Two! Two Reviews in One!
So, apparently this week was "Read Really Bad P&P Sequels" week. I wish I'd known that ahead of time. Of course, to be fair, these two books could have been part of a contest; a "Who Can Write the Most OOC Fitzwilliam Darcy EVAR." If that's true...then I'm kinda at a loss at judging who won. On the one hand, Altman had Darcy doing several completely outrageous things; her Darcy's actions were far more unbelievable. On the other hand, Lathan's Darcy was more consistently OOC, throughout the book.
Let's just dive right in, shall we?
The Darcys and the Bingleys, Marsha Altman
I had read this on the ride home from Lunacon, hoping it would serve as a palate cleanser for Twilight. While it was certainly funny in a way Twilight could never be (ie deliberately), with a few genuine laugh-out-loud moments, I was fairly disappointed.
This book starts several days before the Bennet sisters' double-wedding. Usually, the P&P sequels start the day of or the day after the wedding, and only show the days leading up to the ceremony as a reminiscence if they're shown at all. However, the chapter opens with Bingley trying to ask Darcy for advice--which, on its own, is not terribly surprising. However, what Bingley's looking for is advice about sex, as he doesn't want to disappoint Jane. While I thought Darcy's initial reaction was fairly apt (ignoring the moderately unlikely premise that Bingley would ask him about that in the first place) with him getting all stuffy, his secondary reaction fell a little short of the mark. He races off to London to purchase Charles a copy of the Kama Sutra.
Yeah, you read that right.
Of course, my first thought was: she's set this book in 1803. The Kama Sutra wasn't translated until 1883. (You need not ask how I know that off the top of my head.) When I got home, I googled both the year and the translator she listed, but couldn't get a hit. Quite shoddily done, I say. Of course, Darcy inherited his copy from his father, making it that much more anachronistic. The Ananga Ranga makes an appearance later on, which, of course, won't be translated and printed until '85.
So Darcy's a time-traveler who uses his Regency-Era TARDIS to get sexual how-to guides. Whatever. It gets better from there.
Chapter One ends with Bingley getting ready to tell a story about a party he and Darcy attended back when they went to Cambridge together. However, instead of just telling the story, Chapter Two opens with the date: 1795. I can't explain how much that annoyed me. It's like on fanfiction.net when people use ==Darcy's POV== to indicate a point of view switch (which, I was not-entirely-surprised to discover was a more apt comparison than I'd assumed at the time, but I'll get to that). If I can't tell that you've switched POV's without you announcing it and interrupting the flow of your story, YOU HAVE PROBLEMS. SRSLY. And I felt that the entire sequence was clumsily handled. At other points, she has characters remembering things they had done previously without too much of a problem; but then other times she'd feel the need to cut to a flashback. In this flashback, we see what will be a common theme throughout the book: Darcy's inability to handle alcohol. Just for ha-ha's, I started keeping track of how many times Darcy was depicted as drunk. I gave up after five, cause I just didn't want to know any more. It was like trying to count the number of times 'perfect,' 'angel[ic],' or 'dazzling' was used in Sorry, forgot, saving my snark for my review of that book--although I bet you could guess what book I was gonna say, couldn't you?
After that flashback, we skip forward to page 93 and Darcy pitching Wickham out a second story window into a pile of manure (why there was a manure pile up next to the manor is beyond my guess). And all this before the wedding!
I could go on and on, but there are a few things that Altman got right, and I feel she deserves credit for them. As OOC as she had Darcy acting, she certainly got his voice down. Elizabeth's, too, as well as the tenor of their relationship. Oh, and also Mr. Bennet's. Basically, she made sure there was enough Austen-ian wit in there to keep me amused. As I said, there were some perfectly lovely lines in the book:
[After Darcy has related a story about (drunkenly!) punching Wickham in the face in university over a nickname]: "So, you are saying that if I call you 'Fitzers,' you will strike you wife?"
