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3.11 AVERAGE
3.11 AVERAGE
Oh man, this was so dreary. I was determined to finish it as I thought it might help dip my toes in the Austen waters before I tackled Pride and Prejudice, but the writing was terrible and laboured. Characterisation of 'strong' female characters probably doesn't age well in the last 150 years (and probably isn't easy to translate into modern day tales with ipods!) but I struggled with the writing.
Not a great start, wish me luck as I delve into REAL Austen next.
Not a great start, wish me luck as I delve into REAL Austen next.
From one of the most insightful chroniclers of family life working in fiction today comes a contemporary retelling of Jane Austen's classic novel of love, money, and two very different sisters
John Dashwood promised his dying father that he would take care of his half sisters. But his wife, Fanny, has no desire to share their newly inherited estate with Belle Dashwood's daughters. When she descends upon Norland Park with her Romanian nanny and her mood boards, the three Dashwood girls-Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret-are suddenly faced with the cruelties of life without their father, their home, or their money.
As they come to terms with life without the status of their country house, the protection of the family name, or the comfort of an inheritance, Elinor and Marianne are confronted by the cold hard reality of a world where people's attitudes can change as drastically as their circumstances.
With her sparkling wit, Joanna Trollope casts a clever, satirical eye on the tales of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. Reimagining Sense and Sensibility in a fresh, modern new light, she spins the novel's romance, bonnets, and betrothals into a wonderfully witty coming-of-age story about the stuff that really makes the world go around. For when it comes to money, some things never change. . . .
I loved this! Joanna Trollope kept all the girls' charm but made it an easy to read, modern story. Obviously it's difficult to put the story into a modern context and some of it became faintly ridiculous (Eleanor supporting her family and her mother's uselessness) but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
John Dashwood promised his dying father that he would take care of his half sisters. But his wife, Fanny, has no desire to share their newly inherited estate with Belle Dashwood's daughters. When she descends upon Norland Park with her Romanian nanny and her mood boards, the three Dashwood girls-Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret-are suddenly faced with the cruelties of life without their father, their home, or their money.
As they come to terms with life without the status of their country house, the protection of the family name, or the comfort of an inheritance, Elinor and Marianne are confronted by the cold hard reality of a world where people's attitudes can change as drastically as their circumstances.
With her sparkling wit, Joanna Trollope casts a clever, satirical eye on the tales of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. Reimagining Sense and Sensibility in a fresh, modern new light, she spins the novel's romance, bonnets, and betrothals into a wonderfully witty coming-of-age story about the stuff that really makes the world go around. For when it comes to money, some things never change. . . .
I loved this! Joanna Trollope kept all the girls' charm but made it an easy to read, modern story. Obviously it's difficult to put the story into a modern context and some of it became faintly ridiculous (Eleanor supporting her family and her mother's uselessness) but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
An engaging read, does well to transfer the story of the Dashwood sisters to modern times, although Elinor and Margaret are really the only ones who truly fit into this context! Marianne comes across as far more annoying than in the original, as does Edward. But overall I enjoyed the tale.
This retelling of the Austen classic is a fun and easy read, great for when you want to be entertained without working too hard. If you like the original, give this one a try!
2.5. 3 stars because I am nice-ish.
It was a decent retelling, setting in modern day. However, how the author made sure it was set in modern day was the use of technology while an occasional modern phase that would come out of a teenager/young adult mouth. But I felt it was forced and heavy-handed with the "modern" touches, everything time I recognized a modern thing, it felt forced in the story and seemed out of place, it should have flowed with the story, not causing the reader to stop. Dialogue felt awkward at times, because it had an old world feel but spatter about was "amazeballs" and "totes" and what not.
It was not horrible, it was okay. Better than some retellings. But I am going to have to watch BCC S&S to recover.
It was a decent retelling, setting in modern day. However, how the author made sure it was set in modern day was the use of technology while an occasional modern phase that would come out of a teenager/young adult mouth. But I felt it was forced and heavy-handed with the "modern" touches, everything time I recognized a modern thing, it felt forced in the story and seemed out of place, it should have flowed with the story, not causing the reader to stop. Dialogue felt awkward at times, because it had an old world feel but spatter about was "amazeballs" and "totes" and what not.
