P&P icons by me:
Caroline Bingley Bitchley making her bitchface; her dresses, esp. at the Netherfield Ball, looks like she just decided to wear her underwear.
GAH!
Both Janes doing what Jane does best.
Because it's true.
Well, here it is. My review of Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife. I am actually afraid that it is going to seem like I didn't like this book. I did like it, very much. It was excessively diverting. This review is just going to be very nitpicky. And slightly snarky. But, really, my main complaint with the book was, "Well, I wouldn't have done it like that," and that's too subjective to be an actual criticism, nor does it mean that it has necessarily been done the wrong way.
That said, let's dive right into it. When I was nearly finished with the book, I looked at the "About the Author" note in the back, and found that the essentials of the book are summed up right there. I will attempt to categorize this review based on these statements.
"Linda Berdoll is a self-described 'Texas farm wife' whose interest in all things Austen was piqued by the BBC/A&E mini-series of Pride and Prejudice."
Somehow, I am not surprised.
For one thing, Austen does not physically describe her characters very much, and Berdoll's physical descriptions are the BBC cast to a tee, right down to hairstyles. She also takes some other details from that adaptiation which are not technically to be found in the book. I don't blame her for these things at all. It is probably a good idea to cater to the mental image most readers now have of Darcy and Lizzy. It is also much more sensible to write and easier to read "The Earl of Matlock" than, "The Earl of Extended Dash" these days.
For another thing, the BBC version, while perfectly tame, is sexier than the book would ever have dreamed of being. Take, for example, the famous "wet shirt" scene. (For those of you unfamiliar, Mr. Darcy comes home from a long trip and apparently thinks to himself, "Hmm, now that I am home, what shall I do? Shall I go inside and rest after my journey? Shall I get something refreshing to drink? Shall I great the household staff? No... I think I'll dive into this pond." And it's not even a very clean pond. Inevitably, Elizabeth is innocently walking around, and she sees Mr. Darcy come walking up all wet and with his shirt undone sexily. And she is like, "OMGnaked!" And they have an awkward conversation. And then she is all, "Wemustleavehereatonce!"). This book plays off of that sort of feel, but takes it to the next level. And then to the level after that. And so on.
But more than all of that, the whole book has a very pop-culture sort of feel to it. This is what makes it unsurprising that the author was not an Austen fan before seeing Colin Firth be Mr. Darcy. One is very conscious that she is catering to a modern audience of... fangirls. Yes, an audience of fangirls. Because this is fanfiction. Fanfiction glorified by publication, but fanfiction nonetheless. And the author is a glorified fangirl. This is not great literature, people. It is barely even literature. The book feels very fanfiction-y. I think you'll see what I mean by that later. If it had been put up on fanfiction.net, I would probably be unabashedly praising it to the skies, reading it faithfully, and begging for updates. But since it is actually, legitimately published, it ought to be held up to a higher standard.
So, while I find the book very entertaining (as fanfiction of this sort ought to be), I do have some things to nitpick about.
"Four years and much research later, her effort, Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (originally titled The Bar Sinister) appeared"
Uh, about all that research.
Some of it was very good. I have no qualms with saying that a lot of the research was quite impressive. These areas of extensive research include, but are not limited to, etiquette, court presentation, Waterloo, and (one assumes) bars and hookers of the English Regency. There was also the clever integration of the portaits of Mrs. Bingley and Mrs. Darcy from Jane Austen's letters, which I found to be quite delightful-- a very nice inside joke. In fact, I now consider the basic outline of this episode cannon. (You get to pick and choose things to add to your own personal cannon with fanfics, you know.)
But then some of the research was... less than stellar. The author's research did not extend as far as ladies' underwear, it seems, which is not entirely surprising (although interestingly it did extend to gentlemens' underwear). It is only because of my great love of the corset that I explored this area and happened to discover that actual corsets were not worn during the Regency. It would have been pointless, due to the Empire dresses. Instead, ladies wore stays, or short corsets, which did their job in accentuating the bosom to a certain extent, but had nothing much to do with the waist at all.
Then, too, the author had a very... special understanding of the timeline. I remember that there were several points at which I had to stop and think, "But... that can't be right because... right?" We all know I don't math. But I am pretty sure that I can count backwards sufficienty to determine that the author had the events of Pride and Prejudice take place 'round about 1809. Now, this is wrong because the book gives dates. And people have worked out these dates to correspond with actual years. The first draft had events taking place in 1796 or '97. The second draft had them taking place from 1811 to 1812. 1796 or 1812. Those are your only two options. How in the world did you get 1809? Draw a year from a hat? I think that Georgiana is also made older than she's supposed to be. This interesting interpretation of the passage of time also had Charlotte Collins give birth to the child she was several months pregnant with at the end of P&P more than a year later. Poor Charlotte. Or else the author simply didn't remember the passage in which it is made clear that Charlotte is expecting: "The rest of his letter is only about his dear Charlotte's situation, and his expectation of a young olive-branch."
