Mr. Bennet] captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humour, which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman, whose weak understanding, and illiberal mind, had, very early in the marriage, put an end to any real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence, had vanished forever; and all of his views of domestic happiness were overthrown. But Mr. Bennet was not of a disposition to seek 'comfort' for the disappointment which his own imprudence had brought on, in any of those pleasures which too often console the unfortunate of their folly or vice. He was fond of the country and of books, and from these tastes had arisen his principal enjoyments. [13] Jane is as lovely as an angel,” her mother often declared, regarding her eldest daughter with transparent pride. “It is a pleasure just to gaze at her.” With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair. The Bennet family is a fictional family created by the English novelist Jane Austen in her 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice. The family consists of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and their five daughters: Jane, Mary, Catherine, Lydia, and Elizabeth, the novel's protagonist. [2] In The Other Bennet Sister Mary is painted as the overlooked underdog (which fair enough, Hadlow wanted to give a reason why Mary seems so unappealing in Pride and Prejudice) who is constantly overshadowed by her sisters. The problem is...Mary is so self-pitying as to be completely unsympathetic. The first few chapters tell painfully slow and dull accounts of all the ways in which Mary has been mistreated by her family. She is plain, not very charming, and so unbearably sanctimonious. She actually believes that she is better than her sisters and is incredibly dismissive of their personalities, hobbies, and observations. Which...yeah, being bitter is fine but why be such a solipsistic whiner? Mary is constantly playing her own violin.

Readers worried that such a moment might embitter Mary, might turn her into a vaguely calculating creature like Charlotte Lucas, will smile with relief when Hadlow moves her story to London and Mary’s association to the Gardiners, those unsung heroes of Pride and Prejudice. Mary herself is still socially hopeless - as she herself observes, when she’s silent she confirms the opinion of her dullness, but when she tries to entertain, she always strikes the wrong note - but when she leaves Longbourn she also leaves Jane Austen, and the novel promptly begins to breathe. According to James Edward Austen-Leigh's A Memoir of Jane Austen, Mary ended up marrying "one of her Uncle Philips' clerks, and was content to be considered a star in the society of Meryton".I've only read half of this book and so far the story is a re-telling of Pride and Prejudice from Mary's perspective. Her life isn't that all exciting: she tries some glasses on, she buys a pretty dress, and she tries some makeup. There were painfully detailed descriptions of the most basic of things. Which might have been vaguely appealing if Mary wasn't such a downer. At one point I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd broken into a 'conceal don't feel' type of song.

The Bennet couple do not make good role models: Mrs. Bennet repeatedly makes a spectacle of herself. She is overly eager to find husbands for her daughters. This eagerness is displayed in her behaviour, and she fails to understand that this is likely to dissuade young men from marrying her daughters. Mr. Bennet, who seems to be an indifferent husband, makes no effort to change his wife's behaviour. He is more intent on 'enjoying the show' than in correcting her behaviour, and the behaviour of his younger daughters.A] spectacular debut. . . . Writing in prose with the crisp liveliness of Austen's own, Hadlow remains true to the characterizations in Pride and Prejudice without letting them limit her. . . . This will delight Janeites as well as lovers of nuanced female coming-of-age tales." The difficulty with trying to rewrite one of the best-loved novels in the English language is that the original is always there as the gold standard. So it is in the second part of the novel, which takes place two years after the events of Pride and Prejudice, when Hadlow’s version really takes on a life of its own. Away from her family, Mary has the chance to free herself from their (and the reader’s) narrow view of her. Hadlow’s empathy for Mary throws into sharp relief the brisk dismissiveness with which she was originally treated; in Pride and Prejudice, Austen pins her down with a couple of adjectives, invites the reader to find her ridiculous, and moves swiftly on. In The Other Bennet Sister, Mary herself seems almost aware of a change in dispensation as she emerges from the hermetically sealed environment of Pride and Prejudice, into the world beyond: “There was no one to judge her … she might change if she wished to.” An ignorant and narrow-minded petite bourgeoise [ edit ] For 20 years, reading allowed Mr Bennet to bear the foolishness of his wife ( Hugh Thomson, 1894). I love a good Pride and Prejudice spinoff, or a modernized Austen in general, so of course I wanted to read The Other Bennet Sister! This spinoff tells the story of forgotten middle sister Mary Bennet.

Reread via audio July and August 2021. Loved this book again, and the audio narration was excellent! Still highly recommended. In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice , Mary is the middle of the five Bennet girls and the plainest of them all, so what hope does she have? Prim and pious, with no redeeming features, she is unloved and seemingly unlovable. The Other Bennet The Other Bennet Sister reads as an enjoyable kind of fanfic and if it feels a little pedestrian by comparison, the fact that the appeal of these characters endures in hands less deft than their original creator’s is testament to how vividly they were first drawn and the place they have established in readers’ affections. Austen, Jane (2010). Bury, Laurent (ed.). Orgueil et préjugés (in French). Translated by Bury (Nouvelleed.). Paris: Flammarion. p.17. ISBN 978-2-08-122951-8.Her Mary is a sensitive, well-meaning young woman, who strives for the affection of her remote, sardonic father and beloved older sister, Lizzie. Hadlow invents for Mary an inner life that Austen denied her, complete with romantic yearnings that she tries to dampen.

In London, Mary drastically grows in self-assurance. She understands that her dress helps her to be simple, elegant, and yet shows she is self-reliant. The house of her aunt and uncle is very lively and encouraging. She meets Mr. Hayward who, as a character, is a good balance between logic and emotion and encourages Mary to be less logical and more emotional through poetry.Television producer Janice Hadlow’s debut novel, The Other Bennet Sister, avoids both of these traps. Her Mary is a psychologically rich and astute creation. An observant child who notices that she doesn’t measure up her Mother’s standards and that she isn’t either of her parents’ favourite. She also recognises, to a certain extent, that these standards are impossible – like Lizzie, she understands her parents’ characters and sees that they are the root of their unequal marriage – but at the same time she tries to live up to them, causing her to adjust her behaviour and the way she sees herself, after all, what child doesn’t want their parents’ approval? So, not unlike an Austen heroine, Mary’s journey is one of journey of self-actualisation, towards self-esteem and self-worth, not just towards love. Yes, it is a great disappointment to me, and excessively bad for my nerves. But I find that once I look at my other daughters, I soon feel better. Where has she got to with the sugar?” Auerbach, Emily (2004). Searching for Jane Austen. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-20184-8.