![]() The previous Austen rewrites - Val McDermid’s retelling of “Northanger Abbey,” Joanna Trollope’s version of “Sense & Sensibility,” and Alexander McCall Smith’s “Emma” - have gotten mixed reviews. The biggest sin, though, is Sittenfeld’s lackluster Liz - snappish, not witty bossy, not proud and occasionally what my mother would call “potty-mouthed.” Darcy, for his part, has a habit of responding to her tirades with a lugubrious “indeed.” (Does anyone still use that word? I mean, anyone in Cincinnati?) Bennet’s passion to marry off her daughters to rich gentlemen doesn’t ring true, and Sittenfeld had a heck of a time finding an appropriate modern-day transgression for the wild Mr. And yet this might be a project that was flawed in its conception: So much of Austen’s premise does not translate to modern times. ![]() Sittenfeld is a skilled writer, and the book is an entertaining, fast read. Bingley a doctor and star of a TV reality show. Darcy - is one that you have and haven't met before: Liz is a magazine writer in her late 30s who, like her yoga instructor older sister, Jane, lives in New York City. This version of the Bennet family - and Mr. ![]() Liz is a magazine writer, Darcy a brain surgeon, Jane a placid yoga teacher and Mr. Equal parts homage to Jane Austen and bold literary experiment, Eligible is a brilliant, playful, and delicious saga for the 21st century. Sittenfeld follows the plot and characters of Austen’s novel scrupulously, though she moves the action to present-day Cincinnati. ![]() ![]() Does the world need another version of “Pride and Prejudice”? I mean, without zombies? In “Eligible,” the fourth installment of the Austen Project - the retelling of Jane Austen’s novels in modern settings - Curtis Sittenfeld has turned her prodigious talents to updating the story of feisty Elizabeth Bennet and the standoffish Mr. ![]()
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