Wannabe Jane

Over the past few months, I have been reading Jane Austen paraliterature. i.e. books inspired by the writings of Jane Austen, in particular, "Pride and Prejudice". How did this start? Of course, it is my mother's fault. She bought my cousin a birthday present, "Mr Darcy's Diary" by Maya Slater. Of course neither of us could resist reading it first. (Incidentally my gift was a spa treatment.) In the past, I do recall reading sequels such as Joan Aiken's "Mansfield Revisited" and Emma Tennant's "Pemberley" (recall this was really bad). But not much else.

I have now realised that over the past few years, in particular after the screening of the landmark BBC production of "Pride and Prejudice", Jane's characters and stories have inspired many writers to pick up the story where she left off. Specifically, most of these writers seem to be inspired by Colin Firth in a wet shirt. There's of course, the one and only "Bridget Jones' Diary". But to be fair, despite the name of the leading man, and the similarities to P&P plot lines, Bridget is her own woman and we love her, just as she is :-)

After reading through a few of these Jane Wannabe books, I thought I'd better start keeping track. By and large, they fall into a few categories:

• The alternate perspective: Principally, Darcy's. There're not one but two entitled "Mr Darcy's Diary". The first I read, by Maya Slater, portrays Darcy as a Regency Rake. Hmmm. I don't think so! But I liked the second, by Amanda Grange. It sounds like Darcy's voice throughout, and she expands on the action at critical points quite well, especially Darcy's search for Wickham and Lydia in London. She also expands the story a little at the end to include a Christmas at Pemberley. I just got a little tired of the word "satirical" especially in relation to Caroline Bingley - her "satirical" comment, look, etc. Another book in this category is Janet Aylmer's "Darcy's Story". That one reproduces massive chunks of dialogue from the original book (boring!), and doesn't really expand very much on the original story. Granted, there is some effort to expand on the relationship between Darcy and Georgiana in particular - but it's just not enough.


• The Sequel - ok I admit I can't remember what happened in the Joan Aiken and Emma Tennant sequels mentioned earlier. Maybe a re-read is necessary. But I did read the Mother of All Sequels, Sybil Brinton's "Old Friends and New Fancies", written in 1913, and which aims to provide a sequel to all the Jane Austen books! I admit that it is a major task and she gets kudos for effort. But at the end, there were too many threads to weave together, too many characters to follow-through on - at the end of it, I find I really don't care two hoots. What I did enjoy, however, were Elizabeth Aston's charming novels on the next generation of Darcys. I'm not too sure whether these are properly called "sequels" as they are self-contained stories in their own right. I've only read two - "The True Darcy Spirit", and "The Second Mrs Darcy". The characters have some connection to Mr and Mrs Fitzwilliam Darcy, eg their daughters, Darcy's cousins, cousin's wife etc but the notable exceptions are Elizabeth and Mr Darcy who are only mentioned and never actually appear in the books! The novels don't try to be written in the style of Jane Austen - indeed, Aston owes a far greater debt to Georgette Heyer in coming up with these Regency romances. Which still makes them fun and highly enjoyable!


• The Modern Jane - Finally, modern chicklit meets Jane Austen. Mr Darcy throws a long shadow into the lives of modern gals who dream of meeting him in their daily lives. So these American misses (I suppose this is so that they can appeal to the US market) fly over the Atlantic to find the England of Jane Austen. In "Austenland" by Shannon Hale, American girl goes off to a stately home in England for a month's "theme vacation", where all the guests pretend they are living in the days of Jane Austen. "Mr Darcy and Me", by Alexandra Potter, is about an American on a guided tour of Jane Austen's England where she realises that the Mr Darcy she fantasises about can't match up to the real life reporter who joined the tour trying to work out what's so great about this Darcy chap. The BBC production is featured in both books, with special mention of the lake scene. Neither book is that great - eg the plots are a little predictable but I did derive some moderate enjoyment from these books (particularly Mr Darcy and Me) because they did not pretend to be anything other than chick lit. Neither of the main female characters can hold a candle to Bridget, though.

The ultimate test - most of these books were borrowed from the library. Which would I actually want to buy and keep on my bookshelf? Hmmm... tough one there. I think only Amanda Grange's Darcy's Diary passes that test and maybe I could consider an Elizabeth Aston book.

Now to move on to the novels inspired by the other JA books!