"No, of course not. I will politely say in a very respectful and quiet voice, 'Dearest Lizzy, love of my life, if you call me that again, I will have no recourse but to annul our marriage and send you to a nunnery in Ireland.'"
and: "I say, my daughters seem to be in some kind of competition. The first husband I must pay; the second I have no obligations to; and the third pays me. Mary, if this pattern is to continue, I will consent to you marrying a man of no less than twenty thousand pounds a year. And Kitty, nothing less than royalty will do. I perhaps will settle for Scottish royalty, but only if he truly loves you."
She also has Elizabeth continue to call her husband 'Darcy' after the wedding. This is purely a personal thing, but I prefer 'Darcy' to 'Fitzwilliam.' Fitzwilliam is just too long, doesn't break down into nicknames very well, and lacks the feeling of romance. I mean, it's easy to say, "Oh, Darcy." But, "Oh, Fitzwilliam"? I don't think so. Go ahead, say it. Okay, now try it again without Fitzwilliam sounding stupid. Ha! I told you.
The second quarter of the book passes fairly uneventfully (wedded bliss, believable voice, Darcy gets drunk, Jane and Lizzy breed, etc etc), until Charles is called away to give his consent to Caroline's soon-to-be-fiance. Uneasy with the man and unsure why, Bingley sends for Darcy, and they play private eye in London. Grumpy about being left out of the action, Lizzy convinces her father to go on an excursion to Scotland (the prospective groom's homeland) to do a little digging of her own. Of course, the man turns out to be a blackguard; there's a thrilling scene where Darcy is nearly murdered, saved at the last minute by Bingley and Elizabeth who somehow manage to sneak into the guy's lodgings, I don't even know anymore; and Caroline Bingley ends up marrying a doctor--the same doctor who has been called in to treat Mr. Hurst's gout.
Caroline Bingley marries a man in trade. True, he was born into a respectable family, but his elder brother wasted the estate on gambling and drink (Darcy, are you paying attention?!) and so now he has to work to support himself. Clearly, Darcy isn't the only one who got tapped by the OOC-fairy. And, it turns out, underneath her cold and bitchy exterior, is the heart of a warm and kind woman. Or something.
And then everyone gets locked into their rooms at Pemberley while the blackguard and the doctor's brother team up to exact revenge, and the book ends with Darcy getting drunk.
The end.
All that nonsense aside, this book is actually going to get a decent grade. It amused me, which was its main purpose, and, like I said, Altman somehow manages to get the characters completely right even as she gets them completely wrong. It's a fast read, and would be an decent book with (some better editing) and her own Regency characters. I do find it telling that this book has its origins on fanfiction.net (talk about "Fandom as a Job!"), which I discovered at the end of the book. I'm not saying that to be impugn it or the author (hell, I'm on ff.net), but it clarified why I had certain problems with the book. She makes a lot of the same mistakes that fanfic authors often do (painful transitions, inserting drama for drama's own sake, OOC characters...).
2.5 stars (Mostly cause I LOL'd a few times.)
Of the two, that was the better book.
I don't know if I even have the energy for this one, but I'll try. Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy: Two Shall Become One, Sharon Lathan.
The title should have warned me.
Anyway, this Darcy (or William, as Elizabeth almost always calls him, which caused me to shudder every time I saw it) doesn't do anything wildly OOC. There's no excessive drinking, no tossing people out the window, no giving anyone "The Idiot's Guide to Sex." No, for the most part, he rides around, oversees his estate, and spends tons of time making passionate love to Elizabeth.
This is like a very poor version of Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (which, I know a number of folks on my f-list hate, but I think is wonderful.) The similarities are staggering: for one, it's published by the same company and even has the same jacket design, down to the font; Darcy and Elizabeth can't keep their hands off of each other and have to have sex several times every day; general opinion is against Elizabeth until there is a party where she can charm everyone with her wit and humor; she nearly gets sexually assaulted and gets hurt badly; Darcy is forced to Take Violent Action...it's like Lathan read Berdoll, and then wrote poorly-imitated fanfiction about it. And all this in 5 and a half months of marriage! Berdoll's book at least spanned years! Five years, actually, if I'm remembering correctly...
