Well, that was a slog, and no mistake. 673 pages, according to Amazon, and I felt every single one of them. And the worst of it is that nothing happens for most of them, it’s just Mary agonising about about herself, life and everything. There’s a little burst of action right at the end, but really, it was too little, too late.
Here’s the premise: the book looks at possibly the least loved of the Bennet sisters, bookish, sanctimonious prig Mary. The best of the book is found in the early chapters, where Mary’s happy childhood gradually descends into self-loathing as she realises that she is the plain one of the family, and therefore the least valued and least likely to marry well, if at all. Her father has retreated to his study, avoiding his family as much as possible, and her mother, whose sole ambition is to see all her daughters married, is relentlessly negative towards Mary. The other sisters fall into neat pairs, excluding Mary. Only Mrs Hill, the housekeeper, of all people, seems to take an interest in her.
There is one other person who seems to understand Mary’s situation, and that is Charlotte Lucas. Apart from the difference in age (almost ten years, by my calculation), this is a very natural pairing, since Charlotte is also plain and unvalued, and likely to end a spinster. She has the conversation which in P&P she had with Elizabeth, about the need to seize even the smallest opportunity of an advantageous marriage, with Mary instead. Mary takes her advice to heart, and sets out to entice Mr Collins away from his fixation with Elizabeth to herself. She feels (and the reader must surely agree) that she would have made a much better wife for him than Elizabeth, but her mother is discouraging, and in the end Mary fails even to attract his notice, while Charlotte manages to scoop him up from under everyone’s nose.
This part of the book, which intersects with the origin at many points, I found quite tedious. The repetition of key points of the original adds nothing to this book (that was Elizabeth’s story, after all, and to some extent Jane’s and Lydia’s, so the whole of it could have been dropped altogether or passed over relatively quickly. Instead, the lengthy extra passages (so much introspection!) slowed the pace down almost to a halt.
The next section was pretty dull too. Mr Bennet dies (a common strategy in JAFF), the Collinses move into Longbourn and Mary and her mother are homeless (Kitty has conveniently married a clergyman). At first they settle with the Bingleys, where Mary’s mother is quite happy, but Mary, constantly under her mother’s eye, isn’t. Then she tries the Darcys but finds herself very much the outsider in the close knit family grouping of Darcy, Elizabeth and Georgiana. So next she tries the Collinses and Longbourn, and here is where the book comes slightly off the rails.
Initially, Charlotte and Mr Collins are very much as in the book. Charlotte manages the household (and her husband!) with a sure eye, keeping him happy but out of her hair as much as possible. Mr Collins seems contented enough, but Mary thinks he’s a little sad. Because she’s still bookish and still trying to ‘improve’ herself, she sets about Mr Collins’ library and ropes him in to her reading program, to advise and guide and instruct her, just as she tried before, when she hoped to marry him herself. But this time, Mr Collins responds, and lo and behold, he turns out to be something of an intellectual, smart, thoughtful, intelligent and even self-aware. So not like Mr Collins at all, who would never have been able to see the ridiculousness of his own buffoonery. But here he actually reflects on it to Mary, and talks about his marriage. And Charlotte even becomes jealous of his growing closeness to Mary! As if!
So Mary makes a final leap to Gracechurch Street and the Gardiners, and this is where, at long last, the book actually starts to develop something resembling a plot. Mary has a makeover, which happily just smartens her up a bit without making her a raging beauty, and then there are two suitors on the scene competing for Mary’s hand, the long postponed trip to the Lakes finally takes place, and things actually happen (hallelujah!). None of it is terribly surprising, but after chapter upon chapter of gloomy introspection from Mary, this is just a breath of fresh air. I wasn’t much impressed with the final resolution of the romance, because it could have put the man in a very difficult position if he hadn’t felt the same way, but at least Mary showed some gumption.
This is a hard book for me to review because, although in many ways it’s well written, for most of it I just didn’t enjoy it. I kept going in the hope that it would finally get some momentum, and it did, right at the end, but it was really too late to save it. I didn’t notice many historical errors, although I cringed every time Mary went off walking the streets of London by herself, or entertaining one of the suitors alone. I think if the book had been reduced to a sensible length, or if its excess of pages had been filled with actual events rather than Mary’s inner thoughts and low self-esteem, I might at least have given it three stars. Frankly, the author is too good a writer to put out this turgid stuff, and she has a major publisher who should have done some serious editing on it, so no excuse. Two stars it is. But if you want the every-last-detail version of Mary’s life, or you really, really like endless introspection and analysis of books of the era, then this is definitely the book for you.
It’s funny; I’m about 14 chapters in, and while it’s beautifully written, it’s just so SAD. Poor Mary! I’m not sure my heart can take much more of her downtrodden angst. So I thought to read some reviews, to see if I really wanted to read the rest, and found yours. I love your books, and your writing style—and truth be told—although I’ve just arrived at the point where Charles Bingley arrives, I don’t think I want to read the rest. I love JAFF, and a great story about the secondary characters, but this is becoming quite the slog. Thanks for saving me from the other 85% of the book. Mercy!
