437 of 478 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
I wish I could erase this from my memory..., February 25, 2006
This review is from: Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife: Pride and Prejudice Continues (Pride & Prejudice Continues) (Paperback)
It is a truth universally acknowledged that an author who ventures into writing the continuation of a beloved classic should write something that would give said classic justice. I'm always wary of trying sequels of classics written by a different author because the few that I have read have let me down. In most cases, the authors who write these sequels don't understand the original characters well enough and proceed to write a version of the aforementioned characters that are incongruous to the ones you know and love and leave you wishing you hadn't given such a poor attempt at reliving the magic of said novel a whirl. That is definitely the case with Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll. This is a continuation of Pride and Prejudice, after Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett get married. They are in complete newlywed mode and have lots and lots of sex. (And I do mean lots and lots of sex, some of which borders on being pedantic. More on that later.) When they are not in the sack, they are dealing with misunderstandings, namely one centered on Darcy's supposed bastard son. Elizabeth also tries to help her sister Jane and her less than exciting marriage to Mr. Bingley. There are some twists throughout the novel.
Jane Austen's writing style was often criticized as being "soulless" because of the lack of emotional and sexual tension between her main characters. (Well, there have been people who've said that, but in my opinion Darcy and Lizzy and the characters in her other novels had plenty of romantic tension.) I believe it was Charlotte Bronte who was the most critical of the back-then anonymous writer we all now know as Jane Austen. It appears that Ms. Berdoll tried to remedy that by adding eroticism. Ordinarily, I love erotic retellings of classic fairytales and novels, but I was unimpressed with this book. I had actually looked forward to reading an erotic telling of P&P, which means that I'm not an Austen purist by a long shot, but the sex between Darcy and Lizzy is so over the top I found myself rolling my eyes. After the tedious too large, too small explanation, the virgin who had hitherto lived a sheltered life with her parents and four sisters has sex like a bitch in heat. You also get cliche descriptions of Darcy's enormous you-know-what. Ugh. I am an avid erotica reader and I do like the men to be well endowed in said novels (and I have, in fact, pictured Darcy as a well-endowed man, especially after watching Colin Firth's lake scene in the A&E/BBC mini-series adaptation), but those descriptions were just silly and not at all erotic. Also, the protagonists are not believable here. This version of Darcy and Lizzy drove me crazy because I found myself thinking, "The real Lizzy would never do that," or "The real Mr. Darcy would never say that." Elizabeth isn't the intelligent, spirited and witty young woman this time around. It seemed to me that all she did was swoon over Darcy's sexual prowess. As for Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, he is not the misjudged gentleman in this one. The author has turned him into the jerk Elizabeth had thought he was in P&P. And what the author did to Mr. Bingley is nauseating. He cheats on Jane and has an illegitimate child? Ick! Anyway, once the reader gets the sexual part out of the way (well, sort of), the storyline is kind of interesting, except that the misunderstanding frustrated me because the characters react in ways that they never would have if Austen had written this (which, of course, she never would have). Also, the author's attempt at adding an Austen- and Regency-like language seemed forced and fake. (If I ever read the word "howbeit" again I will scream.) Berdoll missed the mark big time. I used to enjoy imagining what Mr. Darcy would be like in bed. And that is just it. This novel is nothing but the author's sexual fantasies centering on Darcy and Lizzy, not unlike a piece of fan fiction you would find on the Internet. Perhaps some things are better left to the imagination.
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249 of 275 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Howbeit the unromantic sex scenes and pseudo-Regency prose bade me get my money back...., August 9, 2005
This review is from: Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife: Pride and Prejudice Continues (Pride & Prejudice Continues) (Paperback)
My experience with this novel can be summed up in one sentence: "You keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means." [Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride] Mr Darcy Takes a Wife is full of malapropisms and misapplied SAT words. Time and again I found myself cringing on behalf of the author and her editor. The writing is soooooo bad! I was afraid to continue reading it lest I suffer irreversible left-brain damage.
For that reason, I did not finish MDTAW. So, although, to be fair, I rated the book 2 stars instead of 1 (in case the end was more entertaining than the beginning), I would advise that you avoid it if any of these things apply to you: 1) you're a JA purist; 2) stupid metaphors drive you crazy; OR 3) you have a basic affinity for English grammar.
I intend no insult to those reviewers who thought this book was well-written (for everyone has different tolerance and tastes, and it is unnecessary in such a forum to resort to pettiness), but there can be little doubt that the writing in Mr Darcy Takes a Wife *is* almost embarrassingly bad. I say this not only as an avid reader, but as one who reads critically.
First, let me say that I love Jane Austen. Like many here, I, too, have re-read Pride and Prejudice every year since I was 12 years old. I also have a degree in English literature, and have read many, many British novels over the course of my life. Thus, I can safely say that the overblown language of this book bears little resemblance to that of any classic from the 19th century (or any other era, for that matter).