I mean, was I the only one who read that and thought of some kind of creepy alien creature? Pride and Predator, anyone? What's wrong with "water broke"?
Moving on. What really killed this book for me was the dialogue. It sounds ridiculous. You can tell when an author hasn't checked to make sure that what her characters are saying sounds natural. This book is full of flagrant abuse of both adjectives and exclamation points. Talk about overwrought; I feel like she was trying to get the nineteenth century formality of expression down, but only by using big words. I was somewhat at a loss--which means I have to share some of the 'choicest' bits with you, my discerning reader:
"My wife...my precious wife. Shall I chronicle how resplendent your face is in your rapture? Your are luminous: your eyes shining with devotion and excitement, your lips swollen and ruddy from my kisses, a light sheen of perspiration gracing your perfect brow, your cheeks sanguine with desire..."
"We are one, my beloved. Joined together. Hearts and bodies bound now and forever. Oh, lord, Elizabeth! How I love you! You are mine and I am yours for all eternity. Release your tension, precious love. I will be gentle." If you need to inform your wife on your wedding night that you "are one. Joined together." then you're prolly DOIN' IT WRONG.
Of course, we can't blame Darcy for being unsure. He is, after all, a virgin:
"I was a young man with longings that I wished to gratify, but I refused to selfishly slake my appetites in such a demeaning manner....My dearest, precious Elizabeth, I have saved myself for you, even before I knew who you were.As trite as that sounds, it is the truth, and I do not merely mean in the intimate realm of our relationship. My principles, my pride, perhaps, would not allow me to consider giving myself to anyone less than the woman I would love and marry. Even in my despair of ever finding you, I still clung to the idea that you existed. You had to exist!...Call me a hopeless romantic!" However, he still manages to rock her socks off--he also has a collection of "Idiot's Guide to Sex" manuals, even if he never loans them to anyone.
They also refer to each other as "my lover." All the time. Never mind that it sounds idiotic when using it as an endearment, but it just goes on and on and on:
"Elizabeth my love... my light... my heart... my pearl... my lover... my Lizzy."
"My heart is bursting with love for you my husband my darling my lover and my soul."
"As you wished for, my lover. Open your eyes. ..."
"I render this allegation yet wish to assure you, my lover, that I harbor no anguish or repulsion at the idea..."
"You render me breathless with desire, my lover."
"Fitzwilliam, my lover, I adore you more than life."
"My Lizzy, my lover!"
I just wish I had a nickle for every time "my lover," "beautiful face," or "precious love" was used. And her descriptions are as painful as the dialogue. Darcy's voice is "lush" (also, in true Gary Stu fashion, his eyes turn indigo sometimes), not being able to kiss Elizabeth is "exquisite torture" and, of course, birth sacs.
Not only could I not believe that Darcy and Elizabeth were talking this way, I couldn't believe anyone would! And she didn't even have Altman's saving grace of being funny! It was just pages of purple prose and treacly sentimentality, with pages and pages of (boring) sex thrown in to "spice things up." I just kept skipping those scenes, because that was where the dialogue was at its most...turgid.
To be honest, it was sheer stubbornness that kept me reading until the end.I think the two crowning touches were a) discovering that her inspiration for the book was based on the Keira Knightly movie (not even the BBC miniseries, GAWD), which explains some inconsistencies with Austen's novel (though she does claim to have read it), and b) all the Biblical and religious references "scattered" were put in there deliberately. Sweetheart, if you want to honor Jesus, your Rock and Creator, do it with fewer subtle-as-a-brick-in-the-face allusions, and with more instances of better writing. I would put this book above The Blonde Geisha and Mad Kestrel, but not by much.
