Customer Reviews

Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife: Pride and Prejudice Continues (Pride & Prejudice Continues)

5 star:		(162)
4 star:		(101)
3 star:		(53)
2 star:		(45)
1 star:		(200)

 

 

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.

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.

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!!

I have loved the works of Jane Austen for nearly 40 years, having read each of her novels many times and her unfinished works as well. Like most of the world, I loved the Pride and Prejudice series that appeared on A&E a number of years ago and which starred Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. Apparently unlike author Linda Berdoll, however, I knew that the "wet shirt" version of Mr. Darcy departed from Jane Austen's understanding of her character and his world.

This sequel shows no understanding of Darcy and Elizabeth; no understanding of Jane Austen's writing style (I don't believe she ever used the word 'howbeit'); no understanding of the laws of entail (Mr. Bennet's estate could not have been entailed on his sister's son, nor could Lady Catherine have taken possession of Pemberley in the event that Mr. Darcy died without a male heir); and no understanding of a world that was still primarily agricultural, but on the cusp of industrial.

This sequel is a sad representation of Jane Austen's great characters and sullies her reputation as a novelist. If the author cared to write an early 19th century bodice-ripper, she could at least have changed the names.

"Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?" Apparently, they are. This is by far THE WORST book I have ever read. I might have been able to express interest in the story line had my better sensibilities not been outraged over the treatment of Jane Austen's original characters. In my mind, Linda Berdoll has DEFILED the characters of both Mr. Darcy and Bingley. The sex between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy can only be described as pornographic. It is disgusting rather than romantic. Bingley, who in the original is so enamored of Jane, has an adulterous affair. It doesn't even make sense. Not only has Berdoll butchered Austen's endearing characters, but she has also butchered the English language. I'm not sure whose style she is trying to imitate, but it is certainly not Austen's. I love to re-read and pass on my books, but this book is destined only for my trash can.

I have to say the responses to this book are as funny as the book itself. I, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed it. Austen wrote the nineteenth-century equivalent of pulp fiction, and this is the "transliteration" of said pulp--metaphors fully materialized, in keeping with twenty-first century sensibilities. So Darcy and Lizzy like sex. What else is romance about? Isn't that implicit throughout? These prudish reviewers are like so many Mr. Collinses, aren't they? Lighten up. This book was fun. The diction wasn't exactly on target, I admit. I'm a literature professor, and can't help noticing that it is a little strained at the beginning. But once you get into it, it's like Austen meets Fielding, really. Tom Jones and P & P, with a little pulp romance thrown in. This is supposed to be entertainment, not Literature. And I think an early nineteenth-century reader, one familar with Moll Flanders or Shamela, for example, would have appreciated it more than some of these readers seem to. If you don't like the sex, there are lots of great overly-euphemised novels out there. But they won't be as wicked a read as this one. Sometimes I fear that the reading public is just losing its appreciation for irony. Not to mention burlesque. We're a sober lot, this century. Alas.

I know my review will be a little myopic. I couldn't read past the first 70 pages, and I only read that much because I was on a plane at the time and had nothing else to read. Someone who knows I love Jane Austen gave me this book, thinking I would enjoy reading what allegedly happened next. Within the first 20 pages, it was evident that this book is largely a bodice ripper, which is not my particular taste. I found myself rolling my eyes with every subsequent mention of the size of Darcy's immense manhood -- and there were waaaaay too many such mentions. There were sexual details in this book that I would never expect to read in a modern-day love story (with the exception of bodice ripper paperbacks), let alone a story from this era. It was also clear from reading these first few chapters that the author was writing a sequel to the BBC/A&E miniseries more so than the original novel. And be advised that this is a sequel with flashbacks, so it takes liberties in fleshing out the original novel's storyline. I found that a bit presumptious. If you love romance novels and loved the original P&P, this is your book. Otherwise, I'd give it a pass.

I bought this book on the strength of the reviews from Amazon.co.uk and, to some extent, these reviews were accurate. The overall feeling from these reviews is that this is a fun, lighthearted, saucy adventure which worthily carries on the P&P story but this time shedding light on the marriage in all its facets, including in the bedroom.

Yes, this book was (in some places) fun and lighthearted; it was certainly saucy (although that side of things petered out more after the middle of the book), but did it worthily carry on from Jane Austen's original?

In my opinion, no. The main difference (apart from the sex scenes) being the language. Austen of course had the significant advantage of writing about her own era, Linda Berdoll is having to compose dialogue for people living 200 years ago on another continent (she's an American author). Unfortunately she doesn't succeed. Admittedly this is a very tricky thing to do, but Georgette Heyer managed it writing as recently as 1971 so it's not impossible. Part of the problem seems to be that someone's told her that there are a whole load of conjunctions that will seem appropriate for the era - such "Albeit" and "Howbeit" as alternatives for "Although". And they're not. At least not all the time. So you get sentences like this: "Forthwith of Goodwin's leave-taking was a splash as Darcy got into the tub." Forthwith??? And another example, "Howbeit that was odd, Hannah was not a busybody. Miss Bennett had married Mr Darcy. Period." Howbeit??? Period??????!!! ("Period" is an Americanism; for Brits it usually means menstruation - unfortunate in this context. We would say "Full stop".)