That said, I am not some humorless snob who whines about a few split infinitives and cannot appreciate a fun, fluffy romance novel. And I am not at all put off by romantic re-interpretations of JA's books, especially well-written sequels that alter the characters somewhat. So I guess I'm not a purist in the strictest sense. In fact, I love reading different interpretations of Lizzy and Darcy--if they're well-conceived. Sadly, this book is neither well-written nor well-conceived.
Case in point: Although the cover said the author is American, I felt as if the book had been inexpertly translated from another language! Whichever reviewer said that the author wrote this with thesaurus in hand was correct. It seems as if she used her word processor's thesaurus to come up with obsolete/complicated synonyms for ordinary words, then simply substituted them without regard to precise connotation and nuance. Even Charles Dickens, who was supposedly paid by the word, used fewer pretentious adjectives than Ms. Berdoll. Furthermore, whereas Mr. Dickens was a master of the mot juste, Ms. Berdoll seems to have little regard for the precision of the synonyms she uses. I did many a double take over a poor word choice, and even went back and checked the dictionary on the chance that, perhaps, I was mistaken. I was not.
Plus, her faux-Victorianisms are ridiculous!!! Actually, I think she may have confused Elizabethan with Georgian English--and still she got it wrong! The resulting prose is so stilted and convoluted, that it's often hard to understand what the author is trying to say. For example: "To her dismay, their re-emergence into company bade the Master of Pemberley serve compunction by abandoning that much-appreciated endearment." WTF???!!! It doesn't even make much sense in context!
I cannot imagine that the author read much 19th century English literature (nor even watched much British TV) prior to seeing the 1995 P&P miniseries, because she displays no understanding of the appropriate rules of style and grammar. That wouldn't be a problem, if she didn't try so very awkwardly to imitate them!!! I laughed out loud when I read: "Propitious fortune allowed her to descry whom the crepuscular light yielded." Wow. That sentence should be entered in one of those world's lousiest fiction contests.
Worst of all, even if I try to judge the book in it its own right (as a lurid romance novel), it fails miserably. The sex scenes in this book are surprisingly unmoving. They are neither romantic nor sensual, merely graphic and technical--wherein descriptions of size and seepage (ew!) proxy for eroticism. They are devoid of tenderness and passion. In short, they're boring. Furthermore, the convoluted sentences and clumsy euphemisms distance the reader from the action. I like a good romance novel, but this isn't one.
I am so sorry I paid money for this book. I don't remember who recommended it to me, but I'll have to have a word with them. As a book lover, I very rarely return books, even those I do not like. I have thousands of books--literally. But I returned Mr Darcy Takes a Wife, because I hate to think that my money supports or, worse, encourages this sort of thing.
I'm all for injecting passion into Jane Austen's wonderful stories. But this is just depressing. I've read better JA fan-fiction on the Internet. No, really.
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102 of 114 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Jane Austen Must Be Rolling in Her Grave, June 11, 2006
This review is from: Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife: Pride and Prejudice Continues (Pride & Prejudice Continues) (Paperback)
I LOVE Jane Austen, PARTICULARLY Pride and Prejudice, so I was excited at the prospect of a good sequel. Was I in for a suprise. Reading through it, there were parts that I had to put the book down and just laugh my head off. A few examples of what set me off: When Lydia is trying to warn her sisters concerning the evils of intercourse, she says to Jane: "...if you allow Mr. Bingley to kiss you too ardently, he will be aroused to such lust his loins will ache and his engorged lance will burst from his nether garments to ravish you! Wickham's waggled at me more than once!"
Another example: When Elizabeth was trying to decide how to tell Darcy about her monthly, she thought of saying, "Sorry my dear, we cannot make the beast with two backs for I am riding the red stallion." I mean...come on.
Once I stopped laughing, I started becoming offended. Not at the sex, although it was raunchy, ridiculous, and ubiquitous, but more at the way she portrayed the characters. I suppose that if you were not a fan of the original, it would not be as insulting, but having fallen in love with Austen's complex, realistic, and honorable characters, it was humiliating to watch Berdoll turn them into typical romance-nonsense characters obsessed with sex. Elizabeth was changed from a strong, confident, intelligent woman into a weak and pathetic doll who follows her husband's every command. Plus she says and does things that she certainly never would in the original story. And Bingley, Bingley of all men has an illicit-love child. Furthermore, the writing itself was MONSTROUS. I think she tried to mimic the writing style of Austen's period, but the result was a miserable failure. The sentences were filled with extra words and phrases, none of which made the slightest bit of sense, and period phrases were mixed in with modern slang. Berdoll has forever destroyed the words "heretofore", "hence", "subsequent", and "therefore" for me by using them improperly AND in every other sentence, and if I never hear the word "howbeit" again, it'll be too soon. I think she was under the impression that it's a direct synonym for "although", and it's definitely not.
I only managed to read 1/3 of the book, and then just skimmed through parts of the rest, but I think that I can safely say this ranks high in my top ten list of "The Worst Books EVER". DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME!!
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