Jane Austen wrote only six novels in her life. Each one was an exquisite microcosm of her society with all its faults and foibles. Many many authors have been so taken by her plots and descriptions that they’ve attempted to rewrite the novels in modern times or in other societies, and most have failed dismally to come anywhere close to the originals. (Bridget Jones’ Diary, based on Pride and Prejudice, and Clueless, based on Emma, and perhaps Longbourn, which tells the tale of the servants, are the rare exceptions).
I knew all this, and yet picked up Joanna Trollope’s Sense and Sensibility in an optimistic moment, so I am entirely to blame for my disappointment.
Austen’s plots are very very specific. They usually feature nubile young women who have been brought up as ‘gentry’, and who are therefore unsuited for anything other than marrying well. The other options are to die as penniless spinsters, become governesses to obnoxious children, or perhaps companions to an elderly lady, all considerably less appealing. The women in the stories are often poor due to some circumstance of inheritance, and therefore can bring no money to a marriage, so the deck is stacked against them.
How does this translate to modern times? If a young woman does not have inherited wealth and is in need of money, one would expect her to find a job. Various Austen-copiers have come up with tortuous rationales for the women to be trapped as in Austen’s days, such as setting the novels in more restrictive societies such as South Asia.
Joanna Trollope (a distant descendant of Anthony, in case you were wondering) has kept almost everything about Austen’s Sense and Sensibility intact, except for the time period. Perhaps that was part of the requirement for this book, as it is part of an ill-conceived ‘Austen Project’, where several authors were tasked with retellings of Austen novels.
Trollope’s novel has a widowed mother with three daughters: Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret Dashwood. Their father has died, and the house has been inherited by their brother John, who intends to turf the four women out of it. All exactly the same as Austen’s plot so far. Trollope has, however, put in one twist: the mother was never married to the father, and that’s why John, the only legitimate heir, inherits.
The Dashwood girls and their mother are in shock, especially when John and his evil wife Fanny plan to turn them out of the house. Where will they find a place to stay?
Belle gazed at him, her eyes enormous. ‘But what about us?’
‘It has to be near!’ Marianne cried, almost gasping. ‘ I can’t live away from here, I can’t.’
The personalities of the four women have been retained untouched, as you see. Belle, the mother, is hopelessly unworldly and unwilling to lift a finger. Marianne, aged about 17, is passionate, romantic and afflicted by asthma to account for her constant illness. Elinor, the oldest, is the calm, steady, practical one: she has almost completed her university course. There is no money now for her last year of university, or for Marianne’s and Margaret’s private school.
This is where the plot breaks down. So what if they ‘only have two hundred thousand pounds’? Plenty of people in modern England don’t have that kind of money, but manage to get an education and/or a job nevertheless. But these girls are so completely helpless that the first several chapters of the novel are devoted to their hopeless complaints about money.
‘You’ll have to go to state school.’
Margaret’s face froze.
Elinor can apparently not get a job because ‘how many architects are unemployed right now?’ Therefore, she sends out no CVs, and makes no attempts to network or look for lower-level jobs. Elinor seems to have no friends at university and Marianne seems to have no friends at school who do not have inherited wealth. They seem completely clueless about the lives of the ‘normal’ people in England.
The women, as in Austen’s original, are offered a cottage by a distant and rich relative, Sir John Middleton in Devon. Far from being grateful:
‘My music!’ Marianne cried. ‘What about my music?’
Margaret had her fingers in her ears and her eyes shut. ‘Don’t anyone dare to say I have to change schools’.
Nevertheless, lacking alternatives, they end up in Devon.
Marianne is the most beautiful of the girls, and Trollope lays it on thick, repeating this over and over again. Despite her endless passionate exhaustion and rage and fear, Marianne remains so beautiful that every man in the novel is stunned and captivated.
Elinor’s beau Edward Ferrarrs is something of a wimp, unable to commit fully to Elinor, and under the thumb of his domineering mother. Marianne falls for a dashing ne’er-do-well, Willoughby, while staid old Colonel Brandon lingers hopelessly nearby.
But what is the urge to get married? Why aren’t these girls, all under 22, thinking of jobs and independence and student loans? Without this marital pressure, nothing in the novel makes sense. And if they get married and it doesn’t work out, why wouldn’t they get divorced?
Trollope has made some rather sad attempts to modernize minor characters and episodes. One character turns out to be gay. There is a YouTube trolling incident. A couple of characters use awful and unconvincing modernisms:
‘Totes amaze’, Nancy Steele said, tossing her hair. ‘[..] Hilar!’
‘He thinks Ellie is wonderful. But he doesn’t fancy her.’
Then there are the electronic updates:
Tommy Palmer was absorbed in reading the weekend edition of the Financial Times on his iPad.
Trollope is a perfectly good writer. There were no awkward sentences or odd phrases. Nevertheless, the plot was weirdly complicated due to the need to follow Austen’s plot, the characters were unconvincing and unappealing, the modernisms seemed pasted in, and the book was just sad.
But as I said, I should have known this going in.
Sense and Sensibility
Joanna Trollope
Harper, 2013. Part of The Austen Project.
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