Americanisms abound as usual (sigh). The third season is "fall", Mr Darcy "inquires" rather than "enquires", the insidious "gotten" appears again. These mistakes are all really common in Regencies by American authors but it's so frustrating to read them. In mitigation for Ms Berdoll, this book was originally self-published so she presumably didn't have a professional editor - she doesn't seem to add more Americanisms than most other American authors who DO have editors, so this is one mark in her favour. Interestingly, in my UK edition the spelling was generally British English (colour, favour), except for in the aforementioned "inquires".

Reading the book, the prose is turgid and chock-ful of supposed 19th century phraseology - only it's wrong. Mainly there's too much of it. An example: "Enlightenments upon life at Pemberley in general and being a wife specifically came with all due regularity. These wisdoms rained down upon Elizabeth with such dispatch, she occasionally had to stop and take a breath to be able to function at all. In all this befuddlement, the descent of her monthly terms was not remotely a comfort." Yes, they are discussing Elizabeth's Full Stop there. This is just a random example on the first page I turned to of the thicket of weird phrases one has to fight one's way through to make progress in the book. Again, this improved after the middle of the book - perhaps Linda Berdoll hit her stride there - but it rendered the beginning of the book very difficult to read. In fact, if I hadn't bought it but had borrowed it from the library, I'd have probably stopped a third of the way through and taken it back.

And Geography. Someone REALLY should have given this author a map of England with a scale. I was amazed to discover that one character had considered walking from Pemberley (Derbyshire) to Portsmouth in a day. Mind you, seeing as Darcy and Elizabeth were able to journey by carriage from London to Pemberley in a day, this is perhaps not so astonishing. The geography went very haywire in the third part of the book, where after taking the carriage (rather than walking) to Portsmouth this character apparently travels half of the length of England NORTH to get to Dover. Obviously Linda Berdoll had the map held at 90 degrees when reading it, as well as awarding her horses superhuman speed and stamina in order to make these 2-3 day journeys happen in an afternoon. Most amazing of all, Lady Catherine de Bourgh has to leave home (Rosings Park, in Kent) before sunrise in order to arrive at Pemberley mid-morning. Wow. It would take me longer than that to drive from Kent to Derbyshire at 70mph with empty motorways so her horses and carriages must be true marvels. Perhaps it's mean of me to poke fun at these errors but they seriously detracted from the story to me - and they would be SO easy to check up on. Kent to Derbyshire is about 200 miles, and surely Berdoll could have found this out easily enough, had she bothered to look.

And now on to the sex scenes. Well, they weren't as `bad' as I had expected. Of course Jane Austen didn't write about this kind of thing, no doubt partly because she never married. But this side of the book, although maybe a little tacky, does give you the fun aspect of the book. You also learn an amazing amount of euphemisms for body parts and sexual acts, although I'm not entirely sure how useful this knowledge is.

Berdoll introduces many new characters and these are fairly well done. It's what she does with the characters we know and love that is disappointing. Their morals and behaviour aren't as I expected them to be, knowing how Jane Austen left the story. I won't write any more as it would be a spoiler, but suffice it to say the "Mr Darcy Takes A Wife" characters are more earthy and, dare I say it, 21st century, than Jane Austen's characters.

In conclusion, there is much about this book that is fun. There's also much about it that's surprisingly dark, and it is by no means a jolly read. People die, people's lives are blasted by circumstance, people's marriages have pain. It's worth a read, but in the knowledge that it's a very different story from Jane Austen's.

This is one book I wish I had checked out from the library, rather than wasting my hard-earned dollars on. Quite simply, Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, Linda Berdoll's so-called "sequel" to the great Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, is trash! I understand, from reading the "about the author" notes, that Berdoll is a "self-described Texas farm wife," and that this is her first novel. I am SO not surprised at this information. This woman has all the literary talent of a bad Harlequin romance novelist, and she would do well to go back to canning her tomatoes, cooking her armadillos, or whatever else it is that "Texas farm wives" like to do with their time -- and leave the novel-writing to those who know how to tell a good story.

