Pride and Prejudice redux

I love Jane Austen's novels, and my favorite is Pride and Prejudice. Many, many novels have been written that are updates or variations on, or follow-ups to that famous book. Because I love the original so much, almost all of the wannabes turn me off by the time I'm at the bottom of the first page. Trying to be Austen's voice: not Austen's voice. Taking up where Pride and Prejudice ends; why, when it's the perfect ending to the perfect novel?

I have, however, found three books (actually two books and one three-volume series) that play with the Pride and Prejudice story in ways that I find fun and clever.

The first is Pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field, by Melissa Nathan. I love this book in its own right, and have given at least half a dozen copies of it to deserving friends. Jasmin is a funny, clever columnist for a UK women's magazine. As a lark, she auditions for a part in a stage version of Pride and Prejudice, and to her surprise wins the part of Elizabeth Bennet. Academy Award-winning actor Harry Noble, playing Mr. Darcy, is supercilious, humorless, and scornful of the writer-who-would-be-Lizzy. Author Nathan does an amazing job of weaving Jasmin's chaotic home life, which reflects many aspects of the Pride and Prejudice story, with the play rehearsals, and in the end the story is both hilarious and charming.

(If you are an Austen fan and enjoy Pride, Prejudice, and Jasmin Field, check out Melissa Nathan's novel Persuading Annie, based on Austen's novel Persuasion.)

The next selection is a series of three books under the umbrella title of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman, by Pamela Aidan. These books (An Assembly Such as This, Duty and Desire, and These Three Remain) retell the entire Pride and Prejudice story from Mr. Darcy's point of view. Somehow Ms. Aidan manages to create a narrative voice for these stories that, while not Austen's, suits the time and tone of Pride and Prejudice very well. Who has read Austen's novel and not wondered what was going on in Mr. Darcy's mind throughout the story? These books are a very satisfactory response to that question. The middle book, which takes place during a period when Darcy was away from Meryton, is the weakest link if only because there is little or no connection between the action in that book and the action in Pride and Prejudice. But the first and third are excellent, and all are well worth a read.

Finally there is Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride & Prejudice, by Curtis Sittenfeld, just released in 2016. Sittenfeld moves the P&P story to the US and the time frame to the present. Jane is a serene yoga instructor, Liz is a sharp and witty columnist for an upscale women's magazine, Mary keeps to her room except one night a week when she goes out to an unknown destination, and Kitty and Lydia are rude, crude, and heavily into CrossFit. Cincinnati is Meryton; the coasts are where the best and brightest want to be (Jane and Liz, New York) and where the wealthy come from (Bingley and Darcy, California). Sittenfeld does a very nice job updating the story in a believable and entertaining way. This is a page-turner: I swept through its 488 pages in a day and a half.

Expanding successfully on Jane Austen's world is no mean feat. I admire these authors who have pulled it off so well.