I am inclined to suspect the latter, considering several other lapses from what is explicity stated in the book. It is stated in Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife that Mr. Collins is Mr. Bennet's sister's son, but this cannot be since Mr. B. refers to Collins as a distant cousin of his. Then-- and I didn't even realize this one until last night while I was thinking about writing this review, so casually was it slipped in-- Berdoll gives Darcy's mother's name as Elinor. It is not Elinor. It is Anne. It could not be more clearly stated in P&P that Lady Anne Fitzwilliam, sister of Lady Catherine Fitzwilliam (later de Bourgh), daughter of the Earl of Blanketyblank, married old Mr. Darcy and bore him two children-- Fitzwilliam and Georgiana. Lady Catherine named her daughter after Darcy's mother, Anne. So no wonder the woman thought that old Mr. Darcy could be named Gerard! It's not out of the question, of course, but it seems logical that if a woman named Anne has a daughter named Georgiana, there is a very good chance that the father's name is George.
This stuff is fairly obscure. But I kind of wonder if the author bothered to read the last chapter of P&P at all. If she did, her memory is exceptionally dim, or else she decided to ignore much of what is stated therein to suit her own purposes. Let me give you a few quotes from the last chapter: "[Lady Catherine] sent [Darcy] language so very abusive, especially of Elizabeth, that for some time all intercourse was at an end. But at length, by Elizabeth's persuasion, he was prevailed on to overlook the offence and seek a reconciliation; and after a little farther resistance on the part of his aunt, her resentment gave way, either to her affection for him, or her curiosity to see how his wife conducted herself; and she condescended to wait on them at Pemberley." In MDTAW, this does not so much happen. Unless by "by Elizabeth's persuasion" you mean "against Elizabeth's wishes," and by "he was prevailed upon to overlook the offence," you mean, "he condescendingly told her publicly to step off," and by "a little farther resistance" you mean, "trying to kick Elizabeth out of the house while Darcy was in France," and by "she condescended to wait on them at Pemberley," you mean, "she was forced off of the property at gunpoint." Although there is evidently an sequel to the sequel now, so maybe this reconciliation takes place in that.
P&P also says that "[Mr. Bennet] delighted in going to Pemberley, especially when he was least expected," and that "Kitty, to her very material advantage, spent the chief of her time with her two elder sisters." Kitty barely shows up in MDTAW at all, and Mr. Bennet does but rarely. He does not like to travel anywhere, not even to see is beloved Lizzy, apparently. Though after the first year, the book does skip forward in time in spurts, so it could be that they are always visiting when the narrative is not moving forward.
Finally, there is, "Pemberley was now Georgiana's home; and the attachment of the sisters was exactly what Darcy had hoped to see." Georgiana is almost never at Pemberley in this novel; she is always packed away to London. I can only assume that this is because, were she there, she would have gotten in the way of all the sexing. To quote Liam Neeson in Love Actually, "We'll want to have sex in every room. Including yours." When she is there, she is largely ignored until Part 3 ("Darcy and Lizzy Cannot Do The Sex Because Darcy is in France"), when she runs away, probably just to get some attention. Lizzy and Georgiana are friends, but I really had to laugh at the line, "Georgiana leapt from poetess to novelist with such ease, it was unbeknownst to her family." Yeah, it was unbeknownst to you because you have been paying no attention to her this entire book! While you were all over the place sexing, she was sitting quietly and writing a damn novel! When you walked into the room, she was like, "Hey, I'm writing a--" and you were all, "Oh. You're in here. Um... bye. See you at dinner." Then later they're all, "She was in love with Col. Fitzwilliam?" and I'm all, "Sigh."
"...to the acclaim of readers and the horror of Jane Austen purists."
Okay. I am not a purist. I think that we all know that I am generally very tolerant of interpretations of works such as Pride and Prejudice. I don't approve of hating. I always take various factors into consideration. I try to understand where the writer or director or actor or what have you is coming from. I usually understand this. But there are some parts of this particular work at which even I was a little bit horrified. Perhaps "horrified" is a strong word. I was "most seriously displeased." And that's why I think that generalization above is unfair. Although it's pretty funny that they acknowledge that there is a strong sentiment against this book in some quarters. And, you know, none of the quotes on the back of the book come from actual publications. They are all from "readers." Three anonymous readers. I guess those must be the "readers" whose acclaim the note is referring to.
