There’s something about Tennant’s belief that Elizabeth would never be able to repay Mr. Darcy for his kindness, for marrying her that never settled right with me. Headstrong, wity Elizabeth spends quite a bit of time lamenting over this fact, and therefore struggles to actually communicate with Darcy, which seems completely out of her character for her to do so.
Similar to Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, Elizabeth struggles to conceive a child, a heir for Mr. Darcy and she also falls under the belief that Darcy has fathered a son with another woman. However, unlike Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, I did not find myself falling right into Lizzy’s suspicion of Darcy; I struggled to follow the swing of her emotions and hate Darcy one minute and then love him the next. Very little is actually seen of Darcy in Pemberley; he runs off to Matlock, London in order to, apparently, avoid the wife he loves so dearly.
Tennant did a decent job recreating Jane Austen’s style in this novel. Overall, she also managed to capture how a gathering of the Bennets, Catherine de Bourgh, the Wickhams, etc., would unfold — disaster after disaster.
Book Mentioned:
- Tennant, Emma. Pemberley, Or Pride and Prejudice Continued. New York: St. Martin’s, 1993. Print. 184 pgs. ISBN: 9780312107932. Source: Library.
3 comments
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March 23, 2009 at 7:24 am
Serena (Savvy Verse & Wit)
Sounds like a P&P spinoff I want to avoid. I want writers to stay true to the characters…when they take them up where their predecessors leave off.
March 23, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Christina
@ Serena: I thought it was diverting, but Elizabeth wasn’t exactly Elizabeth. I could see Darcy being as he is portrayed in Pemberley — kind of quite, unused to having a wife but still completely devoted to Elizabeth — but Elizabeth’s reactions were slightly off.
May 1, 2009 at 2:59 pm
diaryofaneccentric
Thanks for the honest review. From what you’ve said, that doesn’t sound at all like the Elizabeth I know and love. I think I’ll pass on this one.
–Anna