Perfect, if You Hate Jane Austen

Eliza's Daughter by Joan Aiken
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Have you ever watched an athlete and appreciated their game, maybe even liked them, because they are objectively good, while also disliking them for being, in real life, an asshole?

That is this book.

I kind of liked it. Parts, anyway. It's well written. I was rooting for Eliza (the daughter of Eliza). Some interesting things happened. Some surprising things.

And I kind of hated it. As a big Austen fan, coming to this book because I want to see what happens after Sense and Sensibility, imagine my disappointment to see that every single person from the original novel is terrible. Bad. In fact, skip the rest of this review if you don't want minute spoilers.

Colonel Brandon is a huge disappointment. After rescuing Eliza (who is the granddaughter of a woman he loved) he just sticks her in a terrible school where she has a miserable number of years. He never checks up on her and never helps improve her situation. Her mother, it turns out, isn't dead--she just deserted her without a care. Elinor is a dried up old prune who doesn't want anything to do with Eliza. Her husband, Edmund Farrars, is foolish, controlling, unlikeable clergyman who also doesn't want anything to do with Eliza. Mrs. Dashwood is senile and a bit crazy. Margaret is a disillusioned spinster. Sir John Middleton talks in an ugly way about his previous wife (from the Austen novel) without any of the kindness he was supposed to show. Marianne is a bitter, unkind woman who kept Brandon from doing anything good for Eliza as long as he was alive. And Willoughby is worse even than he started in the original story, having absolutely no interest in even knowing his daughter, almost literally pushing her away when she looks him up. All of them, and most of the invented characters (with only a few exceptions), are cruel, shallow, narrow-minded, selfish, horrible people.

Joan Aiken makes Dickens look like an optimist who only wrote about sunshine and puppies.

It's not all horrible. A couple good things happen. A couple characters are kind to Eliza. There's some lovely prose, too. And there's a decently happy ending (though I hate the pointless mystery thrown in at the end).

If you're reading this to enjoy some more hours and pages with some beloved characters, I warn you off. It isn't what you hope. It looks like the author sat down with a spreadsheet to chart out how to subvert every good thing about every single Austen character you recall. Elinor and Edmund looked happy? Now they don't! Marianne was carefree and sweet? Now she's more wicked stepmother than romantic pixie sonnet girl. Col. Brandon was mature and responsible? Now he's a deadbeat. On and on.

HOWEVER: if you were to read this book without any knowledge of Jane Austen, I think you might like it. No one is betrayed that way. Eliza is like Tom Jones, wandering through a strange landscape until things come right at the end. It is that book, that imaginary novel, which overcame my disgust enough to settle on a respectable 3.

I could be wrong about all that.

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