Forgive me for including lots of quotes and not much analysis, but I have learned that there are times when it's best to let the evidence do the talking for you.
1 star by virtue of me being able to finish it.
Let's just dive right in, shall we?
The Darcys and the Bingleys, Marsha Altman
I had read this on the ride home from Lunacon, hoping it would serve as a palate cleanser for Twilight. While it was certainly funny in a way Twilight could never be (ie deliberately), with a few genuine laugh-out-loud moments, I was fairly disappointed.
This book starts several days before the Bennet sisters' double-wedding. Usually, the P&P sequels start the day of or the day after the wedding, and only show the days leading up to the ceremony as a reminiscence if they're shown at all. However, the chapter opens with Bingley trying to ask Darcy for advice--which, on its own, is not terribly surprising. However, what Bingley's looking for is advice about sex, as he doesn't want to disappoint Jane. While I thought Darcy's initial reaction was fairly apt (ignoring the moderately unlikely premise that Bingley would ask him about that in the first place) with him getting all stuffy, his secondary reaction fell a little short of the mark. He races off to London to purchase Charles a copy of the Kama Sutra.
Yeah, you read that right.
Of course, my first thought was: she's set this book in 1803. The Kama Sutra wasn't translated until 1883. (You need not ask how I know that off the top of my head.) When I got home, I googled both the year and the translator she listed, but couldn't get a hit. Quite shoddily done, I say. Of course, Darcy inherited his copy from his father, making it that much more anachronistic. The Ananga Ranga makes an appearance later on, which, of course, won't be translated and printed until '85.
So Darcy's a time-traveler who uses his Regency-Era TARDIS to get sexual how-to guides. Whatever. It gets better from there.
Chapter One ends with Bingley getting ready to tell a story about a party he and Darcy attended back when they went to Cambridge together. However, instead of just telling the story, Chapter Two opens with the date: 1795. I can't explain how much that annoyed me. It's like on fanfiction.net when people use ==Darcy's POV== to indicate a point of view switch (which, I was not-entirely-surprised to discover was a more apt comparison than I'd assumed at the time, but I'll get to that). If I can't tell that you've switched POV's without you announcing it and interrupting the flow of your story, YOU HAVE PROBLEMS. SRSLY. And I felt that the entire sequence was clumsily handled. At other points, she has characters remembering things they had done previously without too much of a problem; but then other times she'd feel the need to cut to a flashback. In this flashback, we see what will be a common theme throughout the book: Darcy's inability to handle alcohol. Just for ha-ha's, I started keeping track of how many times Darcy was depicted as drunk. I gave up after five, cause I just didn't want to know any more. It was like trying to count the number of times 'perfect,' 'angel[ic],' or 'dazzling' was used in Sorry, forgot, saving my snark for my review of that book--although I bet you could guess what book I was gonna say, couldn't you?
After that flashback, we skip forward to page 93 and Darcy pitching Wickham out a second story window into a pile of manure (why there was a manure pile up next to the manor is beyond my guess). And all this before the wedding!
I could go on and on, but there are a few things that Altman got right, and I feel she deserves credit for them. As OOC as she had Darcy acting, she certainly got his voice down. Elizabeth's, too, as well as the tenor of their relationship. Oh, and also Mr. Bennet's. Basically, she made sure there was enough Austen-ian wit in there to keep me amused. As I said, there were some perfectly lovely lines in the book:
[After Darcy has related a story about (drunkenly!) punching Wickham in the face in university over a nickname]: "So, you are saying that if I call you 'Fitzers,' you will strike you wife?"
