I have just finished reading "Death Comes to Pemberley" by P.D.James. For those who don't know, this is a recent novel by the nonagenarian mystery writer behind the Dalglish novels and is a sequel to Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice".
What a dull book. What a missed opportunity. The epilogue informs me that there are about seventy other sequels to this book and I can only hope that some of them picked up the gauntlet with a little bit more gumption than James manages. Here is what I've learned from reading it.
HOW TO WRITE A MURDER-MYSTERY SEQUEL TO PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
1) Have a sense of fun. What you're doing is clearly indefensible in terms of literature and about as artistically valid as "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies", so recognise how absurd it is through your writing. P.D.James takes the whole thing so seriously (well, most of the time) that it becomes a chore to read.
2) Be concise. No doubt many students have found Austen's prose style wearyingly ponderous at times, a product of literary styles changing over the years. James makes Austen seem as long-winded as a tweet. Endless descriptions of the day-to-day life at Pemberley take precedence over anything interesting happening.
3) Where Austen has created interesting characters, use them. Some of the best characters in P&P - Mrs Bennet, Mr Collins, Lady Catherine - remain resolutely off the page, appearing only through letters or other people's referencing them. Mr Bennet has a cameo, Mary is almost entirely absent and even Elizabeth is largely sidelined in favour of spending almost the entire book with Darcy.
4) Understand what made the book work in the first place. Arguably, the driving force behind P&P is the relationship between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy. Turns out, once they're married with children, they're a lot less interesting. Nothing is brought in to take the place of this dynamic.
5) Remember to write a sequel. There's very little in this book that relies on the existence of P&P - Wickham's notoriety is about the only relevant thing. Without wanting to spoiler this too much, the murder victim is an extremely minor character from Austen's novel; another key player is mentioned only briefly by Austen; and pretty much everyone else significant to the case is invented by James. The Bingleys, the Gardners and others hover about the story and Darcy is in it up to his neck, but otherwise James might as well have invented her own scenario. Except then it wouldn't have sold, because it doesn't work.
6) Remember how to write a murder mystery. This may be the most shocking thing, but the highly experienced purveyor of whodunnits fails to give this any sense of tension or thrills. The murder happens after a few chapters, then very little. The inquest, the court case are detailed with minute attention, but the stakes seem so low. Given a man is dead and another may be hanged, it often seems like nothing is more important than who Georgiana Darcy is going to marry. The murderer is revealed several chapters before the end, at which point a series of speeches and letters explain the plot to us. There is no detective, no Dalglish figure, to solve the mystery with us - wouldn't it be great if Lizzie fulfilled this role? Instead, we follow Darcy as everything happens around him.
I hope you have found this useful in deciding whether to read this novel. For the record, I don't think I'll bother with the TV adaptation which is to be screened later this year.