I plan to watch the new BBC adaptation of it, which sounds a lot snappier and cuts out a lot of the introspection.
I hope you enjoy it. I found it quite charming, funny and a good watch.
I’ve watched the first five episodes and I’m finding it very entertaining, in a Bridgerton-esque way (only without the sex!).
I agree with Mary Kingswood about this book, it meandered on saying little and completely lacked the subtlety and wit of Jane Austen’s work. Perhaps I shouldn’t comment as I gave up after Mary’s early morning tryst with Mr Hayward (and her Uncle Gardiner) to see the sunrise as I could see it was likely to drone on and on about nothing much. Mary’s parents and sisters were portrayed as callous and unfeeling, stamping over her sensibilities, P and P showed them to be careless of her but not downright nasty. Today’s authors might be better employed writing their own stories rather than destroying classics.
I’m with you, Mary Kingswood, on this one.
I started reading The Other Bennett Sister which, right from the first sentence, communicates the quality of the Writer, and of her ideas and her understanding and yet, I just couldn’t be absorbed by, or in, this novel.
If anything, I guiltily caught myself longing for Elizabeth’s straightforward sparkling wit in order to rebuff the sense of plod that was permanently arranging itself around Mary. Telling myself that one does not need to think like Mrs Bennett in order to work out why Elizabeth grabbed the spotlight first time ’round.
It’s interesting for me to read how differently other Readers took to, ostensibly, the same novel. I was drawn in to both of Helen Simonson’s novels (The Summer Before the War + Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand) and she has high praise for The Other Bennett Sister but I just couldn’t summon it. Or it could not summon me.
Your review is the first that I found and read that chimes in any way with my own response to the novel, which I had picked it up on the recommendations of many who loved it (including Simonson’s review).
I liked the tone of your review: I found it to be fair without being unfriendly – that is important. And I was glad for it when I was contemplating my own To Read or Not to Read moment.
Indeed, I would have enjoyed reading an even _more_ detailed precis of the action [by you], because, though the idea of this novel is interesting, I am not persuaded to be interested or moved to read the rest of the novel in order to fill them in myself.
It’s always reassuring, when my opinion of a book goes against the general flow, to find someone who takes the same view. I sometimes wonder if I’m too picky in my reading, because this was at base a very well written book, but I do need to be emotionally drawn into the story, and this just didn’t do it for me. And thank you for the compliment: ‘fair without being unfriendly’. That is exactly what I aim for, laying out both what works (for me) and what doesn’t, as evenly as possible. And it’s only a personal opinion, after all.
I am still struggling through, out of curiosity and stubbornness. More than anything I began to loathe the Bennett family, shallow, carelessly unkind to and about almost everyone they encounter – Regency mean girls?. So I should probably thank Janice for opening my eyes.
I disagree with the reviewer on most points. I was interested in reading this book because I often felt Austen left poor Mary and the insipid Kitty as pointless backdrops to the real P and P story. Why insert those characters at all if they played no part in advancing the story? This book delves into Mary’s character in the beginning to make the reader understand the reasons for her awkwardness and lack of self confidence. I also enjoyed watching Miss Bingley get her comeuppance, and even Lady Catherine’s daughter making her escape. The book was a journey and I truly enjoyed revisiting the characters and viewing them from a different angle.
Actually, I don’t disagree with this. I enjoyed watching Mary’s character develop, too, and I particularly liked the early years which explained her very well. My principal objection was the sheer length of the book, and the amount of introspection which bogged it down. With a much tighter edit, it would have been a cracking read for me. I’m glad to hear you enjoyed it, though. Most readers do. I’m an outlier on this.
I loved it – it was my favourite lockdown read; it drew out Mary’s personality and how she was the way she was and how with a bit of love and confidence she could bloom. I thought the characterisation of the other characters from Mary’s perspective was interesting- Charlotte Lucas, Mr Collins and Elizabeth Darcy. It was possibly overlong but during that winter of 2021 what else did we have to do?
I completely agree with you. I personally really liked it and her journey of self confidence and finding a love that suited her.
I agree with you. What I enjoyed most is the amount of introspection that is increasingly missing in today’s narrative works. They accumulate events, plot twists to engage readers with flat characters that you forget at every turn of the page. Finally, I found a good, old-fashioned work of introspection. I like the general writing style, too. It’s not easy to continue JA’s story and keep it consistent. I started reading this book out of curiosity and it turned out to be a good choice for me.
Yay. I am excited to read it. I don’t have preconceived ideas about how or even what this is about. Just something fun to keep me going until May 1 when BBC in the US enlightens us to it’s production!