I am not a fan of spin-off fiction - unless there is a good reason for it, like writing back to the Empire, turning the political tables. In Wide Sargasso Sea, for example, Jean Rhys uses Jane Eyre as a starting point from which to launch her political and philosophical tirade - which is all the more powerful because it is written on the tableau of a canonical work. This I do not object to; far from it, in fact, I celebrate it.
But generally speaking, I have no time for those writers who attempt 'sequels' of books written by other (usually long-dead) authors, trying, no doubt, to profit from the immense popularity of the earlier work even though they had nothing to do with its creation. Nor am I a fan of satirical fiction such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, or Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. I know this sounds pompous, but as a student of literature, I just can't bring myself to go there. I promise you, I am more fun in real life than this makes me sound.
So it is with some surprise that I find myself writing this review of P. D. James's Death Comes to Pemberley, which, as the title suggests, is a crime novel set in and around the home of Mr and Mrs Darcy - yes, the very same Elizabeth and Darcy of Pride and Prejudice fame. My mother, who also is not inclined towards reading faux-sequels or mock-satire, gave this book to me a year or so ago. It sat on the shelf until early this year, when for some reason I picked it up and flicked through, and became immediately absorbed in the early pages, during which James describes the relationship between Mr and Mrs Darcy, as they now are, as spouses, parents, master and mistress of Pemberley. I have to admit that, for anyone who loves Pride and Prejudice as much as I do, it was thrilling to get an insight (fictional though it is), of their life together. James does this well at the beginning of the book, so much so that one imagines she herself is a huge Austen fan who has spent time day-dreaming about whatever happened to the Darcys after Pride and Prejudice finished. I particularly loved the descriptions of Elizabeth's days spent in the Pemberley library, of Darcy's gradual education of her in the ways of books she might otherwise never have had access to, of the close relationship that has developed between Mr Bennett and Mr Darcy as they add to the Pemberley library and help the Bingleys create their own, proper library. It was like getting an Austen fix that I thought would never be available, and so I was won over, early on.
Unfortunately, the magic stopped there, and it has taken me a good three months to get through the rest of the book. I have no doubt that P. D. James is a brilliant crime writer. Sadly this particular mystery failed to capture my imagination. I think the problem was partly that all of the characters populating the novel are already developed at the beginning of the book - we know Elizabeth and Darcy, and Jane and Bingley, and Wickham, and it's clear that James doesn't want to interfere with characterisation that was perfected by Austen and has been lauded by literary types for years ever since. So there is a static feeling to this book. None of the characters behave against type, none of them hold any surprises for us. And yet - isn't that the point of a mystery novel, really? That some people occasionally will behave in a very unexpected way, when put in particular situations?
And maybe it is my pregnancy-addled brain, but I didn't get any of the clues along the way so I didn't derive the usual satisfaction one hopes for from books in this genre. I never thought "Oh, I bet I know who it is! I bet it's so-and-so!". I didn't really end up caring terribly whodunnit, and by the time the truth eventually came out at the end I had to flick back through the pages to figure out who was who and how the pieces fit together. This was obviously partly because I took so much time - and distracted time, at that - to read the book, but it was also because the mystery in and of itself didn't pique my interest.
So I felt, really, that James had set out to do two things: continue the story of Pride and Prejudice, in some way, and tell a good mystery / crime story, and that she ended up doing neither well.
Overall assessment: 2 out of 5. James writes well, and it was nice to be back at Pemberley again. Sadly her use of a pre-existing cast prevented her from developing her characters, and somehow stilted any excitement that might have been created around the murder mystery central to the book.
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