Marianne

#SenseAndSensibility #MrDarcy

Hi friends,

It’s been a toughish year, what with my husband’s – ultimately successful – operation for thymic mass cancer.  (And no, you’ve prob. never heard of it. It accounts for fewer than 1% of cancers diagnosed in the UK, as a rule… but his surgeon has banished it.) 

Also on the bright side is… MARIANNE!!!! 

The reason why I felt so bizarrely close to Marianne, the fifth in my Jane Austen series, is because I’ve always related to Marianne Dashwood. She’s such a feeling creature, and so entirely without disguise. This was often greatly to her disadvantage, as in Sense and Sensibility itself, where she exposes her feelings – publicly, with the laser-light of London society upon her – by brokenly appealing to her one-time lover, Willoughby. However, there are several reasons why I relate to Marianne, despite my being neither young nor beautiful.

First off, she’s musical. With the possible exception of Jane Fairfax in Emma, there can be no question that Marianne is the most musical of Austen’s characters. I don’t wish to brag, but I have to suspect that I’mthe only Austenesque author to have performed at Carnegie Hall. I was only a humble member of the cello sections concerned – I wasn’t the soloist – I didn’t get a single mention in the New York Times reviews –  but the point still stands.😊

Secondly, Marianne is impulsive, emotional, and frighteningly easily bored. She is forthright. She  never holds back. Which is why I suspect Marianne, these days, would be treated for  ADHD – which was, in my own case, late-diagnosed by the UK’s National Health Service, who will pay for my medication until I die. 

All this – lol – explains why many readers greatly prefer her wiser sister, Elinor. Elinor’s rather an Anne Elliot – watchful, clever, subtle, caring – but never pro-active or passionate. (There’s also more than a smidgeon of the long-suffering Fanny Price in Elinor.) I strongly suspect these three heroines would’ve been far more generally admired by Austen’s contemporaries than they are today. Then, the feminine ideal would have been soft-spoken, patient, calm and enduring rather than passionate or uninhibited. The truly appalling recent film of Persuasion, rather than selling Anne Elliot as Austen brilliantly wrote her, tried – with quite terrifying ineptitude – to turn her into more of a 21^st-century heroine.  It’ll be fascinating to see how the new film of Sense and Sensibility copes with Elinor’s immaculate maturity and admirable self-control. Most likely (take the film of Persuasion, please, and as far away as possible) it will resemble a slow-motion train crash.

Personally, I hope the adapters embrace it. The contrast between the sisters (cough) is, after all, more or less the point of Austen’s entire novel.

This wasn’t the case with my sequel, though, and this is why: I dodged Elinor, altogether. Elinor is with Edward, in the country, the delighted mother of two toddler boys. She never appears in Marianne, which concentrates on the London adventures of the widowed Marianne and the mischievous Margaret Dashwood, instead. 

It’s received ridiculously stunning editorial reviews, and in the past two weeks won Gold medals in the American Writing Awards (romance) and Coffee Pot Book Awards (literary). However, this is my fav. review, not from Kirkus or Publishers Weekly, but from a NetGalley reviewer:

This series has been a joy to read from the first novel, a wonderful encounter with the young woman who was to become Austen’s Lady Susan: Susan, A Jane Austen Prequel. McVeigh has never moved away from her meticulous rendering of Austen’s language and time: her novels are clearly the end point of not only research, but an enduring knowledge and love for Austen’s work. Marianne A Sense and Sensibility Sequel is particularly elegant in its weaving together characters from Sense and Sensibility with Mansfield Park. John Willoughby, James Rushworth – hilariously – and Henry Crawford are all in pursuit of the pretty young widow Brandon.Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Lady Susan also appear – while Jane Fairfax and her husband are Marianne’s stalwart friends.

Is Jane Austen’s work so well reflected in Alice McVeigh’s that Austen is replaced, making her own novels unnecessary reading? No, because that would be far too high a demand to make of any writer whose work is a variation on another’s. 

However, does McVeigh capture the essence of Austen so well that we can return to her world through these new novels? I believe that there can be only a resounding YES to that query. In her latest, McVeigh has not only given us Marianne, a more thoughtful character, but retaining much of her younger, impetuous self, but she has also provided other characters with  pasts that ring true, and futures that are a pleasure to see revealed.  (Robin Joyce, on NetGalley)

(This review made me cry.)

Marianne will be free this Thursday, Dec. 11^th.

Link: https://books2read.com/u/mB91zA

Darcy will be free Dec. 8^th-11^th.

Link: https://books2read.com/u/4j7Mqo