"No, of course not. I will politely say in a very respectful and quiet voice, 'Dearest Lizzy, love of my life, if you call me that again, I will have no recourse but to annul our marriage and send you to a nunnery in Ireland.'"
and: "I say, my daughters seem to be in some kind of competition. The first husband I must pay; the second I have no obligations to; and the third pays me. Mary, if this pattern is to continue, I will consent to you marrying a man of no less than twenty thousand pounds a year. And Kitty, nothing less than royalty will do. I perhaps will settle for Scottish royalty, but only if he truly loves you."
She also has Elizabeth continue to call her husband 'Darcy' after the wedding. This is purely a personal thing, but I prefer 'Darcy' to 'Fitzwilliam.' Fitzwilliam is just too long, doesn't break down into nicknames very well, and lacks the feeling of romance. I mean, it's easy to say, "Oh, Darcy." But, "Oh, Fitzwilliam"? I don't think so. Go ahead, say it. Okay, now try it again without Fitzwilliam sounding stupid. Ha! I told you.
The second quarter of the book passes fairly uneventfully (wedded bliss, believable voice, Darcy gets drunk, Jane and Lizzy breed, etc etc), until Charles is called away to give his consent to Caroline's soon-to-be-fiance. Uneasy with the man and unsure why, Bingley sends for Darcy, and they play private eye in London. Grumpy about being left out of the action, Lizzy convinces her father to go on an excursion to Scotland (the prospective groom's homeland) to do a little digging of her own. Of course, the man turns out to be a blackguard; there's a thrilling scene where Darcy is nearly murdered, saved at the last minute by Bingley and Elizabeth who somehow manage to sneak into the guy's lodgings, I don't even know anymore; and Caroline Bingley ends up marrying a doctor--the same doctor who has been called in to treat Mr. Hurst's gout.
Caroline Bingley marries a man in trade. True, he was born into a respectable family, but his elder brother wasted the estate on gambling and drink (Darcy, are you paying attention?!) and so now he has to work to support himself. Clearly, Darcy isn't the only one who got tapped by the OOC-fairy. And, it turns out, underneath her cold and bitchy exterior, is the heart of a warm and kind woman. Or something.
And then everyone gets locked into their rooms at Pemberley while the blackguard and the doctor's brother team up to exact revenge, and the book ends with Darcy getting drunk.
The end.
All that nonsense aside, this book is actually going to get a decent grade. It amused me, which was its main purpose, and, like I said, Altman somehow manages to get the characters completely right even as she gets them completely wrong. It's a fast read, and would be an decent book with (some better editing) and her own Regency characters. I do find it telling that this book has its origins on fanfiction.net (talk about "Fandom as a Job!"), which I discovered at the end of the book. I'm not saying that to be impugn it or the author (hell, I'm on ff.net), but it clarified why I had certain problems with the book. She makes a lot of the same mistakes that fanfic authors often do (painful transitions, inserting drama for drama's own sake, OOC characters...).
2.5 stars (Mostly cause I LOL'd a few times.)
Of the two, that was the better book.
I don't know if I even have the energy for this one, but I'll try. Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy: Two Shall Become One, Sharon Lathan.
The title should have warned me.
Anyway, this Darcy (or William, as Elizabeth almost always calls him, which caused me to shudder every time I saw it) doesn't do anything wildly OOC. There's no excessive drinking, no tossing people out the window, no giving anyone "The Idiot's Guide to Sex." No, for the most part, he rides around, oversees his estate, and spends tons of time making passionate love to Elizabeth.
This is like a very poor version of Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (which, I know a number of folks on my f-list hate, but I think is wonderful.) The similarities are staggering: for one, it's published by the same company and even has the same jacket design, down to the font; Darcy and Elizabeth can't keep their hands off of each other and have to have sex several times every day; general opinion is against Elizabeth until there is a party where she can charm everyone with her wit and humor; she nearly gets sexually assaulted and gets hurt badly; Darcy is forced to Take Violent Action...it's like Lathan read Berdoll, and then wrote poorly-imitated fanfiction about it. And all this in 5 and a half months of marriage! Berdoll's book at least spanned years! Five years, actually, if I'm remembering correctly...
