Review: An Unequal Marriage or Pride and Prejudice Twenty Years Later by Emma Tennant
I did a lot of reading while Hyperion was driving on our nearly cross-country road trip. I enjoy light reading that I can take up and put down as the mood takes me. I’ve also been on a big Jane Austen binge including the follow-on novels. Before leaving on our trip I stopped at the library and along with the other books I checked out, I got An Unequal Marriage or Pride and Prejudice Twenty Years Later by Emma Tennant. I hadn’t read anything by this author before but that’s not unusual as I’m just diving in to my Jane Austen phase.
First I have to say the book is very well written. Tennant has the tone of the times just right. The dialogue rings true and has the same rhythm as a book written about that period. Twenty years after the events of Pride and Prejudice, we find that Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy have had two children. The oldest a daughter is very much like Elizabeth and loves Pemberley, the land, and the people. Their son on the other hand is wild, rebellious, determined to ruin the family. Many of the other characters from Pride and Prejudice make an appearance or are mentioned to fill us in on what has happened during the intervening years.
I didn’t like the book until I cleared my mind of all references to Pride and Prejudice. As I said the writing is clear and the plot is interesting. The problem for me is that during those twenty years, Darcy has devolved to being the man Elizabeth thought he was based on her first impression of him in Pride and Prejudice. In fact, he is now the man Wickham said he was. He’s arrogant, cruel, and cares only for himself and his name. He has no care for his tenants or his servants. As a father, he was and is aloof and cold and gave his son not even the minimal care that he took of Bingley in Pride and Prejudice. But he is not the only person who has changed, Elizabeth has lost all respect for herself and is meek, self-effacing, insecure, and throws herself at another man just to feel better about herself. Aghast at these severe changes in core of these beloved characters — I was shocked.
I just could not conceive of these characters completely changing from who they were. The reason they could get together in the original story was because of their characters, values, and honor. To see all that they were totally twisted and changed just didn’t sit right with me. There was no indication of what could have caused these incredible changes in their character, honor, and values. It went against those hints and glimpses of them from the original novel.
I could only keep reading by convincing myself that these people only had the same names as the beloved characters from Pride and Prejudice and thus, it was an alternate universe version of Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth. With that little mental gymnastics achieved, I was then able to enjoy the writing and the story.
So, I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone who loves the original novel. That is, unless, you can completely divorce yourself from the history of the characters and read this novel as related to no other book in existence and see it only as a stand alone novel of a troubled marriage in the post-Napoleonic War era.