THE AMPLE SUPPLY OF PRIDE AND PREJUDICE SEQUELS...NOT BY AUSTEN

Linda Berdoll's second book, Darcy and Elizabeth: nights and days at Pemberley, had fewer pages of detailed, erotic sessions than her first book, Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife. However, within the 429 pages, like the first one, no opportunity for danger and excitement was missed. The book is a good read but one can hardly describe it as written in the style of Austen, who saw a far kinder and more benign world than probably existed at the time. This novel contains murder, deceit, kidnapping, attempted rape, bankrupcsy, deaths, misunderstandings galore, and more coincidences than chance meetings in Nature between a dog and bitch in heat.

Berdoll's style of writing makes following the characters interesting in that she gives every subject a chapter of its own, a cameo no more than 1 to 3 pages long. It sometimes takes a moment for the reader to understand that events in several chapters are happening simultaneously rather than sequentially. The many characters require some intense concentration, especially when characters new to the life of Elizabeth and Darcy are introduced. Darcy and Elizabeth remain the same as do the members of their immediate families but the additional, extraneous roles of the new characters become complicated. The interpretation offered deviates somewhat from the original book, also, in terms of behaviors during the original novel which were never included.

Interestingly, the price of the sequel books seems to get by their popularity. That seems odd because it is quite separate from readability, cohesiveness, development of characters, and probably other criteria of which I too little notice. Nevertheless, if you liked Austen's Pride and Prejudice and are not too rigid to wade through someone's imaginative sequel, I highly recommend this one as well as the 17 other sequels to it I have now read.

AUSTEN SEQUELS: PLAGIARIZING A PLAGIARIST

Continuing my addiction to Austen sequels, I have now discovered that some authors may not even have read an Austen original of Pride and Prejudice. When the film with Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFayden came out in 2005 it seemed a lovely romantic tale, since I had not read the original. I was eager to show it to someone I knew loved Austen and was annoyed that she talked and criticized it all through the film. She had been affronted that it didn't follow Austen and I realized that the person who made it into a film must have taken great liberties to make the story fit the time alloted as well as changing many scenarios of the plot.

Immediately I bought the Complete Jane Austen novels and realized the difference. Then I watched the BBC 2-disk version which quite honestly follows the story as Austen wrote it. I have now read two authors who directly quote from the short movie version. I'm sure that is not illegal but to true Austen fans it is insulting! Word for word one author lifted several lines as to what to call Lizzy when she asked Darcy not to call her 'my dear' because that is what her father called her mother when he was cross with her. Since it was not from the no longer copyrighted original, it is from a movie script and I would assume it is plagiarism. If someone is going to write a sequel of their own, it seems that it should only be taken from the original text. However, if one loves bedroom scenes, this book was certainly sexually titillating.

Having now read fourteen sequels with many more to go, they seem to multiply like rabbits, I am finding that there are good writers and bad writers. To me, the good sequel writers are those who use the original story, facts, dialogue and people and then fill in the blanks of the future after Austen stopped in a manner believable by the characters Austen had built. The rest of the writers seem to be trying to turn Austen into a cash cow. Like all else in my world, there is something to like in all of them if you can get by my plagiarism grievances.

A DAY OFF IS NEEDED OCCASIONALLY

My not writing a blog for a day would not shatter any one's world, especially not even my own. The self-discipline to write daily is somewhat absurd, even to me. I have little to say that would do anything but waste time reading non-funny events in our currently depraved world. This started me thinking about some absurdities in life.

It is absurd that I have to put on hip boots to wade through the clutter in my computer room. Instead of cleaning, I sit and read Jane Austen sequels. Last night I picked one up and read a whole chapter, details of Lizzy and Darcy sounding familiar, before I realized it was a sequel I had read before. It is absurd to no longer remember what I have read! Why do I read them? Because it blanks out the absurdity of life with a far less annoying absurdity. I can't change the world but I have come to enjoy the writers who can change a 200 year old novel to make it as they want the story to have been. Wouldn't it be fun to make the world as we want it.

First starting with sex offenders, since the Supreme Court ruled they can not be given a death penalty, they might be sent to a penal colony. Micronesia might have a few somewhat unused islands. If citizens can be removed from their homes by eminent domain and relocated when a reservoir is needed, why not putting an island to this use.

I haven't quite figured out what might save this near death country yet. Bush and company surely have only moved it along its euthanasia path. Howard Hughes tried to totally control his environment. He failed and had a lot of money. The problem for me is how to do it without money.