
Look, I’ve tried to like PD James. I’ve tried really hard. I’ve read at least four or five of her other books, including a range of older and more recent, Adam Dalgliesh and Cordelia whatshername. And I just don’t get it. As detective stories I find the solutions arbitrary; as novels, I find them boring and badly-developed. BUT. I recently watched the BBC miniseries adaptation of this book, and really liked it, and since the first episode aired the day after the author died, I thought it was only respectful to give her one last chance.
As it turns out, this is one of those rare times that the BBC adaptation manages to be better than the original material*. The novel did nothing to displace my original suspicion that I would never like a PD James book. I really wanted to like it, having liked the show, and I did not. She must have known going in that writing a Pride and Prejudice sequel was, at best, going to piss off a lot of people, but I guess when you’re an unaccountably successful 90-year-old novelist who feels the icy grip of death tightening around your throat (I do not consider this to be in poor taste because she basically says it herself in the afterword), you have very few fucks left to give. That said, as a sequel, it was frankly sloppy. There were a few points at which the text was actually, in my opinion, directly contradictory of Pride and Prejudice: not any significant plot points, just small things, but they were effective to shatter the suspension of disbelief. One respect in which I consider the miniseries outstripped the original material was in introducing some tension into the Lizzie-Darcy marriage: the novel allows them to potter around in wedded bliss with nary a cross word, which is what we all want their marriage to be like, but it makes for a dull-arsed novel. The solution to the mystery also just kind of presents itself without any build-up of tension to precede it, so there’s no sense of denouement, just a bunch of words that add up to very little. There’s even a little meta moment when some characters from another Austen novel (Emma, since you asked) are briefly introduced into the mechanics of the book, which caused me to make an involuntary exclamation of annoyance in public. The whole thing basically feels like an old lady indulging herself, which is great for her, but not something I had to participate in.
In summary: the miniseries will occupy three hours of your life and will be mildly satisfying, and if you have nothing better to do you should go for it. The novel will just piss you off.
*Note to Kari Lancaster: I do not want to hear anything about Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility. I have departed from my former view and you should, too.