Customer Reviews

The Bar Sinister, Pride and Prejudice Continues

5 star:		(73)
4 star:		(37)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(34)

 

 

This book should be taken out an SHOT.
It is so BAD it is unintentionally funny. Very funny. My favorite sentences so far:
"Propitious fortune allowed her to descry whom the crepuscular light yielded."
"Lack of conversation of which he did nothing to mitigate."
"Whilst still partaking their meal, Darcy apologised upon its austere winter dressing of his county unnecessarily."
Believe me, folks, the whole thing reads like this. I am NOT making this up.
I intend to write an update when I finish the book (I am researching sequels to Austen), but at page 40 I'm drowning in in a sea of "betwixt" and "howbeit."
Many of the sentences are downright be-cramped with broken sentence structure and overwrought language. All things are besoiled, bedewed, begrimed, bechanced. Nothing is ever dewed or grimed or soiled. No one ever sits between two people, it is "indubitably" betwixt. The characters do not exit, only egress.
Even if you can ignore the horrible writing, you will be affronted by the sub-par romantic/erotic plotting and descriptions (womanly portal and nether garments, indeed!). If it's a good sequel you're looking for, I'd advise "Letters from Pemberly" by Jane Dawkins. If you're looking for a good romance novel, check out "Ransom" by Julie Garwood.
Perhaps this author never actually read Austen. Perchance she only beviewed it upon the electronic movie-viewing apparatus. Howbeit, perchance some be-revising will aid this ailing monstrosity. After all, Austen fully revised her first draft, one can only hope Linda Berdoll will do the same.
I will continue to read in hopes that the story will overcome the overwritten and overwrought language of the author, though it is doubtful I can take much more of this.

First for the negative. I could not, for the life of me, understand, what possessed the author to misspell Elizabeth's name, as well as the word "Pemberley." I still don't get it--it must have been fairly easy to verify and edit. In general, the spelling was erratic, and the vocabulary sometimes bizarre (all of a sudden, I felt that I knew very little English, as every third word seemed arcane). Also, if you are a purist, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK--the sex parts are numerous and sometimes graphic. Jane Austen would not have written it like this...

That said, the author nowhere claims to be JA. And for a 20th C. sequel, the book is GOOD. The plot is interesting, with twists and turns, and the language, though somewhat dumbfounding, is rich and very much in the spirit of JA (though JA's langauge IS easier to understand :)). And then there's the absolutely breathtaking love story--Darcy and Lizzy's relationship is just great as the author describes it. It's very sexual, true, but also, loving and respectful. They are quite a little partnership in this book, and wheather all kinds of awful troubles with considerable grace. Their characters, I thought, were very true to the way JA described them--Lizzy is spunky and brave, and Darcy--a "man of considerable personal courage," as the author describes him at some point.

Other characters are very much in character as well: Fitzwilliam is loyal and noble, Wickham is low and predatory, Lydia is bordering on idiocy (as is the mother, of course), Aunt Catherine is ... well, Aunt Catherine. Georgiana was a bit of a surprise, for she gives Darcy quite a bit of trouble.

In general, I would not recommend this book to an Austen purist, but I did recommend it to a bunch of my Darcy-obsessed girlfriends... and chances are, if the author writes something else, I'll read that as well.

I really enjoyed the story Ms. Berdoll tells. I love all of the scenes between Elizabeth and Darcy, and how she fleshed out some of the minor characters in P&P (makes me wonder if a TV script was in the back of her mind...). But you have to be VERY forgiving as you read. I have never read a book with so many typos! I am not a literary critic, but I did feel some of the story itself could have used an editor's guiding hand and the five-dollar words used throughout were a bit much. If you are a Jane Austen purist, you may have a stroke reading this book, but if the A&E mini-series left you "Darcy-manic" this is a fun, racy sequel.

This is the kind of book that, while not for everyone , is an exceptional read if you're into it.

While many Austen fans have been disgusted with the somewhat raunchy bits of the book, it's to be expected that Colin-Firth-at-Pemberley-in-a-wet shirt would spark such a novel! If you want a restrained, more truly authentic sequel, this probably isn't the best choice. If you (like me) aren't a true Austen purist and are looking for something more life-like and fun, then this is it. We follow the newly-wed Darcys into married life, and it's a happy marriage - finally, as most other sequels have an irrational need to make Darcy and Elizabeth unhappy. We hear about their private (sometimes very private) and public life, and the other P+P characters' stories are continued, too. (I particularly liked Colonel Fitzwilliam.)

The style seemed to me to be a parody of regency expression, which was actually laugh-out-loud funny at times.

The epic scope was enjoyable, and the plot engrossing, so it seemed half as long as it actually is -I finished it within days, and will be re-reading it very shortly! The only annoyance was the lack of editing - mispelling and the occassional missed word, but it does become easy to overlook.

