Has anyone else been as horrified as I’ve been? This isn’t a new pet peeve of mine, but a new book just came out and revived the horror. Is anyone else tired of crass Elizabeth/Darcy sex scenes (“in the style of Jane Austen” - is that even possible for a sex scene?) and Emma lusting after Jane Fairfax? I’ve read the online fiction, some of which is good, and that’s one thing, but a published novel is another. Do so few people get Austen’s style? Or am I just a snob? (this is completely possible).
I’m guessing you’re talking about the very recent book with “lost scenes”? That was done as a joke, trying to fool people into believing lost manuscripts were found. Some academics got all flustered over it, but it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously.
But I agree with you - Emma Tennant in particular writes criminally bad sequels (“Pemberley” was so bad I couldn’t stop laughing), and I’m told there are more doing it too. They seem to be written by people who like the romance aspect of Austen but not the social commentary - in which case, why don’t they just write their own romance novel instead of pillaging classic literature?
Ack.
Sequals to historical classics tend to suck… look at “Heathcliff” or “Scarlett”.
Name recognition? Better sales?
I read Pride & Promiscuity and it wasn’t exactly to my tastes, but I saw it as a) a joke, b) a sort of bizarre Austenian slash. So I wasn’t mortally offended by it.
There have been a lot of Austen sequels, some better than others. (Didn’t Tennant also do a sequel to Sense & Sensibility in which Robert Ferrars was eaten by cannibals?) There is a searchable index of sequels on the Republic of Pemberly site at http://www.pemberley.com/sequels/sequels_02.html
Of the ones I’ve read and remember: Joan Aiken has done a few not-so-bad Austen take-offs, Mansfield Revisited, and Jane Fairfax, which is not so much a sequel as it is the events of Emma retold from Jane’s point of view. There was a P&P sequel written in the 1940s, Pemberly Shades, which is a fun read, much better than Pemberly. Also “Another Lady,” finished Sanditon in a decently Austenian tone.
I tried this a minute ago and the computer ate it, so this version will be briefer.
I definitely wasn’t knocking Pride and Promiscuity, which was clearly a joke (and kind of funny in bits, I guess). I think the one that really set me off was something I saw on Amazon a while ago - a new book last year. NOw I can’t find it again or remember what it was called. But Amazon had the first chapter online, and it was all about Elizabeth and Darcy’s conversation after the wedding night- how he offered her a cushion to sit on and she was humiliated, but so sore that she finally accepted, and how neither of them wanted to bathe afterwards so that they would still smell like each other. The writing was pretty crass, but I was less offended by that than by the number of people who said the writing was just like Austen. Not sure how you could think that.
I agree that Emma Tennant’s sequels are criminally bad. But I did like the ending of Sanditon; I thought that was a good job. I’m really not a purist; what bothers me are people claiming to be writing in the style of Austen when they’re actually having weird Swiftian discussions of bodily fluids.
I thought Mr. Darcy’s Daughters : A Novel by Elizabeth Aston wasn’t bad, but that might be because I’m not a big Jane Austen fan. As a matter of fact, I read that first, then tried Pride and Prejudice later. After reading that I realize that Mr. Darcy’s Daughters : A Novel is not much like the original, but it was a pretty good story, IMHO.
I’m sorry; I misunderstood which book you were talking about. I wasn’t aware that there was another recent sequel out besides Pride and Promiscuity (and, perhaps, given your description above, it might be better if I remained blissfully ignorant of it. 
)
I can’t describe to you how much ignorance is bliss in this case. And I only read half of one chapter. Shades of Pemberley being polluted all over the place. Possibly literally.