Most of these issues that bothered me were character things. Several of the characters were, to use the fanfic term, OOC. Often Georgiana, occasionally Lizzy, and especially Bingley were out of character. I'll start out with Lizzy. I don't think that she and Darcy would have gotten as physical as they do in MDTAW before marriage. Especially after Lydia. Lizzy has more control than that, I don't care how sexy Mr. Darcy is. Also, she is made, in places, kind of... stupid. At the very least not as clever as she ought to be. Elizabeth Bennet had a great understanding and a very ready wit. Why should Elizabeth Darcy be any different, even if she is probably tired after being kept up all night sexing?
Georgiana gets over her shyness remarkably quickly. Darcy pride is all very well, but the kind of stubborn defiance that Georgiana shows here, as well as her forwardness... does not sit well with me. Same with the sudden affinity for nursing and writing. Georgiana the nurse... no. She's not that easy with healthy people, let alone dismembered ones. Though I suppose by the time she's 22 she might be. But Georgiana doesn't need to write to express herself. She has her music for that. Remember how good with the music she is? That is the art she threw herself into when Wickham left her. The Fitzwilliam/Georgiana relationship was... kinda squicky to me. I don't know if it's because they're cousins or he's her guardian or he's so much older than her or what. A lot of it is Georgiana's general OOCness. And, of course (I'm going to go ahead and white this out for spoilers, because it's a pretty big one) Georgiana would never, EVER sleep with a man before she married him. Especially if he was wounded. Especially especially if he was for some reason Colonel Fit
zwilliam.
MORE SPOILERS AHEAD IN THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH OMG DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW MAJOR PLOT POINTS!
And then there was Bingley. Siiigh. Okay. This was a major, major character assassination, and it's the one thing that people most object to in the book. I'm just going to outright say it: Bingley. Would. Never. Ever. EVER. Cheat. On. Jane. And that's all there is to it. You can try to tell me to "think about their characters." I have thought about their characters. Bingley would never cheat on Jane. You can try to tell me, "she's pregnant most of the time, and they don't have sex while she's pregnant, so it makes sense." It doesn't make sense. Bingley would never cheat on Jane. Okay, I forgave him a little when he cried. But still. Bingely would never cheat on Jane. He thinks she's an angel. They're exactly perfectly suited for each other. He worships her. He loves her. He would never do anything that would hurt his Jane. Nor do I believe that Jane and Bingley would have such an unsatisfying sex life. Yes, yes, consider their characters. I believe the part about Jane not wanting to complain. But I really think that their sex life would not be grounds for complaint at all. I think that the only reason Berdoll makes it so is because she wants to set up Bingley and Jane as a very neat foil to Lizzy and Darcy. It's true that the respective characters foil each other in P&P, but the trend should not be taken so far that the characters are no longer themselves as it is in this book. Darcy and Lizzy have the stellar sexing all the time, Bingley and Jane... do not. Darcy is always absolutely sexily faithful, Bingley is... not. Bingley and Jane are popping out another kid every five minutes, Darcy and Lizzy... are not. It's all very contrived and it makes me sad. So that's what I think about that.
The character I think she got most correct was Darcy. I have no real qualms about what she establishes about his past. I think his thought process is logical and Darcyesque at every moment that comes to mind. All in all, that's a job well done, considering that it's a woman writing about a man and Darcy's thought process is never really described in detail. He doesn't even get to explain his motivations in P&P until the very end.
"This is Berdoll's first novel, but she has since published a humorous book of euphemisms."
Somehow, I am not surprised.
This woman would write an entire book of euphemisms. More than half of them are probably in the book I'm reviewing right now.
In my recent entries, I have been giving this book humorous subtitles: Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge, If You Know What I Mean And I Think You Do); Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (To His Bed); Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (All Night Long, Until the Break of Dawn)...
I would think of more, but I'm pretty much out. The book is, however, divided into three parts, and I can think of humorous subtitles for them. Part One: Darcy and Lizzy Do The Sex A Lot; Part Two: Tragic Things Happen But To Make It Better Darcy and Lizzy Do The Sex Some More; Part Three: Darcy and Lizzy Cannot Do The Sex Until the Last Few Pages Because Darcy Is In France.
You guys, I am not even kidding about this. For the first part, it's pretty much all they do. They do it something like seven times before they've even been married a whole day. At first I was trying to keep count; at page sixty it was something like nine, but then I gave up because it gave up specifics and started using things like, "all night long," and how am I supposed to know how many times that could be?
It is... a bit much. Truthfully, this thing would have to get toned down a lot if it was to be on fanfiction.net at all. In places, it is pure smut. I have no problem with smut in moderation. But page after page after page... Darcys! Do something else! Lizzy, you have all of those duties as Mistress of Pemberley, and Darcy, you have... business or something, right?
