Sunday, April 21, 2013

P&P Challenge: Mr. Darcy's Diary

Mr. Darcy's Diary by Amanda Grange is a re-telling of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. It's told through the eyes of Mr. Darcy as he writes in his diary and fights his feelings for Elizabeth Bennet, and there are added or removed parts, of course, since the original was told from Elizabeth's point-of-view.

First Impression: So far, I like the story, but something is bothering me. I think...it's too easy. Maybe I like the story because, essentially, it's Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, just told from a different point of view. I'm sure that I'm wrong about this, but at this point it seems like Grange just read the novel once or twice and then wrote her own version. Some of her viewpoints on Mr. Darcy's emotions are interesting to me, but they don't feel like the result of an in-depth character study, which I think should be necessary when writing a piece such as this. And if I didn't know the author's name, I would still know this was written by a woman. I don't mean to nitpick, but right now it's hard for me to really get into the book. I'm hoping it grows on me as I go on.

Conclusion: I feel like I was unfair in my first impression, because it's obvious that Amanda Grange did her homework. There are many points in the book where she references the social decorum and fashionable styles of the time and place in which the story is set. But the homework she did was just that: the time and place in which the story is set. I still think she could have gone farther into the mind of Mr. Darcy. There was so little mention of things that would have been prominent in his mind--business, for example. Darcy's relationship with his sister, Georgiana, also bothers me. While it's obvious that he loves her and worries about her, I would expect them to be a bit closer than they are in Grange's story. (Speaking of Georgiana, how does she get over Wickham so fast? While the mention of him still makes her "uncomfortable," she seems to pretty much dismiss him as soon as her brother says jump. I would think that the subject would be more painful to her, even if she doesn't still love him, since she had spent so much time with him and planned to elope in such an uncharacteristic way.)

I should tell you that I do not read a lot of sequels or adaptations of classics, so my comparisons can only be to the classics themselves or to other, completely separate books that I have read. I probably enjoyed this book more than I would one about Mr. and Mrs. Darcy's romance after the wedding. Primarily, Grange's re-interpretation of Pride and Prejudice is a romance, where the woman challenges the man and he struggles to resist his love for her. It may not be quite as dramatic as all that, but that is the basic premise. I enjoyed the book, but I probably won't read it again.

5 comments:

  1. My take on Georgiana (in P&P, since I haven't read this) is that... she's young. I don't think she was in love with Wickham, just infatuated and flattered. Once she learned he was after her money, not her, I think she would be angry and hurt, but hers seems to be a happy nature, and so she would rather put the whole thing behind her than dwell on it.

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    1. That's a good point. I think it makes sense that she might not be in love with Wickham; I guess it mostly bothered me because she seemed to dismiss him the day Darcy shows up, without argument.

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    2. Like I said, I haven't read Mr. Darcy's Diary, so I don't know the timeline here, just basing this on P&P. Georgiana is excessively devoted to Darcy, though -- he's kind of her father and brother at the same time -- and I can believe she would obey him instantly.

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  2. I just finished Captain Wentworth's Diary by Amanda Grange, and... I loved it! I'm going to try to get this one soon, though I can't imagine it could possibly be as good. I'll be doing a full-on review of CWD in a day or so, but it was really the perfect summer book, imho. Not deep, but not just fluff either. I really feel like she captured Wentworth well, and she told the whole story of their first meeting and courtship, the breaking of their engagement, and then the meeting again, on through the rest of the story of Persuasion. I think she wrote MDD first, so maybe she's just improving as a writer?

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    1. I was probably a little harsh in my review. I've realized as I find more sequels and such that Grange did quite well with Mr. Darcy. I may re-read it in the future to see how my opinion has changed--possibly after this challenge is over? I'm excited to read your review of CWD, though. Since Captain Wentworth's story is more interpretive, maybe the freedoms taken to write it won't bother me as much.

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