It was not horrible, it was okay. Better than some retellings. But I am going to have to watch BCC S&S to recover.
Light-hearted and enjoyable, has inspired me to revisit the original.
S&S is not my favorite Austen novel, and it's a bit odd to think I've now read it three times but only once in the original (the other two were this modernization, and the version with sea monsters). This is just to say that I am no purist where this book is concerned. I enjoyed Trollope's version; in spite of some clunkiness, I think it was well done, and highlighted for me both what I liked and disliked about the original.
Why???
Warning! This review may involve wailing and gnashing of teeth, not to mention cursing...of both kinds. Persons of a sensitive disposition may wish to look away now. And on the assumption that no-one will be interested in this who doesn't know the original, there are some mild spoilers...
The Austen project is a strange little idea to rewrite all the Austen novels for a modern age. Why? It certainly can't be because the originals are unreadable - I'd imagine they are more popular today than they have ever been. One can only assume they see it as a money-spinner. I'm delighted to say I got this book free - and even then it was too expensive.
The original [b:Sense and Sensibility|14935|Sense and Sensibility|Jane Austen|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1309203534s/14935.jpg|2809709] deserves its place as a classic because of the light it casts on the restricted lives and opportunities of the sons and daughters of the 'gentry' in Jane Austen's time. This fake S&S concentrates on the same class, but is set in the present day. Unfortunately, society has changed so much that the premise doesn't work. In order to make the story fit into today's England - where opportunity for the middle-classes is almost infinite, where women are freer and more equal than they have ever been and where the norm is for people without money to do that revolutionary thing and get a job - Trollope has decided to make most of the characters completely feckless and thus entirely unsympathetic.
He gave an almost imperceptible smirk. ‘The obigations of the heir…’
‘Oh my God,’ Marianne exclaimed. ‘Are you the heir to Allenham?’
He nodded.
‘So fortunate,’ Belle said dazedly.
Marianne’s eyes were shining.
‘So romantic,’ she said.
The story begins with the Dashwood family losing their home at Norland. Not because it's entailed - oh, no! Because Mr Dashwood never bothered to marry Mrs Dashwood (Belle, heaven help us!) and so his great-uncle left the house to his legitimate nephew rather than his illegitimate nieces. Already I'm wondering what society this reflects? Certainly not the one I live in, which stopped giving a...fig...about legitimacy back sometime in the seventies and where even the crown is now allowed to pass down the female line. To make it work, Trollope has had to make it overly complex and unbelievable...and we're only at Chapter 1.
So the poor Dashwoods, with only £200,000 and a modern cottage given to them by other rich relatives, have to face up to living within straitened means. Why? Has the concept of going to work never occurred to any of them? Poor Elinor has to give up Uni. Why? Can't she get a student loan and live in a bedsit like everyone else? To be fair, she does get her rich relatives to pull strings to get her a job. But the rest whine endlessly about lack of money making me want to a) hit them collectively over the head with a brick and b) explain that living in a four-bedroom cottage, running a car and popping up to London every weekend to go to parties isn't really poverty!
Then we have Marianne (M!) - in this version a hysterical maniac, rather than the overly emotional but sweet and loving girl of the original. Suffering from constant asthma attacks (presumably because when we get a cold these days, we just take paracetemol and get on with it), she spends her time wheezing, gasping, sobbing, throwing tantrums and being revoltingly rude to everyone and yet being so lovely throughout that no man can withstand her (invisible) charm. To explain this strange anomaly, Trollope tells us approximately 15,000 times that M is stunningly gorgeous, even whilst receiving Intensive Care. I shall brush quietly past the sex episode...
Shall I tell you about Wills(!)? Of course, single motherhood tends not to lead to death these days, so how does Ms Trollope resolve this conundrum and ensure that we understand that he's a bad lot? Well, by making Wills, (who's not just the 'hottest boy in the county', by the way, but a complete 'shagbandit' - charming) into a drug-pusher! Yes, little Eliza is a junkie...