Okay, some of the scenes were pretty amusing and good. The one with his bath and the one with that wardrobe in that abandoned room and the maid coming by... those are now in my cannon. You'd kind of think that all of this would lead Derbyshire to think that the new Mistress of Pemberley is some sort of brazen hussy, but actually they're like, "Aww, she's so good for him. He was never this enthusiastic about his sexing before." And it's pretty funny and a good idea to get the perspectives of the servants, all, "Tee hee! They are doing it right now in the library!" It's a definite guilty pleasure, this book.
But it's still too much. There are some parts that could really use some plot that doesn't involve sex. Or at least some scenes that don't involve sex.
"Although she admits that she eloped in a manner similar to Lydia Bennet's, to her great fortune it was with Darcy, not Wickham."
Somehow, I am still not surprised. About the eloping like Lydia part, I mean.
Even Lydias dream that they are eloping with Darcy. That's the main thing about this book. It is a big part of what makes it so fanfiction-y. It's extravagant. It's sensational. It wants to pull you in and shock you if it has to, as long as it keeps hold of your attention. It's romantic. It's dramatic.
Jane Austen was almost never dramatic. That's part of what made her Jane. She was sarcastic and observant and truthful. In its rush to be oh-so-passionate, MDTAW misses much of the truth that is at the heart of Austen and her characters.
A lot of the scenes, therefore, are about wish fulfillment. The kind of thing where you're sitting there giggling with your friends, and you say, "Wouldn't it be awesome if...?" And it is awesome. These are some of the best and funniest parts of the book. I just can't necessarily see it actually happening.
But, oh, wouldn't it be awesome if Mr. Collins had to ride a pony out on a fox hunt and then got thrown from said pony into a bush? And wouldn't it be awesome if a visibly pregnant Elizabeth, in a confrontation with Lady Catherine at Pemberley, took out a gun and shot said Lady's hat off? I may not think it could happen, but oh, to dream...
Some of the drama is not so awesome, of course. There are some very sad parts, and they did make me duly sad. The characters actually have some of their best moments in these portions. I don't like Mr. Darcy's mostly-deafness, though. Seems a bit too Jane Eyre.
In the midst of all of this, however, some of the character moments are exactly dead-on. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Charlotte's letter detailing Mr. Collins's death is one of the best things ever. Definitely the funniest death announcement I've read. After casual discussion of the weather and such, she gets to the heart of the matter, finally coming to, "Had God, in his wisdom, bestowed upon my dear husband a more agile figure, in the aforementioned panic to escape the bees, when he leapt into our pond he might not have had the misfortune to become upended. And had he not chosen to wear my canvas joseph rather than his doublet, it might not have filled with water, much like an inverted umbrella, I should think. Which caused him to drown. The fortuitous lack of autumn rain did, however, allow the pond to reveal his stockinged feet protruding above the water (panicked from his shoes he was), lest dear Mr. Collins might never have been located at all. The apothecary said that save Mr. Fillingham's gilt, he had never seen man nor beast stung so many times by so many bees. (I believe he related that the gilt survived, but then she did not wear a canvas joseph.)"
Lizzy and Jane then go to visit the widow Collins and her unfortunate son, who seems to be unable to grow hair and is cross-eyed. The charitable Jane's Jane-like response is, "Perhaps I should knit him a cap?"
As for Lydia, after Wickham is "killed" at Waterloo, during her widowhood, she conceives and gives birth to a daughter. Her explanation? "That? Well, I couldn't help that!"
And then, the ultimate one, which goes without a doubt into my cannon, is this incident at Elizabeth's first ball at Pemberley. She is essentially being tested by Derbyshire society. She hears some vulgar ladies discussing her new husband, utilizing some of the euphemisms from Linda Berdoll's book:
"How to respond? The Mistress of Pemberley should not acknowledge such defamatory utterances, she reminded herself. She would sacrifice her spirit to propriety and suffer, as those two villifying... trollops undoubtedly knew she must. This most considered and correct decision made, she immediately cast it aside. She did not walk away but took one step that brought her purposely under the women's immediate gazes, which, if they were not quite at a level of alarm, at least spoke high alert. Elizabeth saw she had chosen correctly. Clearly, the women did not expect confrontation from a naive country lass. As she looked at first one and then the other, she summarily determined they both had more hair than sense. And, obviously, they had more sense than integrity. Hence, it bedevilled Elizabeth not one dash to quietly, but deliberately, say, "I could not help but overhear your kind words about Mr. Darcy. You shall, no doubt, agree I am most fortunate to have so magnificent a lover for a husband." She smiled brilliantly, turned, and walked away."
And any book, ladies and gentlemen, that includes that, is more than all right by me.
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