What's wrong with the book? Well, what ISN'T wrong with it? Where do I start? I suppose, to be completely fair, I have yet to read a sequel to any great novel which I have found satisfying. I experienced my first sequel disappointment when I read Alexandra Ripley's Scarlett, a continuation of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind. I can still remember how breathlessly I waited for Scarlett to finally hit the book store, how quickly I raced out to buy it once it DID hit the stores, and how I turned the pages in great anticipation, only to be bitterly disappointed at the end. I experienced the same disappointment after reading Susan Hill's Mrs. DeWinter, the sequel to Daphne duMaurier's Rebecca. While these books were, at best, only pale reflections of the original great novels, at least Ripley and Hill did their homework! Unfortunately, Ms. Berdoll did not do so. One might have expected her to expand somewhat upon the last few paragraphs of Austen's novel, where she tells us a little bit about the subsequent lives of our beloved characters. For instance, Austen tells us that Darcy and Elizabeth eventually reconciled their differences with his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Berdoll would have us believe that Lady Catherine and Elizabeth remained the bitterest of enemies, and that Elizabeth actually fired a gun during one of their confrontations! Further, when giving us a bit more of Darcy's family history, Berdoll refers to his mother, and gives her the name Elinor. How can this be, when Austen refers to his mother by name in the original novel, as "Lady Anne Darcy?" Austen tells us, at the end of Pride and Prejudice, that Wickham and Lydia's "manner of living, even when the restoration of peace dismissed them to a home, was unsettled in the extreme." The worthless Wickham and the flighty Lydia did manage to stay together in spite of their instability, according to Austen. Yet Berdoll would have us believe that Wickham faked his death at Waterloo, shot his own illegitimate son in order to effect his desertion from the army, left Lydia a supposed "widow," and ran off to places unknown! How can this be? I could go on for pages about the inconsistencies here, but I think you get the general idea. I have to wonder whether Berdoll ever read the original novel in the first place, because HER characters are as similar to the Bennets and Darcys of Austen's book as Santa Claus is to the Great Pumpkin!

A minor annoyance for me was Berdoll's fondness for, and overuse (to put it mildly) of, antiquated words and phrases, most notably the "howbeit" (although, nevertheless) found several times throughout the book. In the unlikely event that I EVER open this book again, I may, just for my own amusement, actually count how many times she uses this ridiculous word. I own every single novel that Jane Austen ever wrote...and honestly, I don't believe that she ever used the word "howbeit" in any one of them!

Major annoyances in this book include Berdoll's incredible preoccupation with the sex lives of her characters. While I'll be the first person to admit that I have no problem with a LITTLE bawdiness, Berdoll's erotica is not only laughably written, it's...nasty! Is it supposed to be erotic when Darcy examines his blood-stained fingers while doing the "wild thing" with his menstruating wife? Do Austen fans REALLY need a description of how Darcy shows Elizabeth the joys of oral sex? And what IS this preoccupation with the enormous size of Darcy's manly equipment or the tightness of Elizabeth's "womanhood"? Puh-leeze!!! Not only are the sex scenes too numerous, badly written and completely over the top, so is the general plotline! Are we actually supposed to believe that in the first few years of her marriage, Elizabeth suffers kidnapping and attempted rape, and has to watch while her husband kills those responsible; suffers two miscarriages and a stillbirth; has her husband's cousin fall in love with her; has her brother-in-law make a pass at her; and finally gives birth to the Pemberley heir in a carriage, while on her way home from her father's funeral? How many people suffer this much angst throughout an entire lifetime??

Another thing I hate about this book is its character assassination. Not only does Wickham turn out to be an adulterous cad (I don't think that anyone was surprised by that), but we're supposed to believe that our beloved Bingley was also unfaithful to his Jane -- and had a child from this adulterous union? And are we really supposed to believe than an honorable man like Colonel Fitzwilliam could make a declaration of love to the wife of his favorite cousin? Surely not! This "Texas farm wife" is completely unfamiliar with her characters, and undoubtedly, poor Miss Austen is rolling in her grave over this absolute travesty of a sequel! Berdoll obviously doesn't think it's enough to commit mere character assassinations, however, so she throws in a bit of gratuitous violence just for fun. Not only do we have the aforementioned kidnapping, beating, and attempted rape of Elizabeth, along with Darcy's revenge, but the same man who attacks Elizabeth commits numerous acts of violence earlier in the story. Further, Elizabeth's toadying cousin, Mr. Collins, meets an exceptionally frightful and undignified demise...but why?? Since it was NOT an "essential" plot device, I can only assume that it happened because Berdoll gained the majority of her storytelling experience from the watching of bad soap operas. Finally, was it REALLY necessary to kill off our beloved Mr. Bennet before he had the joy of seeing his favorite daughter safely delivered of her twins? Supposedly, Berdoll is in the process of writing her sequel to the sequel...but what on Earth is she ever going to find to write about when she's managed to create such destruction among the original characters? Heaven only knows -- but I do know that I'll not be stupid enough to buy any Austen "sequels" written by this ridiculous excuse for an author again. Do yourself a favor, and DON'T buy this book!

This is possibly one of the most disgusting travesty of literature I have ever read. Berdoll takes the immortal work of Jane Austen-with all her wit, and folds and gentle cynicsm, and turns the book into a badly phrased, sex romp, with descirptions that scream "look at me! I'm trying to sound as fake as possible, but still make you think that your in the time of Jane Austen!" I'm rather liberal in many senses, but (and think what you will of this), i think there are some things- some CLASSICS that just NEVER should be touched. I admire the obvious sencerity that this author has as she consturced this ridiculous work, but these books are just awful. Even if she wasn't adapting a classic, you are still left with a poorly constructed trashy novel, with oddly unreaslistic characters which are hard to sympathize with, which is little more then brain candy- it might taste good but it'll make you brain rot.