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The more frightening the nightly news seems, the more comfort Jane Austen offers. But there is a limit to just how many times a year a person can reread eternal classics like Pride and Prejudice or Emma without feeling obsessive.
Enter Darcy's Story: Pride and Prejudice Told from a Whole New Perspective by Janet Aylmer. It will not be released until Aug. 1, but Austen fans will want to order this delectable crumpet ASAP so they can again witness Elizabeth Bennet's charms.
This is not, let me stress, one of those awful "sequels" to P&P in which mediocre writers attempt to write with sparkling wit about what the future holds for Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Instead, Alymer cleverly tells this divine tale of love from Mr. Darcy's serious perspective. (Alas, ladies, she does not have anything as luscious as Colin Firth plunging into the lake at Pemberley, but we all know that is a guilty and inappropriate pleasure. Austen would not have written such a scene.)
But Austen might well appreciate the way Aylmer has Darcy recognize the importance of intelligence in Elizabeth and other women, and the way Aylmer conveys Darcy's reticence and envy of Wickham's easy manner.
Most of all, the story lets readers enjoy again the story of how penniless Elizabeth bewitches rich, proud Darcy with humor, brains and "fine eyes." Gives hope to us all, doesn't it, ladies?
Darcy's Story: Pride
and Prejudice Told from
a Whole New Perspective
By Jane Aylmer
HarperCollins, 269 pp., $13.95
Paperback original
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