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2.96 AVERAGE
2.96 AVERAGE
I was disappointed in this. It was too quick and surfacey. The mystery was barely worth figuring out. I disagreed with some of the characterizations of Elizabeth and Darcy -- they didn't feel right to me. On the one hand, it was nice to imagine what their lives might be like after the wedding; but on the other, the mood was fairly grim throughout (there being a murder and all). I'd give it 2.5 stars, but I'm rounding up to 3 for readability.
I ended up enjoying this book quite a bit! James does a great job of writing with the language and style of the times. I loved how she incorporated characters from some of Austen's other works (particularly Mansfield Park and Emma). I also enjoyed revisiting certain scenes from Pride and Prejudice. James made it her goal to allow us to vicariously enjoy a re-reading of Austen, and I appreciated that! Being a murder mystery, this book was darker than Austen's tend to be, and I must admit there were times I missed the lightness and wit of the earlier works. All-in-all, a great summer read.
This book was out of the gate like a ball of lightning and hooked me almost immediately. But by 30% in, when the story actually began, it was like a tired old nag. It certainly scratches an itch by revisiting beloved characters and setting them in a "what if" situation six years on from Pride and Prejudice. But it does nothing more than give caricatures and fails to delve deeper.
The thick of the plot is to discover who has killed Captain Denny (you will remember him, or not, as one of the young officers of Lydia and Kitty's fancy in the original story) in the Pemberley woodland on a dark and stormy night (essentially).
By choosing such an incidental character for "bringing death to Pemberley", I am immediately uninterested and only continued on to the end to discover "whodunit" because of mere curiosity. The story is dull, lackluster and does not engage my empathy. Who cares about Denny? I sure didn't. Nor did I care much about Wickham and Lydia.
The final "straw" was that when all was revealed at the end, it spent six percent telling me instead of showing me, which really made me feel as though I wasted my time. The final ending was trite and happy, pleasing for everyone involved, yay Pemberley.
The thick of the plot is to discover who has killed Captain Denny (you will remember him, or not, as one of the young officers of Lydia and Kitty's fancy in the original story) in the Pemberley woodland on a dark and stormy night (essentially).
By choosing such an incidental character for "bringing death to Pemberley", I am immediately uninterested and only continued on to the end to discover "whodunit" because of mere curiosity. The story is dull, lackluster and does not engage my empathy. Who cares about Denny? I sure didn't. Nor did I care much about Wickham and Lydia.
The final "straw" was that when all was revealed at the end, it spent six percent telling me instead of showing me, which really made me feel as though I wasted my time. The final ending was trite and happy, pleasing for everyone involved, yay Pemberley.
I was overjoyed to find this book my aunt had given me in the bag of winter clothes I left with my sister and I curled up with it while I nursed my cold. It was so much fun to visit with Elizabeth and Darcy again. James did a fantastic job with this aspect of the novel. I will just say that I don't really enjoy mysteries and this didn't grab me either though the ending really picked up.
It was a nice easy read, and a fun follow up to Pride and Prejudice, but I did feel it could have been better.
Lots of the detail felt clunky and forced in (e.g. details of Mary and Kitty and the pulling in of characters from other Austen book - I also found it unrealistic that Kitty, by this point 25-ish would still be unmarried as she was always described as out-going and by no means ugly, even just staying in Meryton she would almost certainly have married, without any additional society Jane and Elizabeth could have provided), but what particularly jarred with me were the descriptions of the legal system, especially the mini-rant about the European Court of Human Rights ("That would be the ultimate idiocy, and if carried on ad infinitum could presumably result in a foreign court trying English cases. And that would be the end of more than our legal system.") Okay, we get it PD James, you don't like the ECHR, but seriously, this is not something any lawyer in the early 19th century would ever have even thought of.
The discussion about the trial procedure felt more like the author was worried people would criticise her for getting it wrong otherwise, because it is different now, but it was totally unnecessary. If I had even noticed while reading that procedure was different, I would either have been "meh, whatever, good story" or assumed things were different then, I would not have gasped in indignation at the author's shocking lack of research into the early 19th century legal system. The whole chapter felt like a legal history course and didn't add anything to the story.
So, in short, if PD James hadn't felt the need to pull in as many Austen characters as possible or to provide a history/politics lesson for us all, I would have given it 4-stars as a fun easy read, but the distractions pushed it down a star for me.
Lots of the detail felt clunky and forced in (e.g. details of Mary and Kitty and the pulling in of characters from other Austen book - I also found it unrealistic that Kitty, by this point 25-ish would still be unmarried as she was always described as out-going and by no means ugly, even just staying in Meryton she would almost certainly have married, without any additional society Jane and Elizabeth could have provided), but what particularly jarred with me were the descriptions of the legal system, especially the mini-rant about the European Court of Human Rights ("That would be the ultimate idiocy, and if carried on ad infinitum could presumably result in a foreign court trying English cases. And that would be the end of more than our legal system.") Okay, we get it PD James, you don't like the ECHR, but seriously, this is not something any lawyer in the early 19th century would ever have even thought of.
