Customer Reviews

Presumption

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

Having been gullible enough to purchase and read the sequels to Rebecca and Gone With the Wind, I was VERY hesitant to invest any time or money in yet another poor imitation and sad continuation of a most beloved book. But I just couldn't get enough of Pride and Prejudice or any of the Jane Austin novels, and HAD to have one more. (I was tempted to write it myself if necessary.) Thankfully, I found Presumption. I expected this novel to focus almost entirely on Elizabeth's life at Pemberley. I mean who can deny that they wanted to know what happened after the dramatic courtship and satisfying wedding of Darcy and Elizabeth? But I was pleasently surprised when Julia Barret (actually two authors collaborating) primarily set her focus on Georgianna Darcy. Barret presents a very plausible (a must in a sequel), interesting, and fun-to-read story surrounding Georgianna's marriage prospects. She throws in some very amusing portraits of the delightfully "wicked Wickham" (as I like to think of him) and Lydia. We even get to fnd out what happens to Bingley's unmarried sister (a just result, rest assured) and other minor characters. It's lots of fun, if you were, like me, disappointed that Pride and Prejudice wasn't longer.

I was especially pleased with Barret's phrasing and language. As you know, Austin was a bit sparse in her descriptions and explanations. But Barret emulates Austin's style well. We learn about the characters more from their conversations and actions rather than lengthy descriptions of their feelings or appearances.

If you ever wished for one more Jane Austin novel, I really do recommend this book. And, if you haven't yet read Pride and Prejudice, I think you might still enjoy this book.

Reading this book makes me a little sad. It seems to me that authors working off of something as spectacular as Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice could come up with something closer to resembling a good story. This book is simply a waste of my time. I read it with extreme speed, not because it is engrossing but simply because it is fluff.

Please understand that I am not yet finished with this novel. I am forty pages from the end and am not quite sure that I have found the plot yet. It is enough, be assured, to know that I will not enjoy it no matter how it ends, and I will read it to the end. Rarely do I detest a book so much as to put it down for good before I finish it. Now, about this book. It is "about" Georgiana Darcy and her romantic endeavors, apparantly taking place two years after Pride and Prejudice, and yet Georgiana is only one year older than she was in the previous novel. But let's not even bother with the particulars; this book fails on grander levels.

Who is Georgiana? Why is she suddenly such an outspoken girl? Simply because of her life with Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy? I don't buy that - it could perhaps have been more convincing if I had ANY idea about who these people were. This book gives me no clear picture. Neither, for that matter, of Elizabeth, or Mr. Darcy, or Jane, or Mr. Bingley, or anyone I liked in the previous novel. And what of the relationship between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy? I can recall off the top of my head one conversation between them included in the book, and it gave me no insight into their married relationship. Or anyone's relationship, for that matter. Georgiana and the obligatory Dashing but Undoubtedly Hiding Something Necessary to the Plot Captian? Why does she like him? And why do the authors feel it necessary to not only include the Captain's (or Georgiana's) too forward remarks, but then everyone's reactions to said inappropiate remarks, and WHY they had that reaction. Please, please, I have a mind of my own that I enjoy using - this is why I love Austen.

Having gone on that tirade, let me just say that whatever plot that I may or may not have yet found in this book, I simply cannot care about. I do not feel attached to any of these characters, nor do I for a second feel that they are attached to each other. Waste of time. I will finish it, and if the authors somehow redeem themselves in the last forty pages of the book, I will humbly apologize, and remove this review. But don't hold your breath for it.

When I bought the book, I didn't have high expectations of reentering the world Jane Austen created for these characters, but I expected a LITTLE more effort on the parts of the two authors who use the pseudonym Julia Barrett. After all, to take on such a task as writing a sequel to P&P, they should really have done their homework, but it seems like they neither read the original book nor saw the wonderful 1995 movie. They got the characters wrong in many instances: they couldn't decide whether Elizabeth's nickname was Lizzie or Lizzy and so used both, they gave Mr. Darcy's mother the wrong name, and the actions and emotions of all the characters were so out of place as to ruin any suspension of disbelief for me. Elizabeth - crying because Mr. Darcy's servants were mean to her? What is this, "Rebecca?" And Mary wanting to come to the ball, and Elizabeth being upset that her parents couldn't come? I should think she wouldn't be too upset about her mother's not coming. Also, Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley are delegated to the background, and none of the interaction between Darcy and Elizabeth, which made the original book so wonderful, occurs in this one. The dialogue and settings are very contrived. All in all, it feels as though the two women using the name Julia Barrett had bought themselves a set of P&P paper dolls and were playing with them like little girls, paying little attention to the original plot and character types, making up their own story as they went along. Again, the story seems like "Rebecca," or, even worse, like the corny cartoon sequel for "Cinderella" that came out this past year. And I hardly think Elizabeth, always described as being spirited and independent, would suddenly have the same sort of emotional insecurity as the second Mrs. de Winter. Then again, I was only able to get through the first quarter of the book before putting it down for good, since it just seemed wrong to me to continue reading it, as if I were betraying Jane Austen and her original characters. Maybe, maybe it gets better. But I just don't care.

