I was warned not to bother reading this book, but having recently been rereading many of P.D James’ Adam Dalglish novels, and even a Cordelia Grey novel, and having been utterly thrilled anew by James’ artistry and craftsmanship, I threw caution to the winds, unwisely, as it transpires. Death Comes to Pemberley is a standalone novel, not a rewrite of Pride and Prejudice, but a picking up of what happens after Elizabeth marries the super-rich Darcy, and Jane marries amicable Bingham, and of course, Lydia marries the infamous Wickham. It attempts to site a murder mystery in the woodlands of the Pemberley estate, and in that time period, “By the end of 1799, Mrs Bennet could congratulate herself on being the mother of four married daughters” (p4); Mary manages to snag a rector of a neighbouring parish. Indeed, the first chapter or so of James’ novel reads well, delightfully in a pseudo-Austen style. Then it begins to go steadily downhill.
The Austen Project was an ill-conceived initiative by HarperCollins to commission six contemporary authors to modernise each of Jane Austen’s six major novels. Apparently two were never published – Persuasion and Mansfield Park; four were published between 2013–2016, Sense & Sensibility rewritten by Joanna Trollope, Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid, Emma by Alexander McCall Smith, and Pride and Prejudice (Eligible) and Curtis Sittenfeld. While Death Comes to Pemberley is not one of the Austen project, it is no less ill-conceived and executed, though at the very least, it did not attempt to modernise Austen’s originals. (Footnote: What an appalling idea, what gall even, to modernise Austen’s writing – which needs no modernising, its period being a integral part of its charm, and which actually is already intensely modern in values and understanding!)
Once James has finished recounting the history of the Bennett daughters’ courtship and marriages and plunges into the new chapter of their married lives, the writing no longer seems to know what it should be – it is definitely not in period style, it is no longer pseudo-Austen, it attempts to be true to the time it is set in, but it lacks conviction. Worst of all, it is not even in James’ usual masterful, deeply intelligence, nuanced, subtle style. It is flatfooted, in fact, I am grieved to tell you.
Death Comes to Pemberley makes heavy weather of Darcy being so in love with Elizabeth, of Elizabeth being a paragon, of Jane being all goodness and light, of poor Lydia being completely irresponsible, irrepressible, vulgar and inappropriate, of Georgiana being completely compliant and sweet and adoring of Elizabeth, and of course, all the servants are totally devoted to the Pemberley estate and in true Downton Abbey style, they would flatten themselves against the wall if the master or mistress came by down the same corridor, they live to ensure the master and mistress are never troubled and every convenience is laid to hand…it is all so stereotyped and inauthentic that one reads with grimaces. There are only heroes and villains, cardboard characters throughout. Darcy is selected to be our protagonist, and he is supposedly madly conflicted for having enmity with Wickham but inadvertently and unknowingly providing him access to innocent girls whom Wickham then abuses; Darcy then shells out money to bail Wickham out of all his peccadillos, from a seemingly bottomless pocket. It is all so tired and predictable and also, nonsensical. It hardly seems credible that Darcy is busy beating himself up endlessly, conflicted and tortured, over a character like Wickham whom he despises.
There is so much over-writing, for e.g. Lydia had thought her husband was dead, and she was sedated to keep her calm, but he was absolutely unhurt and brought back to Pemberley to recover and rest. When Lydia wakes goes to see her husband in the morning,
It was Brownrigg who let them in, and at their entrance Mason, who was asleep in his chair, woke with a start. After that there was chaos. Lydia rushed to the bed where Wickham was still asleep, flung herself over him as if he were dead and began weeping in apparent anguish. It was minutes before Jane could gently draw her from the bed when her husband would be awake and able to speak to her. Lydia, after a final burst of crying, allowed herself to be led back to her room…” (p115)
I don’t really see what chaos there was. So a woman hugs her husband and weeps, perhaps histrionically. Is this chaos? Are there overturned chairs and flying projectiles and fisticuffs? Is there a storm tearing the room apart? A woman weeping on top of her somnolent husband, while attended to by her sister, and guarded by two policemen at the door – this is James’ idea of chaos? Seriously? Yes, I do get that this is the period of women endlessly swooning, and of pomanders and smelling salts being applied fussily, and hysteria and domestic drama being the order of the day apparently, but still, over-writing, and by such a masterful author as P.D James?? It is a good thing reading is a solitary occupation so that I could cringe unobserved.
The plot is very very thin – not intending any spoilers, but there is nearly nothing to give away. The drama begins on the eve of the annual Lady Anne ball at Pemberley. Jane and Bingham are already present, eating dinner with the Darcys; Alveston, Georgiana’s beau is also there, and so is Colonel Fitzwilliam, Darcy’s cousin. Then there is a mad dash of a carriage and 2 horses up the drive in the great storm of wind and rain, with Lydia in it. She claims she was riding with Wickham and his good friend Captain Denny, when Denny stopped the coach, dashed off in the dark, pursued by Wickham, there were gun shots, and she screamed at the coachman to take her to Pemberley. Thus it begins.
It transpires that Captain Denny is dead. The investigation takes place, ponderously, for most part. The inquest. The trial of Wickham. Many old characters from Pride and Prejudice come on stage for routine bows – from Mr Bennet to Lady Catherine to Lucas, Elizabeths one-time suitor, etc etc. All very cliched, and all playing their allotted roles, and speaking their expected words. The inquest and trial are frankly tedious to read, and take up most of the book. The actual reveal is a complete anticlimax and a cop out. I have never known P.D. James to write a less believable plotline, or to write so poorly, period.
Okay, let me find something to praise, at least one thing, of an author whose many other books I have enjoyed so much, and repeatedly. I did enjoy some of the period details. I liked all the talk of logs and fires, silver candlesticks and beeswax candles, pastry cooks and white soup and negus (something like a mulled wine), the mention of “her simple dress of white muslin with a chaplet of pearls” (p39) was quite charming, and I enjoyed all the domestic details of food items and rooms:
The fire had been replenished, lumps of coal wrapped in paper for quietness, and added logs lay ready in the grate, and there was a sufficiency of pillows ad blankets. A covered dish of savoury tarts, carafes of wine and water and plates, glasses and napkins were on a round table some distance from him” (p107).
The sense of such a lot of work, care, trouble taken, and attention to detail, did at least invoke the period.
But one is left asking, why would an author of such acclaim and accomplishment, write such a poor offering, and moreover, in tribute to an author she herself clearly loves? At the start of the book, James says she owes an apology to the shade of Jane Austen, for involving her beloved Elizabeth in a murder mystery. But that, to my mind, is not the transgression. It is involving Elizabeth so poorly, or perhaps, so wretchedly (more in keeping with the pseudo-Austen talk) that requires abject apologising for. In the Author’s Note, James already noted that “had she [Austen] wished to dwell on such odious subjects, she would have written this story herself, and done it better” – alas, only too true. So if James already knew Death Comes to Pemberley could not do justice to Austen’s characters and work, why did she attempt this novel? And for that matter, why did I, the foolish reader, already warned against it, read it, nonetheless? For the same reason James was led into her folly, I would guess – just wanting more of a good thing – because Austen’s writing and likewise James’ Dalglish novels, were so so good. But in that wanting, James and I both over-reached, and spoilt that which was already perfect. Oh the pity of it!
Truly, as it is said, a great artist is one who knows when to stop.
[For a related post, see Susan’s “A multitude of Austen silhouettes”]
Death Comes to Pemberley
PD James
Knopf, 2011.
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