Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll
September 20th, 2007 by Laura Moncur in Literature
The saying goes, “Never judge a book by its cover.” This one you can. Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll is a tough book for me to review. I consumed all 465 pages of this tome quite quickly, not because it was an easy read, but because I wanted to find out what would happen. Well, that and I wanted to get it out of my head as quickly as possible.
The preface of this book says:
The renowned (if occasionally peevish) lady of letters, Charlotte Bronte, once carped of fellow authoress Jane Austen’s work, “she ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him by nothing profound: the Passions are perfectly unknown to her…what throbs fast and full, though hidden, what the blood rushes through what is the unseen seat of life and the sentient target of death – this Miss Austen ignores.”
Well, if Jane Austen can be accused of writing of nothing other than the heart, poor Ms. Berdoll may be accused of writing solely about the nether organs. Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife has less in common with Pride and Prejudice and more in common with The History of Tom Jones.
My only explanation for Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife is that it MUST be a Franken-book. I suspect that the publisher ruined this book by insisting on a rewrite, not by the author, but by someone else. This book is EXTREMELY well written, except during the sex scenes. EVERY sex scene is horribly written, some to the point of laughability. I would quote them here, but they are so very vulgar and not the least bit erotic.
Don’t take me for a prude. I was exposed to the entire catalog of 1970′s pornography before the age of nineteen. I once saw a woman pleasure herself with an electric toothbrush and the only thought that ran through my mind was, “Man, that’s gotta hurt.” If I could stomach that, be warned that some of the absurd scenes in Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife go beyond even my sensibilities.
This said, it was a very well written book. I was interested in all the characters. Linda Bertoll introduced an array of new people and allowed us to cling to the most dear of the original. Would the bastard, John Christie avenge his mother’s death? Would Viscountess Eugenia Clisson escape France as she did the guillotine? Would Tom Reed exact his revenge on Mr. Darcy? These new characters added such life to the story that I couldn’t help but continue reading.
And what about the bore, Mr. Collins, who has been so overly used in other Pride and Prejudice sequels? Yes, he was used as comic relief in this book. I didn’t find the faux pas of Mr. Collins to be funny, but I could tell that I was supposed to think they were funny. Was a third author brought in to add some humor to the book? I don’t think so, but I can’t understand how the death of a husband and father could ever be thought of as a punchline, despite the events surrounding the unhappy demise. With this, yet again, Berdoll has more in common with Fielding than Austen.
Despite all the lurid sex and death scenes, Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife is a very good book and entirely quotable. Here are my favorites:
Not once did Linda Berdoll deign to plagiarize Jane Austen’s original work. She wove one of her own by creating intricate and lovely stories about some of the humblest of characters from Pride and Prejudice. Her book was a sweeping epic spanning over six years of the Darcy marriage. When I compared Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife to Tom Jones, it is with the utmost respect for that raunchy romp.
If you love Jane Austen, you’ll hate Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife. If you love Henry Fielding, then you have just been given a treasure. I can’t wait to get Darcy & Elizabeth: Nights and Days at Pemberley by Linda Berdoll. There are still questions that I want answered!