The discussion about the trial procedure felt more like the author was worried people would criticise her for getting it wrong otherwise, because it is different now, but it was totally unnecessary. If I had even noticed while reading that procedure was different, I would either have been "meh, whatever, good story" or assumed things were different then, I would not have gasped in indignation at the author's shocking lack of research into the early 19th century legal system. The whole chapter felt like a legal history course and didn't add anything to the story.
So, in short, if PD James hadn't felt the need to pull in as many Austen characters as possible or to provide a history/politics lesson for us all, I would have given it 4-stars as a fun easy read, but the distractions pushed it down a star for me.
A joyless and dreary exercise in ventriloquism. And poorly done to boot. The characters have been so drained of vivacity and wit, they bear absolutely no resemblance to Austen's. They're like Lizzy and Darcy zombies that P.D. James has reanimated through some unholy necromancy, except they don't hunger for human flesh. That's a shame because it would add some excitement to the flaccid story. There's certainly been a death at Pemberley, and I don't mean the one that's solved at the end.
Some parts of the actual investigation were interesting, but I expected more from PD James. She took all the life from Elizabeth. This was a bad idea.
**2020 Update: I reread this and loved it so much. I couldn’t remember a lot from almost 6 years ago, but I remember really enjoying this take on Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. Also, I have seen the PBS miniseries now, and thought it was pretty fabulous. I’m hoping to rewatch that again soon. **
If it has to do with Pride and Prejudice, I'm probably going to like it. :) I did like this book. Quite a bit in fact. I felt the introduction was a wonderful summary of "what happened to Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy since the end..." and was written well enough that it was a great homage to Jane Austen without sounding pretentious or like the author is just trying to hard to be Austen-esque. As we move into the novel, the writing is less Austen, and that's fine. I hate it when authors think they need to sound like Jane Austen. It rarely works. This had a distinct tone that, again, I felt was a comfortable homage. The story, however, slowed way down. I thought I was going to be reading a mystery and there was very little investigating and trying to find out just who killed Denny. It was very repetitive in telling Wickham's story. I also didn't feel like we got to see enough of Darcy or Elizabeth. They are the reason why I love P&P, and I wanted more about them. The story picked up again at the end and I was happy with the outcome. Throughout the story I had the nagging thought about a lesser character and had concocted a whole backstory in my head, but wondered how it could possibly move the story along, so I figured that mustn't be the case. Finally at the end I got my big "I was right!!" moment. I'm not going to say more here as it's a spoiler, but if you have read it and want to discuss, I'd be more than happy to. The epilogue was a little contrived, but it also wrapped up the story well. I loved the little details thrown in, especially the blink-and-you'll-miss-'em references to Persuasion and Emma. All in all, it was a fun little story and now I'm going to watch the new PBS mini-series.
If it has to do with Pride and Prejudice, I'm probably going to like it. :) I did like this book. Quite a bit in fact. I felt the introduction was a wonderful summary of "what happened to Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy since the end..." and was written well enough that it was a great homage to Jane Austen without sounding pretentious or like the author is just trying to hard to be Austen-esque. As we move into the novel, the writing is less Austen, and that's fine. I hate it when authors think they need to sound like Jane Austen. It rarely works. This had a distinct tone that, again, I felt was a comfortable homage. The story, however, slowed way down. I thought I was going to be reading a mystery and there was very little investigating and trying to find out just who killed Denny. It was very repetitive in telling Wickham's story. I also didn't feel like we got to see enough of Darcy or Elizabeth. They are the reason why I love P&P, and I wanted more about them. The story picked up again at the end and I was happy with the outcome. Throughout the story I had the nagging thought about a lesser character and had concocted a whole backstory in my head, but wondered how it could possibly move the story along, so I figured that mustn't be the case. Finally at the end I got my big "I was right!!" moment. I'm not going to say more here as it's a spoiler, but if you have read it and want to discuss, I'd be more than happy to. The epilogue was a little contrived, but it also wrapped up the story well. I loved the little details thrown in, especially the blink-and-you'll-miss-'em references to Persuasion and Emma. All in all, it was a fun little story and now I'm going to watch the new PBS mini-series.
I was all set to give this book 5 stars.... and then I read the epilogue.
One star for PD James seems inherently wrong, but this just wasn't her best book. If you're going to take on Jane Austen's most famous characters and make them the stars of your own book, you better make it magnificent, and frankly, this was disappointing. I'm not against a pastiche per se - I quite enjoyed Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (though to be fair, that was mostly Austen's original wording except for the zombies). But James manages to take Darcy and Elizabeth and suck the life out of them. Characters spoke and behaved in ways that weren't consistent with the originals. In fact, though the whodunnit part wasn't hard to figure out, I was really rooting for the formerly charming Colonel Fitzwilliam to be the bad guy from the start, just because he was now heavy-handed and censorious. Overall, it was dull and plodding, which explains why it took me two months to get through it.