If you want a love story, an adventure, a mystrey and a tale of passion, then get into this! I laughed and cried and completely enjoyed Linda Berdoll's work. (Now where can I find a 21st century Darcy ?....)

Though The Bar Sinister was a good book, and certainly had its share of excitement, I don't feel that Jane Austen would have appreciated the liberties taken with her characters. Many of the events in the novel reminded me of drug store romances. I won't go into particulars, for fear of ruining the story for other readers. There were few contradictions between P&P and The Bar Sinister, besides the changing of Mr. Collins's first name (William to Thaddeus) and making Elizabeth a horsewoman (in P&P she rode fairly ill). Several other reviewers mentioned Ms. Berdoll's lack of editing, to which I can attest. You would think that she would be able to spell the name of Mr. Darcy's ancestral home, where Elizabeth fell in love with him (Pemberley, incorrectly spelled as Pemberly throughout the entire book).

I began reading this "sequel" to "Pride and Prejudice" out of curiosity, but quickly became annoyed, then bored. First of all, it's not a sequel, it's a bodice-ripper that merely borrows Jane Austen's characters and drops them into clichéd romance novel situations. Secondly, as many others have noted, it's the most poorly edited book I've ever read. It's also poorly written. Berdoll tries to emulate Austen's style, but she doesn't come close to Austen's simplicity of language or incisive character development.

Granted, I'm an Austen purist. If I'm going to read a so-called sequel to an Austen novel, I'd like it to at least be true to the spirit of Austen and her characters, if not the language and style. If I wanted to read a bodice ripper, I'd go to the Romance section of the bookstore.

To be fair, I have no trouble believing that Elizabeth and Darcy would have the kind of genuinely loving relationship Berdoll describes. I can even believe that they would enjoy a mutually satisfying sex life. But please! The frequency and inventiveness of their couplings is rivaled only by the number of euphemisms Berdoll uses to describe them (she must have used a special thesaurus). Of course Mr. Darcy is a consummate and virile lover (and unusually well-endowed, naturally), and of course Elizabeth is an enthusiastic, adventurous, and vocal partner. But enough is enough! After a while I began to roll my eyes every time they headed to the bed chamber. And given the faux-Austen writing style, the scenes became simply ludicrous. I found myself either laughing out loud or skipping ahead out of boredom. I don't think Berdoll intended either reaction.

In other words, not recommended. Read the real thing instead.

Admittedly the editorial mistakes are distracting: names and words mispelled, punctuation left out, etc. Occasionally I found them just distracting enough to draw my attention away from the plot.

Despite that, overall I was engaged from start to finish. Yes, it is more rique than Austen. Yes, it takes liberties. Yes, it has the tendency to read more like a romance novel. However, the characters are complelling and fleshed-out; the story is exciting; and most importantly, Elizabeth (or Elisabeth!) and Darcy have a fitting continuation to their love story. It didn't bother me at all that this wasn't Jane Austen I was reading. Darcy especially is fleshed out in a way that makes him a wonderful hero. It was nice to get a view into his perspective and a sense of the love he felt for his lady.

Linda Berdoll obviously researched her material thoroughly. Now, if in her next novel she can take care of the glaring editorial mistakes, I'd say she'll have an even better book on her hands.

I wrote a positive review of this novel a few months ago, and recently picked it back up to peruse the pages I had thought so entertaining not long before. Sadly, the second time around is not nearly as good as the first. After the novelty of sexual encounters involving characters of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice was gone, so was the whole effect of the book.

The story starts off with the newly married Mrs. Elizabeth "Elisabeth" Darcy and Fitzwilliam "Flaming Libido" Darcy who discover that they sure as heck have one thing in common - the desire for sex, and lots of it, in full detail. The first time i read it, I thought, alright, this is okay, it's nice to see they connect so...passionately. Upon closer inspection, however, I noticed that the physical is about all they have together. Don't these two, who had so much witty banter in the original, have anything to say to one another? They actually have a conversation about the size of Darcy's "manly instrument" (yes, that's in quotations because it is used in the book). Speaking of which, there are so many euphemisms for sex and the parts of the body necessary to engage in it (and some of them SO original you just have to burst out laughing) that it's hard to take the text seriously.

Berdoll is no historian, either, and breaks whatever tone she might have created, for example, when she winks at the reader by making fun of the limited knowledge in the field of medicine in the early 19th century. There's no particular reason why Berdoll should try that hard to be accurate either historically or concerning that tricky last chapter of Pride and Prejudice (something NO sequel writer seems to be able to quite handle), but if this is the case - we know she doesn't know exactly what she's talking about, why the painful, bulky syntax? She makes an obvious (and rather unsuccessful) attempt to use language reminiscent of Austen's era, but mistakes big words for wit. Berdoll seems to have picked up a thesaurus and had a field day - I don't say dictionary, because the fact that she uses words without quite knowing their definition is somewhat obvious. Just one example (to be critical, horrid, and mean) is the use of the word "commodious" to describe Darcy's male organ. Now, the definition of the word "commodious" is "spacious" or "roomy." I know Berdoll is trying to imply that Darcy is well-endowed, however, to have a "torch of love" so large that it deserves the adjective "spacious" is really rather frightening. Neither does Berdoll realize the difference between "prone" and "supine."

