Customer Reviews

The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you are a Jane Austen fan, you will not enjoy this book. McCullough is a perfectly good author, but takes too many outlandish liberties with some of Jane Austen's most beloved characters. She seems to take great pleasure in transforming the character of Austen's characters. (If that makes sense.) Darcy is unloving and haughty, Jane frumpy and weepy, and Mary beautiful and sensible. If McCullough had simply created the characters and put them into these circumstances, the book would have ok. Instead, she deliberately misreads and twists Austen's characters and makes them what they never were. Strange. I only finished the book because I had paid money for it :( and we were traveling. Don't waste your money on this book.

If you are a fan of Pride and Prejudice you will be extremely disappointed. As a work of fiction, the book is interesting to a certain extent but you will be kept busy keeping up with all the characters and plot twists. Ms. McCullough's morbid treatment of the characters gives you the impression that she has something against Jane Austen. I wish I had read the reviews for the hardcover edition before I bought the book; I just threw away $5.97 (Wal-Mart price).

Her sisters assume the bookworm spinster Mary Bennet will take care of their widow mom in her old age. The siblings each have their own lives although dreams from two decades ago never played out the way each thought it would be. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy share an unhappy marriage. Kitty the widow is lucky as her mate died just after they exchanged their vows. Jane is pregnant or recovering form pregnancy with no time for anything else. Lydia has become a drunk.

When her termagant mom dies, Mary feels relief as she can now live her life. Her sisters and their husbands are outraged when she says goodbye as she travels in Northern England keeping a journal on the plight of the working poor. However, the thirty-eight years old has never been anywhere alone so she runs into all sorts of trouble that she bravely faces like the Highwayman and the Prophet Father Dominus who abducts her into his cave. Meanwhile Mr. Darcy has political ambitions so he hires nasty but loyal Ned Skinner to keep the sisters in line as scandal would destroy his plans.

Although it lacks the subtle humor of Jane Austen, this "sequel" to Pride and Prejudice is well written as it extrapolates where the characters could have gone two decades later. That is the strength and weakness of the story line as it is interesting to see where Colleen McCullough takes the Bennet sisters and their extended families. However, fans will find it difficult to accept what they become; for instance Mr. Darcy as an ambitious over the top of Big Ben villain or the bookworm becoming pretty, outgoing and touring the worst conditions she can find in the north. Fans who cannot get enough Austen spins will enjoy the quadrillionth twist.

Harriet Klausner

Many authors have attempted to write books chronicaling what happened after the last page of Pride and Prejudice Some have succeeded in being amusing, some have not, but I cannot think of a book has been a bigger failure that Colleen McCullough's The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet.

McCullough seemingly has a dislike of most of the characters of Austen's signature novel. In this book, Darcy (disconcertinly known by all as "Fitz") is an overbearing prig of the first order who has clearly fallen out of love with Elizabeth. Jane is a sniveling brood mare who has the vapors at the least provocation. Lydia has devolved into a crass, dunken common slut. And even poor Elizabeth is a pale shadow of her former self. But Mary, last seen bespeckled, spouting pieties and singing badly off-key, is now "a beauty" turning the head of every man she meets, and full of heretofore unimagined intelligence and spunk.

Following the death of Mrs. Bennet, Mary takes her meager inheritance and decides to travel unchaperoned throughout England researching the problems of the poor. She travels via common stage coaches and stays in the rudest country inns. In the course of her travels she is set upon by a group of drunken fellow passengers, robbed by a highwayman and finally kidnapped and kept captive in a cave by the leader of a strange religious sect. Did Ms. McCullough forget that she was supposed to be writing a novel a la Jane Austen and migrate to her comfort spot of gothic novels? Who knows, but it makes for very strange reading.

Everything about this book is bad from the lack of real characterization, to the too modern dialogue, to the preposterous plot. Save your time and your money and read something else.

There are some books that are so bad as to become good. You share them around with others so they can enjoy a good laugh at the author's expense. This is not that book.
The characters are warped beyond any recognition from their originals in Pride and Prejudice. The plot line is unbelievable. Really. Mary is kidnapped and held prisoner in a cave for weeks transcribing the religious manifesto of a crazy monk before she is rescued by an earthquake and WALKS HOME TO PEMBERLEY. Meanwhile Darcy (called Fitz) is plotting to become prime minister and has a boyhood friend who is so desperately in love with him that he wanders the countryside killing anyone who makes Darcy's (oops, FITZ'S) life difficult.
The writing is of the tell don't show variety. So many scenes that could have been interesting if described were summed up with one line. There is none of the spark or wittiness that Jane Austen has. The point of view jumps from character to character randomly enough to make you dizzy.
This is very possibly the worst Pride and Prejudice knock off that I have ever read. Unfortunately, zero stars were not an option. I recommend not reading this book, even if it was given to you free. There are much better things out there to do with your time.

Unlike other Austen fans, I was not dismayed by this book. I watched the latest Pride and Prejudice on TV a few weeks ago and thought this book would be a fun follow-up. I thought it was interesting. Yes, I didn't like Darcy's resumption of haughtiness, but it was an interesting twist. I thought the plot, characters, and language were fine. Overall, I enjoyed it and will recommend it to my book club.

I always felt Mary got ignored...Loved her spirit. I am confused was this download listed as a free book but then mistakenly sold for $7.99 the other day? Please clear this up for me.

I first read Pride and Prejudice when I was nine years old, several decades ago. Didn't much understand it, but was fascinated then and there with regency romances. I have since reread it and all Austen's works (even the scraps) many times. As tidy as they are, they do have flaws. The men in the books are paper doll props--inconsistent, to put it mildly. The minor characters exist to show up the perfections of the major ones. McCullough attempts to fill in the missing pieces. A great deal of thoguht went into this book, and it's a delight to see the minor sisters plumped up a bit. There's also some evidence of growth in the most of the characters, from beginning of this story to its end. Austen did not live to truly develop her writing style. What she produced was, by her own admission, variations on a very few plot lines. Her works read fairly quickly, and we're often sorry there isn't more. McCullough attempts to flesh out the 'more.' She does so in a gutsy and believable way, in my opinion. This, like Austen's books, is a work I've read and reread. Look past everyone's indignation at all not being perfect in Austen's happily ever after, and give this book a read. It's a fun 'what-if!'