Pah! I can't bear to talk about this monstrosity any longer. I will leave you to imagine whingy Ellie, pathetic Ed, and Mags, the nightmare teenager with an iThing habit. I will ignore the fact that all the married women stay at home to look after their children. I will pretend I didn't notice that we now have a Wills, a Harry and - yep, that's right - the Middletons. I won't even mention the youtube 'trolling' incident...and I refuse to think about the gay party-planner, Robert Ferrars, and his marriage of convenience...
‘One hundred parties in the last year!’ Mrs Jennings said. ‘Incredible. That’s one party every three nights that wouldn’t have happened without him!’
‘Too silly,’ Lucy said, looking straight at Elinor. ‘Brainless. My poor Ed must be cringing.’
‘Amaze,’ Nancy said from the sofa. ‘Amazeballs.’
Elinor took a step back.
‘Well, I suppose it’s good to be good at something.’
A fake book that tells us nothing authentic about today's society - might work as a fluffy romance (except aren't you supposed to like the heroines in them?) but doesn't work as a serious novel, isn't funny enough to be a comedy and is an insult rather than an homage to a great classic. Read at your peril...
NB This book was provided for review by Amazon Vine UK.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Warning! This review may involve wailing and gnashing of teeth, not to mention cursing...of both kinds. Persons of a sensitive disposition may wish to look away now. And on the assumption that no-one will be interested in this who doesn't know the original, there are some mild spoilers...
The Austen project is a strange little idea to rewrite all the Austen novels for a modern age. Why? It certainly can't be because the originals are unreadable - I'd imagine they are more popular today than they have ever been. One can only assume they see it as a money-spinner. I'm delighted to say I got this book free - and even then it was too expensive.
The original [b:Sense and Sensibility|14935|Sense and Sensibility|Jane Austen|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1309203534s/14935.jpg|2809709] deserves its place as a classic because of the light it casts on the restricted lives and opportunities of the sons and daughters of the 'gentry' in Jane Austen's time. This fake S&S concentrates on the same class, but is set in the present day. Unfortunately, society has changed so much that the premise doesn't work. In order to make the story fit into today's England - where opportunity for the middle-classes is almost infinite, where women are freer and more equal than they have ever been and where the norm is for people without money to do that revolutionary thing and get a job - Trollope has decided to make most of the characters completely feckless and thus entirely unsympathetic.
He gave an almost imperceptible smirk. ‘The obigations of the heir…’
‘Oh my God,’ Marianne exclaimed. ‘Are you the heir to Allenham?’
He nodded.
‘So fortunate,’ Belle said dazedly.
Marianne’s eyes were shining.
‘So romantic,’ she said.
The story begins with the Dashwood family losing their home at Norland. Not because it's entailed - oh, no! Because Mr Dashwood never bothered to marry Mrs Dashwood (Belle, heaven help us!) and so his great-uncle left the house to his legitimate nephew rather than his illegitimate nieces. Already I'm wondering what society this reflects? Certainly not the one I live in, which stopped giving a...fig...about legitimacy back sometime in the seventies and where even the crown is now allowed to pass down the female line. To make it work, Trollope has had to make it overly complex and unbelievable...and we're only at Chapter 1.
So the poor Dashwoods, with only £200,000 and a modern cottage given to them by other rich relatives, have to face up to living within straitened means. Why? Has the concept of going to work never occurred to any of them? Poor Elinor has to give up Uni. Why? Can't she get a student loan and live in a bedsit like everyone else? To be fair, she does get her rich relatives to pull strings to get her a job. But the rest whine endlessly about lack of money making me want to a) hit them collectively over the head with a brick and b) explain that living in a four-bedroom cottage, running a car and popping up to London every weekend to go to parties isn't really poverty!
Then we have Marianne (M!) - in this version a hysterical maniac, rather than the overly emotional but sweet and loving girl of the original. Suffering from constant asthma attacks (presumably because when we get a cold these days, we just take paracetemol and get on with it), she spends her time wheezing, gasping, sobbing, throwing tantrums and being revoltingly rude to everyone and yet being so lovely throughout that no man can withstand her (invisible) charm. To explain this strange anomaly, Trollope tells us approximately 15,000 times that M is stunningly gorgeous, even whilst receiving Intensive Care. I shall brush quietly past the sex episode...
