I have recently (last night) been familiarized with the term fan fiction. (Thank you Beth) I was very puzzled as to why author's choose to do this.
To me, Jane Austen was an incredible authoress ahead of her time. Living in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, going where no women had gone before.
Pride and Prejudice is probable my favorite novel. However, if a sequel was written, I don't think I would read it. (Maybe someone already has)
The same with this newly published sequel of Sense and Sensibility. Why?
I mean no offense to those who have done this, I just don't understand it. If you are a writer, God gave you the wonderful gift of creativity and you are an original work made by his hand. It is hard for me to understand copies of someone else's genius. You have your own genius in there somewhere.
I'm sure there are many who disagree with me and that's fine. We all have our own unique views, that's what keeps life interesting.
Here is a blurb from the continuation of Sense and Sensibility:
A lost love returns, rekindling forgotten passions… In Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, when Marianne Dashwood marries Colonel Brandon, she puts her heartbreak over dashing scoundrel John Willoughby in the past. Three years later, Willoughby's return throws Marianne into a tizzy of painful memories and exquisite feelings of uncertainty. Willoughby is as charming, as roguish, and as much in love with her as ever. And the timing couldn't be worse—with Colonel Brandon away and Willoughby determined to win her back, will Marianne find the strength to save her marriage, or will the temptation of a previous love be too powerful to resist?
Austen would never have written a novel like this.
I give it one praise, I love the cover.
Hi Christine,
ReplyDeleteI think you make some very good points, and here I have some to add to yours:
• Every author has his or her own voice. Why try to write a sequel to another's work? Anyone loyal to that author will continually compare her style to the new author's, and most likely find the new author's wanting. No author can ever be anything but second best if she attempts to write in another's voice. And if an author's voice is too far away from the original, loyal followers will certainly resent it.
• It also appears to me that this author, while certainly being a fan of Jane Austen like the rest of us, doesn't have an understanding of the horror that Marianne and any refined lady of the time would have for the lowness of Willowby's actions. You have to understand that Marianne's infatuation for Willowby was effectively extinguished as water to a flame by what he had done. It appears this author has allowed Marianne to judge Willowby by today's loose standards, and it would not have been in that time. No woman of Marianne's temperament would have been in any way tempted by Willowby again once his true character was exposed, no matter his roguish good looks.
I find this a common problem in period movies. It is the rare find which is able to capture the life of those in the past without accidentally coloring it with the ideals (or lack thereof) of the present.
Just reading the blurb puts me at zero interest to read any more. The Marianne at the end of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility would not have been this stupid. She wasn't a weak woman to be lead, but had the fire of a natural leader, and although impulsive, had a strength of character entirely lacking in this new Marianne, who would do better to fill Willowby's coattails with buckshot rather than allow the creature on the premises.
Thumbs up for your review. Thumbs down for the book. It evidently goes pointlessly nowhere. But I do like the cover.
By the way, I can see developing story lines in fan fiction for fun, but just not as a book to present to Jane's adoring public. Methinks it smells of grave-robbing! (No offense to the author intended. I just can't quite stomach it, personally.)
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Beth here, Marianne was repentant and realized that her behaviour was wrong. She said she didn't compare it with Willowby's but with Elenor's. Also she showed true desire for Col. Brandon when he was reading poetry to her in the passionate fashion she loved. I think they show that she was truly in love with Col. Brandon and would not have had anything to do with Willowby if he showed up on her door step saying his wife had died and he was now free to marry him. Even if she had not married Col. Brandon she would have had the servants dismiss him.
ReplyDeleteI believe this book would only show our current societies lack of understanding in the area of proper behavior.