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.

There are

Loving some of the more pompous replies.

I enjoyed Longbourn & Eligible (on a seond read) so I'm not adverse to writers giving their own spin on things. Parris adores Jane Austen which is always a good start. Although PD James was also a fan and I didn't enjoy Death Comes to Pemberley.

There are writers and there are writers. And if it makes me a snob to say that Austen was a genius the likes of which are rarely seen, then I’m happy to be a snob.

@BIWI Parris was on You're Booked podcast in November talking about Austen. Thought you might be interested.

She was a genius. It doesn’t make you a snob to say that. However she was a writer, not a sacrosanct figure on a pedestal. And from what we know of her personality, she would not have welcomed being treated as such. I suspect she might well have enjoyed Austentatious for example!

She’s a very good writer. She isn’t a “genius”, whatever that means in this context.

I think I have gradually become averse to writers putting their 'own spin' on Jane Austen's characters.
I avoided 'Death Comes To Pemberley' for a while, but a friend told me that it was 'all right' so I read it. On the whole I liked it but, although I liked P.D.James's books, I didn't like what she did to Colonel Fitzwilliam in that. I have read or listened to 'The Other Bennet Girl' and I remember things turn out nicely for Mary but I don't remember the details. I doubt if it will become a classic. So I am beginning to feel that I don't want to read any more takes on the people that Miss Jane Austen created.
I find Gill Hornby different. She seems to find real people who are connected somehow to JA and makes a story about them. I prefer that approach.

"La, sister, there isn't a character in her books who hasn't been meddled with by another writer!"

Well good if she has done a lot of background research.

My question would be why then did she not write a novel using this research but creating her own characters, rather than cashing in on Jane Austen's?

Or write a critical work on Pride and Prejuduce discussing the work in context of the research she has done?

I've never even heard of her.

I just don't have any interest in reading this particular book she has written.

Because that’s not what she wanted to write?

Why did Austen write a spoof Gothic novel instead of a “real one”?

And of course you’re perfectly entitled to feel like that. Why are ou on this thread, out of interest?

Maybe because then she wouldn’t be getting people discussing her book like they are here and thinking maybe I’ll read it before I make up my mind whether it’s good or bad. Of course some people have already decided there can be nothing good about it.

Did she steal characters from another author?
I wasn't aware of that.

Not that I have any need to justify to you why I'm on this thread it may have escaped your notice that the title of it is " Pride and Prejudice Fans ?" So as a Pride and Prejudice fan I was interested to read what it was about.

And , shock horror, I actually have a view point, and what is more, I expressed it. As I have the right to do.

Why your response to someone who has a different view point to you is telling them they shouldn't even be on the thread is actually quite disturbing.

I grew up with my Mum’s editions of past completions/extensions - Sanditon by Another Lady, Jane Fairfax (can never remember who wrote that) so I tend to think it’s fine. I thought the first half of Longbourn was excellent and enjoyed Charlotte and The Other Bennett Girl. I always find PD James leaden so didn’t enjoy Death Comes to Pemberley. And I do t think the Austen extensions were Aiken’s best work. I just dont object to games with established characters. It’s all reading. And if anything it shows up the genius of Austen even more; nobody writes like her.

Oh well that’s got me! I’d actually forgotten that Jane Fairfax was an Aiken one!

Maybe because then she wouldn’t be getting people discussing her book like they are here

Exactly. By latching on to well loved and established characters and classic novel it is a quick pathway to book sales and getting your name as an author noticed.

Of course you don’t have to justify yourself to me or anyone else. I was just a little surprised that you joined the thread to say you had never heard of the author and had no interest in reading the book!

I don’t think you can steal something in the public domain. Happy to be proved wrong.

Well until I looked at the thread I had no idea what it was about. But I think the debate about whether it's appropriate for authors to steal characters from another author is actually an important one which goes far beyond the debate about whether this particular book is a " good read" or not.

It's about intellectual copyright as far as I'm concerned.

And to be accurate I didn't join the thread to say i'd never heard of the author. I made that point later when others were trying to imply there was some sort of vendetta against the author.

Modern copyright only exists for 75 years after death so doesn't apply to Jane Austen.

Shakespeare copied entire plots and significant passages from other writers, Burns rewrote old folk songs, the Brother's Grimm 'collected' and censored old folk tales. There are continually TV and film 'adaptations' that we think are legally acceptable (even that dreadul Netflix adaptation of Persuasion). Taking a minor character in a 200 year old novel and writing a new story about them is hardly an issue, even if you think it's not to your taste.

Apologies-I only just noticed that the thread title didn’t say it was about Parris’ book. And it was me who mentioned reasons she is unpopular with some. Not a vendetta. She has been a SM target because, as I said, of her feminism and her politics. And there are people who would be prepared to dismiss her book because she is known as a comedian.

Read Bitch in a Bonnet- I haven’t seen Austentacious but I’ve seen Pride and Prejudice (Sort of) a couple of times and think Austen would love it!

Well, what an unpleasant thread this has become, thanks to some of you

It’s a thread about a book. Not some polemic about Trump or Starmer or Farage or Badenoch.

If you weren’t interested, there were two responses you could have given:

• doesn’t really sound like my kind of thing, but glad you enjoyed it OP

or

• sounds interesting, although I’ve never heard of Rachel Parris, I might give it a go.

This could have been an interesting discussion about authors who write books based on other books, but instead it’s just unpleasantly rancorous.

Thank you to those who did get where I was coming from, and the suggestions for other books or radio/podcasts.

This is such a silly question. The spoof is the whole point. It’s done for humour. A real gothic novel would have been an entirely different beast.