Giveaway: Darcy By Any Other Name

I don't read much Austenesque fiction these days, but when I heard that Laura Hile (who wrote the fabulous Mercy's Embrace 3-parter) was coming out with a P&P-inspired work, I knew that I had to read it because:
1) It would be funny and sweet and interesting.
2) It would be well-written and carefully crafted.
3) It would be unique.

Darcy By Any Other Name delivers on all three counts, and it was a fun way to spend the last week of August.    And, if you comment below and provide me with your email address and I randomly select you, you can enjoy a e-book version, courtesy of Laura herself!

So here's the basic idea--think Freaky Friday and/or A Christmas Carol ala Austen.  Mr. Darcy and Mr. Collins are caught in a ferocious thunderstorm during the Netherfield Ball.  Lightning (or Providence) makes them switch bodies and they get the opportunity to stare down their biggest flaws and recognize their true heart's desire and uncover their true characters.

Since Darcy is in the title, you are right in assuming that the bulk of the story is really about his coming to terms with his flaws, desires, and character, and I must say that I quite liked him as an earnest clergyman.  I guess when you have the right stuff, it really doesn't matter the physical trappings!

So, if you're looking for a wonderful romp in Austen land, guided by a true Janeite who doesn't mind playing around with the canon, then definitely give this novel a whirl.

And if you want a chance at the e-book, leave me a comment below.  I'll randomly select the author at 8 pm (MT) on Friday, September 9.  Since we're talking e-book, the giveaway is open internationally.

The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet: A Novel

I started this Colleen McCullough novel this afternoon and, as expected, am feeling ambiguous about it.



On the one hand, McCullough is a good storyteller and I find I'm being sucked into the story wondering how everything is going to work out. On the other hand, this is fanfic and she's breaking the canon into little tiny bits without much respect for the Austen characters she's stealing.

First impressions? I wonder whether McCullough didn't write a Regency Romance and then decide to jump on the Austen bandwagon and changed all the names to those from P&P. I don't really wonder that, but I think most Janeites would like the story better if it were straight Regency Romance and not P&P fanfic--messing with Darcy and Lizzy is a dangerous game.

I do think the plot is promising, the characterization good (just not recognizable as the P&P characters I grew up with), and the level of detail okay. Granted, I just finished Voyager by Diana Gabaldon--I'm rereading the lot in anticipation of the final book in the series coming out this year--and McCullough is just not in the same league as Gabaldon when it comes to details.

It's telling that Mary is turning out to be another Elizabeth--in looks, in spirit, in attractiveness. She's a bit modern, though, to be really believable as a 37-year old woman in 1830. I've been reading lots of fiction about women in 1830-1850, and McCullogh's Mary is strictly a 20th century gal. Plus, it's hard to believe that Mary from P&P could blossom into Elizabeth after 17 years of nursing her mother while buried in a country estate with a big library just because her skin cleared up and she got some dental work done.

McCullough clearly appreciates the Lizzy of P&P since her story is that Mary is really Elizabeth having another chance to pick Mr. Right.

Back to being fair and giving this book a fighting chance...Charlie Darcy promises to be a gem of a character--the sensitive but all-man type--and his relationship to Aunt Mary is intriguing, at least at this point. We'll see what McCullough does with that. Having read half of her Rome series, this relationship could get pretty twisted pretty fast.

Fan Fiction Update...and Bronte Connection!

NPR’s The Bryan Park Project has a story, “Fan Fiction Writers Face Nonfiction Legal Hurdles,” about the ORGANIZATION FOR TRANSFORMATIVE WORKS, which “is a nonprofit organization established by fans to serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms.” Looks pretty interesting, especially considering the academics and lawyers that are part of the founding group.
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I learned yesterday that George Norman Lippert is the author of a successful fanfic series based on Harry Potters’s oldest son, and J.K. Rowling approves! Lippert’s first novel in the series, James Potter and the Hall of Elders’ Crossing, “details the adventures of Harry’s firstborn son, James, as he begins his wizarding career in the shadow of his legendary father.” The upcoming sequel, James Potter and the Curse of the Gatekeeper, is due to be released on-line in September. According to the story I read, "Lippert’s story has even spawned its own genre of fan-fiction. 'People ask my permission if they can write their own stories based on my James Potter adventures. It feels extremely weird, but I always tell them to go for it and have fun. It’s all about the story.'” You can download the pdf here. I printed out the first 120 pages for my son last night--I'll let you know if he likes it!

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“The rise of fan fiction and comic book culture: From book-burning and prohibition to Pulitzer Prizes and prestige,” by Michael Saler reviews two books, including Michael Chabon’s “Maps and Legends, Reading and writing along the Borderlands,” which is a collection of essays that essentially celebrate the legitimacy of mass culture (genre writing) and by extension, fan fiction. To quote Saler quoting Chabon: “All novels are sequels; influence is bliss,” and “All literature, highbrow or low, from the Aeneid onward, is fan fiction.” I'm on the wait list for Chabon's book at my library--I hope to be able to read/blog on it soon.

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Now that I’m done with Gaskell’s Bronte bio, though I haven’t finished posting about it, I thought I would reread a little book of essays my brother Mark picked up for me when he visited Haworth last year. It’s called The Bronte Influence, edited by Charmian Knight and Patsy Stoneman. After just finishing Saler’s article I was a bit surprised to find myself once more reading about fanfic in the “Introduction” by Stoneman, although not overtly but she does end with the following paragraph:

This notion of the literary text as “inside a system in movement” allows us to move away from the Romantic idea of absolute originality as the mark of genius, and also from the idea that the only way to honour a “great” text is to leave it strictly alone. Accepting this idea of literature as inevitably intertextual, we open up the possibility of defining a “classic” text not as one that defies imitation but as one that invites it.