Apart from the semantic nitpicking, the story itself doesn't quite hold up on its own, or, especially, when compared to the original. This newly married couple seems to be lacking a connection of substance with each other or anyone. They spend so much time in bed together that they neglect all other relationships they previously had. The only people they actually talk to are Georgianna and Colonel Fitzwilliam, and that because they live at Pemberley "Pemberly" Estate for a good portion of the novel. Even so, Georgiana is rarely included. Jane and Bingley are reduced to one-dimensional background characters who embody one trait and one only (how unfair of Berdoll to suggest that Jane and Bingley would not have a passionate marriage). The Gardeners fell off the face of the earth, Charlotte rarely speaks, and Mr. Bennet only appears at the very end to spew out a few forced and barely pithy comments. It's clear that Berdoll didn't kill herself trying to be true to the original characters by studying the original at all. She makes Bingley and Jane more stupid than humble and unassuming. Even as a supporting character, Bingley in P&P is more witty, intelligent, and real than any of the main characters in this book. Elizabeth herself is dumbed down to a petulant and outspoken young woman with no manners. At a ball, she overhears some women talking about her husband's sexual prowess, and confronts them about it, using equally inappropriate language. Sigh. And then, she is so jealous and petty that she suspects Darcy of cheating on her, even though he spends every moment he is awake in bed (or under the cabinet, on the floor, in the bathtub, in the closet, etc.) with her.

And then there's the plot, which is basically just a bunch of hyped-up junk designed to make it seem like important stuff is going on. Bandits, murders, would-be rapists, miscarriage, infidelity, war, ... children, death, oh my. Most of the relationships here are defined by sex, and it seems absolutely nobody in the book (except Darcy and Elizabeth, of course) knows how to be faithful in marriage. And apparantly you can even define a person's character by sex -- Darcy is a good guy, so he's particularly well-endowed and is awesome in the sack. Wickham is evil, so he's not that great. Tom Reed is poor and evil, so he's hardly got any package at all. What well developed characters.

When it boils down to it, this book (and all those other unworthy sequels) gets attention and sales merely because it is attached to Jane Austen's well-loved work. Because of that, the authors of these sequels should only write them with, at the very least, an attempt to pay tribute to the original. Without Pride and Prejudice, The Bar Sinister would just be another romance novel, with very little to recommend it.

Maybe its a test - if you consider Elizabeth spelled with an "s" as a inexcusable literary offense, you take your Jane Austen far too seriously to like this book. But those who enjoy a little (or a lot of) license will be thoroughly entertained.

This book is not easy to categorize. Its part comedy, part tragedy, a lot romance and a little spoof - which may de-rail some readers who need to know exactly where they're going. Be warned, there is sex and there is violence (gratefully, much more of the first than the second). So if you want to read only of quadrilles and engagements you best re-read Austen. But if you want to delve into the history and mores that flowed just beneath Jane Austen and her character's seemingly chaste doings, you will enjoy this book.

Lizzy, Darcy, Jane, Bingley, Lydia, Wickham, the Bennets and even Charlotte and Mr. Collins are all here, true to their natures but on adventures you have to read to believe.

What throbs fast full (to paraphrase Charlotte Bronte), what the blood rushes through - this is the unseen seat of life and the sentient target of death. Maybe this book will not actually take you there but if certainly points in the right direction.

This book picks up during Lizzy and Darcy's engagement, and continues on years into their marriage. There are some very racy scenes (Actually, there are many) and while I think it stayed very true to the characters created by JA, purists beware: this is NOT Jane Austen.

On the whole, the plot was interesting, the characters were well done, but this book, as many others have said, could have used an editor. There are several mistakes, but they are easily overlooked. I could have done, however, without the "five-dollar words" every few sentences, and let me tell you, not once, I believe, is there a "betwixt" in Pride & Prejudice, but you'll see it all the time here.

I'd like to say more about it, but it's hard to without giving away some of the plot. Darcy and Lizzy have a very passionate relationship, Fitzwilliam's feelings finally become known, a little of Darcy's past comes out, and Wickham is again the bad guy, along with a few others who do things to horrible to speak of (you'll see what I mean). There are a few very sad parts (I almost cried a few times), but there must be conflict in a novel.

I know many don't like this book, and I can understand why, but if think you'd enjoy it, by all means, buy it!