Pride & Prejudice fans?

[BIWI]

New novel by comedian Rachel Parris:

https://www.waterstones.com/book/introducing-mrs-collins/rachel-parris/9781399751612

I really enjoyed this. Brings Charlotte to life very convincingly; makes Mr Collins and Lady Catherine de Bourgh more sympathetic - and adds a very satisfying element to her story.

I haven't read it but I am always surprised at the confidence of average writers who think they are fit to work on the characters of the greats. It seems to be a trend.

Of course, as I say, I haven't read it and Rachel Paris may be the Jane Austen of our times in which case she would have been better suited to dreaming up her own characters!

I'm not a fan of this type of cashing in on other people's ideas and success and I'm afraid I wouldn't read it on principle.

I wouldn’t mind giving this a try. I really enjoyed the prequel to Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rys. I hope this is as good.

Thanks for this. I love P&P and I love all the variants and sequels. Loved Death Comes to Pemberley and Being Mr Wickham. I'll give this one a go.

I'm not against people putting their own spin on existing novels - even ones I love and/or absolute classics by excellent authors - IF they are good.

Wide Sargasso Sea is a modern classic and I loved The Other Bennett Sister.

But I am getting fed up of seeing books by celebrity authors, many of whom can't write as well as they think they can or use ghost writers, so that does make me a bit wary of this one.

Jean Rhys was a genius, though, and WSS works as a standalone novel with no knowledge of JE needed — her other work is also astonishing.

The only modern JA sequel I think earns its salt is Joan Aiken’s Mansfield Revisited, because Joan Aiken does a good JA style, has the right kind of irony and moral toughness, and has the intelligence to clear Edmund and Fanny off to Antigua and to bring back the Crawfords.

Wow. Some unnecessary snobby replies here! It’s very well written. (And I’m a literature graduate so I would hope I would be able to recognise literary skill). And also very well researched.

I was given WSS by a classmate many years ago when I told her that JE was one of my favourite books; I didn’t realise that it was a well-known classic until this thread (and I googled!). I’ve added The Other Bennett Sister and Mansfield Park Revisited (have to read Mansfield Park first though) to my list of books to read. Thanks for the suggestions!

I agree with that SO MUCH. It takes a lot of lack of self awareness to think you can just pick up from where Jane Austen left.

A lack of self-awareness?! Sorry but that’s risible.

What Rachel Parris has done is to use her own imagination here to craft and build on characters that Jane Austen created. Her knowledge (and love, presumably) of P&P together with a lot of background research, about the ongoing wars and the legal system of the time, makes this a serious piece of work. To dismiss it so lightly, without having read it, is daft.

Have you read Longbourn?

I read that when it first came out and really enjoyed it. I’ve recently finished listening to the P&P podcast (a reading of the whole book, narrated by Julie Andrews), and it’s really got me back into the world of the Bennets!

Well, what is it that you like so much about it? Why do you think it’s well-written?

All the reasons I’ve already given.

Look - if you don’t want to read it, that's fine and your prerogative.

Gosh, OP, you’re getting a very hard time here! It’s only a book 😂

I heard Rachel Parris talking about her book on the radio the other week and I thought it sounded interesting - I will definitely give it a try.

And I loved Longbourn.

Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted? 😂

I love books like this - they give me a little bit of extra time with characters I already know and love & don't demand much from me as a reader! Have you read Charlotte by Helen Moffat? Also about Charlotte Lucas & enjoyable (although I’d recommend skipping the sex scene). By far the best Austen reimagining I’ve read is Murder at Mansfield Park by Lynne Shepherd, which makes Mary Crawford the heroine and leans into Fanny Price’s awfulness. It’s great!

Rachel Parris is part of an improv group that does brilliant shows based on Jane Austen. She is obviously very knowledgeable on the subject- I reckon this will be well worth reading.

Well, I’ve only read the free sample on Amazon, and that’s far from ‘well-written’. The prose is basic, it’s littered with psychological anachronisms, and Charlotte doesn’t appear to understand the basic meaning of a line from the New Testament that she’s embroidered. Lizzy Bennet behaves in ways JA’s character never would in a scene JA actually wrote, and Charlotte, having just broken the news of her engagement to Lizzy, goes home and gets into bed in the middle of the day, like Bridget Jones throwing a sulk.

But there’s clearly something of value to you that I’m not seeing. Which was why I asked.

OK. Bye!

I've always enjoyed Rachel Parris in Austentatious so quite interested in this.

I also find the wholesale "celeb-author" trashing quite interesting and a little ignorant of the different kind of celebrities there are and their underlying skill set - quite minorly famous comedians like Parris have usually started out as writers - whether of their own work or writing for others.

Zero expectations of this particular book - except that it definitely won't be Austen - but dismissing all work written by someone who hasn't solely written literary fiction from the get go is a bit daft.

The Other Bennett sister was a steaming pile of shite imo. I also loathed Longbourn.

I agree with a PP that Joan Aiken’s Austen novels are the only good Austen spin-offs.

Oh and Pride and Prejudice with Zombies is great.

I’ll go and read the sample of the book now.

Oh dear. It’s like flat Irn Bru compared to champagne. All telling, no showing. Not a bit of Austen’s wit or spirit or spite. Dullsville.

I normally avoid retellings or sequels but am really enjoying the Mr Darcy & Miss Tilney Mysteries by Claudia Gray. The protagonists are the offspring of Elizabeth and Darcy and Catherine and Henry Tilney. She creates a scenario in book 1 where all of the six couples from each of Austen’s books are loosely connected and attending a house party at Donwell Abbey, murder follows. She’s not completed the series yet but it seems like she’s planning a book per JA title. Really fun and the author has obviously done a lot of research into social norms and conventions to avoid it becoming too anachronistic.

Thanks for the recommendation, OP. Will give this a go. I like well written re-imaginings of books/characters that I love. I really like Rachel Parris too, I have seen Austentatious several times and it’s always fantastic. She obviously knows Jane Austen inside out and adores her.

I don’t understand the “I hate celebrity authors” approach taken by pp on here about her. Yes there are celebrities who are famous for nothing who write books and I would avoid those, but Rachel Paris is a comedian. Do people simply not understand that comedians are also writers? Who do they think wrote their shows??

Rachel Parris gets a lot of online hassle for her feminism and her politics. Looks as if some people don’t like her “writing a book” either…..