Miss Bennet’s Dragon by
M. Verant
My rating:
4 of 5 stars
This isn't just a rehash of Austen; it's definitely an AU fanfic, though a good one. There are plenty of the usual anachronisms and Americanisms that you almost always get when 21st-century Americans set books in 19th-century Britain, but overall it's a capable job.
While it bills itself as a "retelling," what the author has really done is stripped Pride and Prejudice back to the skeleton - situations, events, relationships, character names, and in some cases, but definitely not in others, character personalities - and built something else on top of it, something that's quite a different story, especially towards the end.
Not only because this England has dragon-like creatures (and flourishing remnants of pre-Christian Britain; I detected some hints of anti-Christian bias in a few other aspects of the story, too). The original is about relationships and the society that constrains them and warps the people within it. This is much more of a fantasy adventure story, and drops those central concerns of Austen much more into the background. The more tediously silly characters (Mr Collins, Mrs Bennet, and Lady Catherine) don't get to talk nearly as much; their silliness is established more by telling than showing, because it's not the author's focus.
The story is narrated in first person by Lizzie, not by Austen's wry and sometimes cruel narrator. This gives it more immediacy, and also softens the portrayal of the Bennet family.
Her mother is still silly, though not as tragically so. Her father is inept, but her love for him covers the worst of his failings. Jane is still sweet; there's not much more to Jane, in the original or this version, than that, though here the consequences she suffers from events are much more serious. Kitty is still... rather superfluous and underdeveloped as a character.
Mary is, perhaps, the most transformed from the original. No longer a prosy, conventionally pious pseudo-intellectual who plays the piano adequately, she is deeply unconventional, the opposite of pious, highly intelligent, a skilled composer, and socially aware not so much beyond her years as beyond her year. It's true that Mary Wollstonecraft, who lived before the book is set, did articulate at least some of the ideas that Mary expresses here - though not in these terms, and there doesn't seem to be any reference to her writings or, indeed, any other writings available at the time. Mary is just a straight-up anachronism, an essentially early-21st-century young woman plopped into the early 19th. I have to say, I like this version of Mary more than the original (and it's clear that the author likes her a lot more than Austen liked the original, too), but there's no getting away from the fact that, of all the anachronisms, large and small, that creep into the book, Mary is the largest.
Lydia is also transformed, from a thoughtless child to a complete sociopath; Wickham goes from a rogue and a rake to a traitor. There's a lot more overt engagement with the events of the time, both the Napoleonic Wars and the debate over slavery (not yet outlawed in British possessions overseas, though it was illegal in Britain itself by this time). In Austen generally, these things are in the background, referenced subtly but never the focus; here, they are out in the open, and the war in particular comes to the characters and involves them whether they want it to or not.
Mr Darcy is pretty much the original, even in the parts that depart from the original plot and introduce entirely new events and situations. Lizzie is maybe just one step too special, but she is a fantasy heroine, after all. I appreciated the inversion of a trope, where
(view spoiler)[the hero goes off without telling anyone to do something brave but ill-advised and gets captured, and the heroine has to rescue him (hide spoiler)]. I also enjoyed the moment where
(view spoiler)[Lizzie, having no clue what she's saying, says to Mary and Georgiana, "You two will have to explore Sappho on your own." (hide spoiler)]I haven't read the book version of
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but I have read the graphic novel, and it consisted mostly of large chunks of original Austen prose interspersed with nonsensical martial arts scenes. This is a much subtler, and to me more successful, rewriting. If you're looking for faithfulness to Austen, or even a focus on what she focused on, this is not it. On the other hand, if you're looking for Austen-inspired adventure fantasy that's well told, and don't mind (or won't notice) a few 21st-century intrusions, this definitely is it, and I recommend it to you.
I received a review copy via Netgalley.
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