At the New Yorker, Blythe Roberson is having fun imagining futuristic updates of Jane Austen’s novels. Real-life efforts to update Austen aren’t nearly as much fun.
Paula Hollingsworth ends her The Spirituality of Jane Austen by summarizing the plots of the novels in the “Jane Austen Project,” a HarperCollins attempt to “set the stories of Jane Austen’s novels in the present day” (173). They all sound dreadful, but the update of Pride and Prejudice is especially so:
Curtis Sittenfeld sets her version of Pride and Prejudice, “Eligible,” in Cincinnati. In an environment where Elisabeth and Darcy engage in “hate sex” soon after their first meeting, it must have been hard for Sittenfeld to come up with something shocking enough for Lydia to do to horrify and shame her family! Again, the story is not convincing—Lydia elopes with a man who turns out to be transgender, which deeply shocks the prejudiced Mr and Mrs Bennet. However, Darcy, who is a neurosurgeon, helps the family by enabling Mr and Mrs Bennet to understand some of the physiological and psychological issues surrounding transgenderism and, thanks to his intervention, the Bennets are reconciled to Lydia’s husband and Lydia is restored to the family (174–5).
To which I say: Bring on the zombies!
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
