Read Yes
Length 488
Quick Review A hilariously modern reworking of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Sittenfeld turns something old new, while maintaining the integrity of the original.
I bought the book solely on my admiration for Sittenfeld’s short stories. Her ability to write is captivating. I picked up Eligible apprehensively because I abhor retellings or fanfiction. They are never done well. I can no longer say “never.” I have been proven wrong.
Pride and Prejudice is a universally beloved novel with themes still present in today’s society. That being said, it does not lend itself to modern reinterpretation. The status of women has changed a touch in the past 150 years. No longer are we dependent on men and marriage. How do you take a novel about five unmarried women and their ludicrous behavior and adventures which are incredibly relevant to their time and make it relevant in our time? Age them and a whole load of other things.
Set in Cincinnati, of all places, the Bennet sisters are unmarried and majorly dependent upon their ailing father and ridiculous mother. After a heart attack on Mr. Bennet’s part, Jane and Liz return home from New York to help care for him, when they meet surgeons Chip Bingley and Fitzwilliam Darcy along with the abhorrent Caroline Bingley. Chip comes from a famous family and was on a reality TV show Eligible (the equivalent of “The Bachelor”).
The characters personalities are all intact and even more vibrant than their original namesakes. Collins being the exception, I found him less dreadful than in Pride and Prejudice, maybe it’s because I know a good few of the modern Collins’ that I can tolerate him. Caroline, however, is truly oddious in a way Austen always implied. Sittenfeld split Wickham into two characters. Throughout the entire novel I was expecting one thing to happen, and was surprised when a vastly different something happened. In the original, it is understandable why all the sisters are at home doing a whole lot of not much because that’s what they did then, and they were young. I found it grating that four sisters in their twenties and thirties could be so lazy; Liz, of course, being the exception. Mrs. Bennet, in true form, was a neurotic basket case. I truly wanted to like Mr. Bennet more, but alas, he too had his faults. Enough said.
I finished the 500 plus pages in a day. It is a fabulous novel with real depth and wit. Sittenfeld took an untouchable classic and made it relevant.
Memorable Quotes
““That’d be like watching a burlesque show with one’s eyes closed.””
“Caroline was on Darcy’s other side and had spent midst of the meal curled toward him in conversation like a poisonous weed.”
““You have no idea how lucky you are that someone like him would settle for you.””
“If you really want to do something unselfish, adopt a seven-year-old black boy from foster care.”
Title: Eligible; A Novel
Author: Curtis Sittenfeld
Publisher: Random House
Copyright: 2016
ISBN: 9780812980349