Shall I tell you about Wills(!)? Of course, single motherhood tends not to lead to death these days, so how does Ms Trollope resolve this conundrum and ensure that we understand that he's a bad lot? Well, by making Wills, (who's not just the 'hottest boy in the county', by the way, but a complete 'shagbandit' - charming) into a drug-pusher! Yes, little Eliza is a junkie...
Pah! I can't bear to talk about this monstrosity any longer. I will leave you to imagine whingy Ellie, pathetic Ed, and Mags, the nightmare teenager with an iThing habit. I will ignore the fact that all the married women stay at home to look after their children. I will pretend I didn't notice that we now have a Wills, a Harry and - yep, that's right - the Middletons. I won't even mention the youtube 'trolling' incident...and I refuse to think about the gay party-planner, Robert Ferrars, and his marriage of convenience...
‘One hundred parties in the last year!’ Mrs Jennings said. ‘Incredible. That’s one party every three nights that wouldn’t have happened without him!’
‘Too silly,’ Lucy said, looking straight at Elinor. ‘Brainless. My poor Ed must be cringing.’
‘Amaze,’ Nancy said from the sofa. ‘Amazeballs.’
Elinor took a step back.
‘Well, I suppose it’s good to be good at something.’
A fake book that tells us nothing authentic about today's society - might work as a fluffy romance (except aren't you supposed to like the heroines in them?) but doesn't work as a serious novel, isn't funny enough to be a comedy and is an insult rather than an homage to a great classic. Read at your peril...
NB This book was provided for review by Amazon Vine UK.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
What's that? You're a classics fan, and will not brook any attempts to update your favorite stories? Then skip this book. If "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and "Clueless" are abominations unto the Lord, then skip this book.
But if you understand that what makes Austen great is the stories, and not just her words, and understand that good stories can be told over and over again, and added to and made relevant to new audiences, and if you appreciate good writing, then pick this book up.
If you are not an Austen fan, and wondered what all the fuss was about, then pick this book up.
Trollope does a fine retelling of the Austen story, updating the social conventions and modern lifestyle while keeping the social challenges and tribulations of the Dashwood girls believable and understandable.
I appreciate Austen in the original, but since I haven't paid attention to Regency culture and laws, I don't always appreciate the nature of the problems that women faced in her stories. The obsession with marrying well and the opportunity for ruin doesn't always register with me in an age when not even a sex tape can keep a girl down.
And writing styles have changed. So, just like I enjoy Shakespeare, but find him difficult to read, I like Austen, but have trouble wading through 200-year old literature and still keeping some sense of the story.
Reading this book, like watching a film version of P&P or S&S, sets the plot in my mind, and encourages me to pick up the original. When I read the original, I can recognize the plot twists and story progression, which allows me to appreciate the other aspects of Austen's writing, especially the sometimes-snarky humor she does so well.
But if you understand that what makes Austen great is the stories, and not just her words, and understand that good stories can be told over and over again, and added to and made relevant to new audiences, and if you appreciate good writing, then pick this book up.
If you are not an Austen fan, and wondered what all the fuss was about, then pick this book up.
Trollope does a fine retelling of the Austen story, updating the social conventions and modern lifestyle while keeping the social challenges and tribulations of the Dashwood girls believable and understandable.
I appreciate Austen in the original, but since I haven't paid attention to Regency culture and laws, I don't always appreciate the nature of the problems that women faced in her stories. The obsession with marrying well and the opportunity for ruin doesn't always register with me in an age when not even a sex tape can keep a girl down.
And writing styles have changed. So, just like I enjoy Shakespeare, but find him difficult to read, I like Austen, but have trouble wading through 200-year old literature and still keeping some sense of the story.
Reading this book, like watching a film version of P&P or S&S, sets the plot in my mind, and encourages me to pick up the original. When I read the original, I can recognize the plot twists and story progression, which allows me to appreciate the other aspects of Austen's writing, especially the sometimes-snarky humor she does so well.
I revere Jane Austen and enjoy Joanna Trollope ( and even Anthony!) but this did not work for me. Longbourn by Baker was utterly wonderful but this was totally flat. Perhaps we should leave perfection alone?