I mean, was I the only one who read that and thought of some kind of creepy alien creature? Pride and Predator, anyone? What's wrong with "water broke"?
Moving on. What really killed this book for me was the dialogue. It sounds ridiculous. You can tell when an author hasn't checked to make sure that what her characters are saying sounds natural. This book is full of flagrant abuse of both adjectives and exclamation points. Talk about overwrought; I feel like she was trying to get the nineteenth century formality of expression down, but only by using big words. I was somewhat at a loss--which means I have to share some of the 'choicest' bits with you, my discerning reader:
"My wife...my precious wife. Shall I chronicle how resplendent your face is in your rapture? Your are luminous: your eyes shining with devotion and excitement, your lips swollen and ruddy from my kisses, a light sheen of perspiration gracing your perfect brow, your cheeks sanguine with desire..."
"We are one, my beloved. Joined together. Hearts and bodies bound now and forever. Oh, lord, Elizabeth! How I love you! You are mine and I am yours for all eternity. Release your tension, precious love. I will be gentle." If you need to inform your wife on your wedding night that you "are one. Joined together." then you're prolly DOIN' IT WRONG.
Of course, we can't blame Darcy for being unsure. He is, after all, a virgin:
"I was a young man with longings that I wished to gratify, but I refused to selfishly slake my appetites in such a demeaning manner....My dearest, precious Elizabeth, I have saved myself for you, even before I knew who you were.As trite as that sounds, it is the truth, and I do not merely mean in the intimate realm of our relationship. My principles, my pride, perhaps, would not allow me to consider giving myself to anyone less than the woman I would love and marry. Even in my despair of ever finding you, I still clung to the idea that you existed. You had to exist!...Call me a hopeless romantic!" However, he still manages to rock her socks off--he also has a collection of "Idiot's Guide to Sex" manuals, even if he never loans them to anyone.
They also refer to each other as "my lover." All the time. Never mind that it sounds idiotic when using it as an endearment, but it just goes on and on and on:
"Elizabeth my love... my light... my heart... my pearl... my lover... my Lizzy."
"My heart is bursting with love for you my husband my darling my lover and my soul."
"As you wished for, my lover. Open your eyes. ..."
"I render this allegation yet wish to assure you, my lover, that I harbor no anguish or repulsion at the idea..."
"You render me breathless with desire, my lover."
"Fitzwilliam, my lover, I adore you more than life."
"My Lizzy, my lover!"
I just wish I had a nickle for every time "my lover," "beautiful face," or "precious love" was used. And her descriptions are as painful as the dialogue. Darcy's voice is "lush" (also, in true Gary Stu fashion, his eyes turn indigo sometimes), not being able to kiss Elizabeth is "exquisite torture" and, of course, birth sacs.
Not only could I not believe that Darcy and Elizabeth were talking this way, I couldn't believe anyone would! And she didn't even have Altman's saving grace of being funny! It was just pages of purple prose and treacly sentimentality, with pages and pages of (boring) sex thrown in to "spice things up." I just kept skipping those scenes, because that was where the dialogue was at its most...turgid.
To be honest, it was sheer stubbornness that kept me reading until the end.I think the two crowning touches were a) discovering that her inspiration for the book was based on the Keira Knightly movie (not even the BBC miniseries, GAWD), which explains some inconsistencies with Austen's novel (though she does claim to have read it), and b) all the Biblical and religious references "scattered" were put in there deliberately. Sweetheart, if you want to honor Jesus, your Rock and Creator, do it with fewer subtle-as-a-brick-in-the-face allusions, and with more instances of better writing. I would put this book above The Blonde Geisha and Mad Kestrel, but not by much.
Forgive me for including lots of quotes and not much analysis, but I have learned that there are times when it's best to let the evidence do the talking for you.
1 star by virtue of me being able to finish it.