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Monday, October 13th, 2008 10:14 am
books: Mansfield Revisited by Joan Aiken
This one is by the same person who wrote Jane Fairfax that drove me so absolutely nuts. Just a warning. I think the review is under this tag.
I've finally worked out the problems I've always had with Joan Aiken's Jane Austen sequels. She gets language right, she gets atmosphere, she has setting nailed, and she does some interesting things with the characters that occasionally does not make me cry vexedly. But she utterly, utterly lacks a sense of humor. Like it was surgically removed.
Austen's wit, both subtle and not so much, is entirely lost on Aiken, and I mean entirely. Mansfield Revisited is honestly the best of the lot she's written due to the fact it's very short, so she has minimal time for her lack of any rudimentary sense of humor to really start irritating me.
(Note: I still contend Emma's friendship with Harriet was a comedy and was intended to be one; there was just too much wrong with it, and I'm not even speaking of differences in class. From start to finish, it was combination girl crush, comedy of errors, and something very much nineteenth century Three Stooges meets Murphy's Law. When Harriet falls for Knightly, you only wonder how on earth Emma didn't see that coming.)
But nevermind. Mansfield Revisited or, how to make something so short seem to last so very, very, very, very long.
( spoilers, if you haven't read the book )
I've finally worked out the problems I've always had with Joan Aiken's Jane Austen sequels. She gets language right, she gets atmosphere, she has setting nailed, and she does some interesting things with the characters that occasionally does not make me cry vexedly. But she utterly, utterly lacks a sense of humor. Like it was surgically removed.
Austen's wit, both subtle and not so much, is entirely lost on Aiken, and I mean entirely. Mansfield Revisited is honestly the best of the lot she's written due to the fact it's very short, so she has minimal time for her lack of any rudimentary sense of humor to really start irritating me.
(Note: I still contend Emma's friendship with Harriet was a comedy and was intended to be one; there was just too much wrong with it, and I'm not even speaking of differences in class. From start to finish, it was combination girl crush, comedy of errors, and something very much nineteenth century Three Stooges meets Murphy's Law. When Harriet falls for Knightly, you only wonder how on earth Emma didn't see that coming.)
But nevermind. Mansfield Revisited or, how to make something so short seem to last so very, very, very, very long.
( spoilers, if you haven't read the book )
