Fiction Review:  Classics revisited…

This issue, we invited Bronwyn Wyllie-Gibb of the University Book Shop Otago to give us her recommendation for our next good read.

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld is a really good re-visit of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Usually I am not keen on such re-tellings – although the odd one is unusual and original enough to work – Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is one that springs, like a hungry zombie as it were, to one’s mind. Eligible is not so zeitgeisty, pop-culture-moment-seizing, but it is still fun, a bit shocking and funny, and feels fresh and clever.

The plot is what you will already know and love, if you have read the Austen original, but the modern twists and interesting Cincinnati-based characters work – it’s a good read whether you've never read it and don't care where the inspiration came from; or whether you know Pride and Prejudice and enjoy either the parallels and echoes in Eligible, or shouting about how wrong Sittenfeld has got it.

For something slightly more literary the new collection of short stories inspired by Jane Eyre’s powerful and assertive statement “Reader, I married him” is worth reading. I didn’t love every story in Reader, I Married Him, edited by Tracy Chevalier, but they were all interesting and well-written. There are twenty-one tales, by turns romantic, funny, tragic, bold and shocking. Some of them have a go at re-telling Jane Eyre from other characters’ viewpoints; others jump off the celebrated and iconic phrase without a backward glance at, or reference to, Jane, Rochester, Bertha, the Hall or indeed the eighteenth century. Only one has a go at telling Bertha’s story, a brave thing to do when Jean Rhys’s brilliant and breath-taking Wide Sargasso Sea – perhaps the very best ever of such sequels – exists. I very much liked the stories that played with Jane a bit, exploring how annoying and goody-two-shoes she might have been, and perhaps even calculating and manipulative – these did feel a bit transgressive and exciting. And, the cover is gorgeous.

Bronwyn Wyllie-Gibb holds the enviable position of Bookbuyer at University Bookshop (Otago)


Other Jane Austen homage fiction you might enjoy:

Longbourn. Jo Baker

Death Comes to Pemberley. P D James

Emma: A Modern Retelling. Alexander McCall-Smith

Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet. Kate Rorick

Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet. Bernie Su

Pemberley: A Sequel to Pride and Prejudice. Emma Tennant

And if you want some zombie horror…

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After. Steve Hockensmith