommend it. I haven't gotten to the end, yet, so I might sing a different tune forty pages from now. Heh.
I've almost finished Mr. Darcy's Daughters, a -- what's the in-vogue term for this now? -- well, frankly, a fannish continuation of Pride and Prejudice (which you didn't need me to specify, of course).
In general, as you might guess, I approve of This Sort of novel (or play). Grendel: fabulous. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead: loved it, loved it. Wicked (recommended to me by the lovely
darthhellokitty) and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister: excellent. I liked The Red Tent, the story of the Biblical Jacob's only daughter, Dinah, who has only a walk-on role in the Book of Genesis. I haven't read Jane Eyre, so there'd have been no point in my having read Wide Sargasso Sea; I believe my mother likes it quite a bit, and taught it at least a few times, but I think ellen_fremedon didn't care for it. I have no idea, myself. I also haven't read The Wind Done Gone, but I haven't heard anything complimentary from anyone who has read it -- but I approve of the genre, is the point, even if I don't always enjoy the specific products of it.Mr. Darcy's Daughters isn't bad. Not great stuff, and especially it starts out slowly and looks like it's trying to be a little too cute, but it's not bad. Certainly the drama is right out of Austen. The set-up is that Lizzy and Darcy have five daughters (and two sons, but who cares about them): Letitia, as Mary Bennet; Camilla, as Elizabeth Bennet; Belle and Georgina, twins, as (Kitty and) Lydia Bennet; and Alethea, as Margaret Dashwood. The girls are in London while their folks are in Constantinople (presumably accompanying Mr. McGuffin, or else going to meet him), and in addition to the armies of original characters -- okay, originally-named instances of familiar types; there's two ministers, one much more pleasant than Mr. Collins and the other much more unpleasant, and a cousin's fiance, Mr. Wytton, in the Darcy role -- a number of barely-introduced Austen characters are given more personality here (Caroline Bingley, Colonel Fitzwilliam, Aunt Lydia, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner).
The story is ... not unpredictable, and the too-cute-ness doesn't entirely go away -- there's an air of Look How Well I Did My Research To Make This Historically Accurate that comes out more often than I'd like -- but it's just about as engaging as the original (the wit isn't quite as sparkly, but the prose isn't as wordy, which seems to me a more or less fair trade). I'll go ahead and recommend it. I haven't gotten to the end, yet, so I might sing a different tune forty pages from now. Heh.
