Post by littlereader on Mar 29, 2016 10:02:38 GMT
Blurb: From the bestselling author of Prep, American Wife and Sisterland comes this brilliant retelling of Austen’s classic set in modern day Cincinnati.
The Bennet sisters have been summoned from New York City.
Liz and Jane are good daughters. They’ve come home to suburban Cincinnati to get their mother to stop feeding their father steak as he recovers from heart surgery, to tidy up the crumbling Tudor-style family home, and to wrench their three sisters from their various states of arrested development.
Once they are under the same roof, old patterns return fast. Soon enough they are being berated for their single status, their only respite the early morning runs they escape on together. For two successful women in their late thirties, it really is too much to bear. That is, until the Lucas family’s BBQ throws them in the way of some eligible single men . . .
Chip Bingley is not only a charming doctor, he’s a reality TV star too. But Chip's friend, haughty neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy, can barely stomach Cincinnati or its inhabitants. Jane is entranced by Chip; Liz, sceptical of Darcy. As Liz is consumed by her father’s mounting medical bills, her wayward sisters and Cousin Willie trying to stick his tongue down her throat, it isn’t only the local chilli that will leave a bad aftertaste.
But where there are hearts that beat and mothers that push, the mysterious course of love will resolve itself in the most entertaining and unlikely of ways. And from the hand of Curtis Sittenfeld, Pride & Prejudice is catapulted into our modern world singing out with hilarity and truth.
_____
I don’t always rush to read new versions or modern takes of classic novels, especially when the original novel is one I loved, as is the case here with Pride and Prejudice. I worry that it will spoil my memory of the original, or just feel like it was unnecessary. However, I loved Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel American Wife, have her other novels waiting on my to be read pile, and had to admit to being intrigued by just how she would deliver her updated version of Jane Austen’s most famous novel, with the wonderful characters and story transported to modern day USA. (I believe this is now the fourth of Jane Austen’s novels to have been given a new take by a present day author.)
The story has all you might expect of a modern day tale, gossipy text messages, hi-tech companies, glossy magazines, reality tv shows, and more. I won’t put spoilers or further details here because it’s best to discover them as you read, but I liked her interpretation of pretty much all of them, from Fitzy and Chip to Mr Collins and Kathy de Bourgh. Curtis Sittenfeld brings through many of the characteristics and features that we know so well from Austen’s novel, Mrs Bennet’s anxieties and prejudices, Mr Bennet’s dry humour, Kitty and Lydia’s giggly silliness and flirtatiousness, Mary’s enigmatic isolation, Jane’s beauty and her kind spirit, Liz’s intelligence and thoughtfulness, now with a hip and independent edge to her. So, the characters and plots retain a lot from the original, but are brought cleverly up to date and/or their situations and difficulties made relevant for the present day, with some concerns still relevant in both, eternal human concerns of love, togetherness, loneliness, money, and families. And of course Mrs Bennet still just wants to see her five daughters married well!
It’s a lengthy novel at over 500 pages, but it carries you along and I got through a fair chunk every time I picked it up, so compelling was the need to keep reading and so witty the writing. Some chapters are very short, most are fairy short, and I loved the way it was done. To me it felt both like the classic tale and like a very current, relevant and entertaining contemporary novel, and I thought it was brilliant.
If you are open to this story being retold do give this a go because it is a lot of fun to read, it skips along at a fine pace and I at least came to love the characters, or laugh at them, or cry with them (especially with Liz), just as much all over again. I hope this review gives some sense of what it’s like, there’s a lot more I’d love to write about but I think then I’d bring a lot of spoilers in. A really great read, such fun!
The Bennet sisters have been summoned from New York City.
Liz and Jane are good daughters. They’ve come home to suburban Cincinnati to get their mother to stop feeding their father steak as he recovers from heart surgery, to tidy up the crumbling Tudor-style family home, and to wrench their three sisters from their various states of arrested development.
Once they are under the same roof, old patterns return fast. Soon enough they are being berated for their single status, their only respite the early morning runs they escape on together. For two successful women in their late thirties, it really is too much to bear. That is, until the Lucas family’s BBQ throws them in the way of some eligible single men . . .
Chip Bingley is not only a charming doctor, he’s a reality TV star too. But Chip's friend, haughty neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy, can barely stomach Cincinnati or its inhabitants. Jane is entranced by Chip; Liz, sceptical of Darcy. As Liz is consumed by her father’s mounting medical bills, her wayward sisters and Cousin Willie trying to stick his tongue down her throat, it isn’t only the local chilli that will leave a bad aftertaste.
But where there are hearts that beat and mothers that push, the mysterious course of love will resolve itself in the most entertaining and unlikely of ways. And from the hand of Curtis Sittenfeld, Pride & Prejudice is catapulted into our modern world singing out with hilarity and truth.
_____
I don’t always rush to read new versions or modern takes of classic novels, especially when the original novel is one I loved, as is the case here with Pride and Prejudice. I worry that it will spoil my memory of the original, or just feel like it was unnecessary. However, I loved Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel American Wife, have her other novels waiting on my to be read pile, and had to admit to being intrigued by just how she would deliver her updated version of Jane Austen’s most famous novel, with the wonderful characters and story transported to modern day USA. (I believe this is now the fourth of Jane Austen’s novels to have been given a new take by a present day author.)
The story has all you might expect of a modern day tale, gossipy text messages, hi-tech companies, glossy magazines, reality tv shows, and more. I won’t put spoilers or further details here because it’s best to discover them as you read, but I liked her interpretation of pretty much all of them, from Fitzy and Chip to Mr Collins and Kathy de Bourgh. Curtis Sittenfeld brings through many of the characteristics and features that we know so well from Austen’s novel, Mrs Bennet’s anxieties and prejudices, Mr Bennet’s dry humour, Kitty and Lydia’s giggly silliness and flirtatiousness, Mary’s enigmatic isolation, Jane’s beauty and her kind spirit, Liz’s intelligence and thoughtfulness, now with a hip and independent edge to her. So, the characters and plots retain a lot from the original, but are brought cleverly up to date and/or their situations and difficulties made relevant for the present day, with some concerns still relevant in both, eternal human concerns of love, togetherness, loneliness, money, and families. And of course Mrs Bennet still just wants to see her five daughters married well!
It’s a lengthy novel at over 500 pages, but it carries you along and I got through a fair chunk every time I picked it up, so compelling was the need to keep reading and so witty the writing. Some chapters are very short, most are fairy short, and I loved the way it was done. To me it felt both like the classic tale and like a very current, relevant and entertaining contemporary novel, and I thought it was brilliant.
If you are open to this story being retold do give this a go because it is a lot of fun to read, it skips along at a fine pace and I at least came to love the characters, or laugh at them, or cry with them (especially with Liz), just as much all over again. I hope this review gives some sense of what it’s like, there’s a lot more I’d love to write about but I think then I’d bring a lot of spoilers in. A really great read, such fun!