This is the first sequel to P&P that I've read. I was slightly skeptical, but based on the other reviews, I expected a decent story. And I wasn't disappointed. It's certainly not from the pen of Jane Austen, but the author does a fair job of capturing Jane's spirit and style. Some of the characters, particularly Lady Catherine de Bourgh, are exaggerated and come across as caricatures of their original counterparts, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The author has obviously done her research, right down to the stolen-lace incident involving Aunt Phillips that actually happened to Jane's own aunt--that was fun to discover. I'm on to more P&P sequels now--but Presumption has set a pretty high standard.

I really wanted to like it. I sure needed some escapism after the news of the past couple weeks. The title promised wit. And the first few pages were pleasant, with just a few tiny errors of useage, but as the book progressed, and Austen's characters became flatter, more distorted, doing things they simply would never have done, it became acutely uncomfortable to read more than a page or two, and I finally gave up.

The authors don't really have anything to say, so the story doesn't go anywhere. They also don't really seem to understand the mental paradigm of the time, much less the niceties of manners. (And if you're going to write a comedy of manners, then, yes, the little things DO matter.) Georgiana simply would not have hared off to London alone. Mrs. Bennet would not have mentioned to strangers, especially strangers perceived at a higher social level, that her sister was in jail. She might have moaned and acted lachrymose and dropped hints that her life was tragic, but even she would never have gone that far. And Miss Bingley would never have referred to Kitty and Mary by their first names--thus claiming a familiarity she utterly despised.

About all I can attest to in its favor is that at least the authors did not clutter the book up with a lot of Georgette Heyer slang. Lady Catherine de Bourgh, I am grateful to say, never told Georgiana "Stop making a cake of yourself." And Elizabeth Darcy did not, thank heaven, say to her husband, "You're bamming me!"

If you want to read about Elizabeth and Darcy, this isn't the book for you. As a Jane Austen fan and a fan of the A&E movie with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, I was very disappointed in the book. The focus of the book is on Darcy's sister Georgiana, and Lizzie and Darcy take a back seat to her romantic wanderings. If she has learned much from Elizabeth, as stated in the final chapter in Pride and Prejudice, it isn't evident here. The authors also drag the poor Bennets through even more mud than Lydia's elopement did. The best part of the book is what happened to Caroline Bingley; a fitting end for the snobbish sister.

I have read all three of Julia Barrett's attempts to complete or add to Jane Austen's work and I find they share common faults of language, pace, characterization and plot development. There are also a number of egregious inconsistencies with both Jane Austen's original intentions and historic accuracy. While I welcome "more" Jane Austen at any time, and have read some wonderful completions of The Watsons and Sanditon, I was very disappointed in how Ms. Barrett executed what could have been a delightful sequel to Pride and Prejudice. I liked the basic direction of the plot - Georgiana's maturation and decisions about love and marriage are a wonderful parallel to Elizabeth's own process in the original book and the contrast with Georgiana's own past folly is an inspired source of development. Unfortunately, the overblown attempt at Austenese, the confusion of subplots, and the inclusion of extraneous characters takes so much away from the heart of the storyline that I ended up very disappointed. Of the three Barrett/Austen collaborations, I liked Third Sister the best, but I wouldn't highly recommend any of them.

Those of you who have read Pride an Prejudice and are excited to find a sequel to the book, I suggest you forget about this one. I expected this book to focus on the lives of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy but this is too focused on Georgiana. Elizabeth is missing for more than half of the book and it doesn't go into details. For example, in Pride and Prejudice, it tells how Mr. Darcy is falling in love with Elizabeth while Presumption doesn't even explain how James Leigh-Cooper falls in love with Georgiana. He just says he has loved her from when they first met. If you're a Jane Austen fan I recommend you not to read it.

I picked this up from a local library about a year ago after having read a number of very positive reviews...all I can say is I'm very glad I didn't spend money on it. I didn't find the characterizations to be as "on the money" as so many other people seem to. For example, at one point in Presumption, Lady Catherine castigates Georgiana for the unnecessary expense of traveling with 2 servants, whereas in P&P she says to Mrs Collins that "When my niece Georgiana went to Ramsgate last summer, I made a point of her having two men servants go with her" for the sake of propriety (and display). There were other errors as well (how EXACTLY did Anne de Bourgh find out about Georgiana's almost-elopement when knowledge of it was limited to those who wouldn't talk about it? Are we expected to believe Col. Fitzwilliam blabbed, or what?). This may seem unnecessarily picky, but I wanted to make the point that my problem isn't simply a matter of not agreeing with characterization, 'cause that's a matter of perception...Several of the elements of this book directly contradict the evidence of Austen's text. The book is readable, certainly, but it just isn't good. (Regardless of factual errors, it isn't all that well-written, and the central relationship isn't developed at all.)

While Presumption is true to Jane Austen in many respects, there are too many errors and recharacterizations. Though this is a sequel to Pride and Prejudice, the author(s) spend little time on the main characters. Elizabeth is fearful of meeting Darcy's mentor and life-long friend, which is hardly likely considering her fearlessness in P&P. The novel focuses on Georgiana, who seems to be rather uninteresting. I suppose it is fitting that she ends up with someone equally dull..... The whole idea of marrying below one's station was already canvased in P&P, making it a bit redundant. Those who are well aquainted with Jane Austen are better off not reading this book.