The Other Bennet Sister

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Four of the five Bennet sisters of Meryton in Hertfordshire had sensibly provided themselves with good looks enough to be accounted beauties in the limited circles in which they moved. Jane, the eldest, was the most striking, the charms of her face and figure enhanced by the unassuming modesty of her character. Elizabeth, the second sister, made up in wit and liveliness for any small deficiencies in her appearance; whilst Catherine and Lydia, the two youngest, exhibited all the freshness of youth, accompanied by a taste for laughter and flirtation, which recommended them greatly to young men of equally loud and undiscriminating inclinations. Only Mary, the middle daughter, possessed neither beauty, wit, nor charm; but her sisters shone so brightly that they seemed to cancel out her failure and, indeed, eclipse her presence altogether, so that by the time they were grown, the Bennet family was regarded as one of the most pleasing in the neighbourhood.

Being so focused on logic even convinces Mary to be willing to marry Mr. Collins as they seem they could get along with one another and not marry for love or care. But as we know in Austen’s original, he marries Miss Charlotte Lucas after being turned down by Lizzy. Mrs. Bennet hypocritically continues to put blame on Mary for this, and Mary wonders if she would end up a spinster in time. Mary does not appear often in the main action of the novel. However, it is said in volume 3, chapter 19 (the epilogue) that, now with Jane, Elizabeth, and Lydia married and moved out of Longbourn, and Kitty living primarily with Jane and Elizabeth, Mary received more attention, and was made to mix more with people during company ("Mary was the only daughter who remained at home; and she was necessarily drawn from the pursuit of accomplishments by Mrs. Bennet's being quite unable to sit alone. Mary was obliged to mix more with the world, but she could still moralize over every morning visit; and as she was no-longer mortified by comparisons between her sisters' beauty and her own, it was suspected by her father that she submitted to the change without much reluctance"). The Other Bennet Another reboot of Jane Austen?!? Hadlow pulls it off in a smart, heartfelt novel devoted to bookish Mary, middle of the five sisters in Pride and Prejudice. Her sisters’ triumphs in being wed, a family death, and feeling at a loss sends Mary on a journey of self-discovery.In my opinion, Mary Bennet has always been somewhat of a question mark. Who is she? What does she dream of? And where is she going after the ending of Pride and Prejudice? Austen left Mary's story wide open for interpretation - and Hadlow is a great interpreter. Her story seems plausible as well as relatable. She develops a Mary, that you sympathize with and want the best for. And she adds a layer of cruelty to Mrs. Bennet that I found very credible. Mary does work hard for her knowledge and accomplishments, reading publications such as James Fordyce's Sermons to Young Women, but misses the full meaning of almost everything she studies and has neither genius nor taste.

Kindness, when she encounters it, is transformative. She has had a few precious moments of it in her early life, but her first experience of solid, steady kindness is in the Gardiner household. It’s a very different family dynamic from the one in which she grew up. Here, beauty is not the chief virtue in a woman; and a person’s warmth is of at least equal value to their wit. Mary can let down her defences here; she can become comfortably herself. Hadlow studied history prior to her career in television, playing an important role in popularising history on TV by making such highly series as Simon Schama’s History of Britain, so it’s no surprise that her knowledge and research is displayed with a deft touch, capturing the essence of the period and making the voice feel accurate rather than pastiche. Graham, Peter (2008). Jane Austen & Charles Darwin: Naturalists and Novelists. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 9780754658511.Readers worried that such a moment might embitter Mary, might turn her into a vaguely calculating creature like Charlotte Lucas, will smile with relief when Hadlow moves her story to London and Mary’s association to the Gardiners, those unsung heroes of Pride and Prejudice. Mary herself is still socially hopeless - as she herself observes, when she’s silent she confirms the opinion of her dullness, but when she tries to entertain, she always strikes the wrong note - but when she leaves Longbourn she also leaves Jane Austen, and the novel promptly begins to breathe. Why doesn’t Mr Bennet have more time for the daughter who tries so hard to be sensible? Why don’t Mr. Collins and Mary get married, when they would so clearly live happily ever after? I wish with all my heart you were right, but I’m afraid comparisons don’t come into it. Mary is simply very plain, and that’s that. I blame Mr. Bennet’s side of the family. We Gardiners have always been remarkable for our appearance.” Based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, this is the story of Mary Bennet, the plain and quiet middle sister who likes to read and play the piano. Treated unkindly by her mother, and with few friends in the world, her life becomes a precarious round of visiting her married sisters, with little to look forward to. Mary tries to occupy herself with her learning but starts to wonder if there should be more to life. The Other Bennet Sister tells of her quest for personal happiness.

But as Mary and Mr. Hayward become more connected with one another, Mr. Ryder, his friend and total Romantic, appears. Mr. Ryder also challenges Mary to be more emotional, but during the trips to the Lakes, Mary realises that Mr. Ryder can be so determined to feel emotions that he puts his own life into danger. Television producer Janice Hadlow’s debut novel, The Other Bennet Sister, avoids both of these traps. Her Mary is a psychologically rich and astute creation. An observant child who notices that she doesn’t measure up her Mother’s standards and that she isn’t either of her parents’ favourite. She also recognises, to a certain extent, that these standards are impossible – like Lizzie, she understands her parents’ characters and sees that they are the root of their unequal marriage – but at the same time she tries to live up to them, causing her to adjust her behaviour and the way she sees herself, after all, what child doesn’t want their parents’ approval? So, not unlike an Austen heroine, Mary’s journey is one of journey of self-actualisation, towards self-esteem and self-worth, not just towards love. Jane fans rejoice! I loved this thoroughly estimable, worthy homage to Austen. Exceptional storytelling and a true delight."Another emphasised and systematically ridiculed aspect of Mrs Bennet is her " nervous disease" or rather her tendency to use her alleged nervous weakness to attract compassion to herself, or else demanding that the family dance attendance on her, but ultimately failing to make herself loved. [31] There are characters particularly concerned about their health in all the novels of Jane Austen; those hypochondriacs that she calls "poor honey" in her letters. [32] These egocentric characters who use their real or imagined ailments to reduce all to them, seem to be inspired by Mrs Bennet, whose complaints about her health [31] had the ability to irritate Jane, [33] who speaks with certain ironic annoyance about it in her letters to her sister. [note 1] Jane fans rejoice! . . . Exceptional storytelling and a true delight." —Helen Simonson, author of the New York Times bestselling novels Major Pettigrew's Last Stand and The Summer Before the War Benson, Mary Margaret (1989). "Mothers, Substitute Mothers, and Daughters in the Novels of Jane Austen". Persuasions. No.11. pp.117–124 . Retrieved 12 February 2013. Pace: For me, the pace was too slow. I understood why the author included as much as she did, but I still felt like the same sentiment, emotions and evolution could have been achieved faster. There were too many surplus scenes. Later in the story (Volume 2, Chapter 19), it is revealed that Mr Bennet had only married his wife based on an initial attraction to her:

Absolutely magical. . . . It is a marvel that The Other Bennet Sister is [Hadlow’s] first novel. Her writing is elegant and wry, the story wise and engrossing. . . . [You'll] be surprised that you aren't actually reading Jane Austen.” This is a fantastic re-telling of a classic novel and its characters, reforming our view of Mary Bennet, and elevating her into a heroine in her own right. Mary’s emergence into a woman of intelligence and self-assuredness is delightful to read. Hadlow maintains the style and feel of the period, creating a wonderful sense of time and place. My reading of Pride and Prejudice will be forever transformed after reading this novel. A must for fans of Jane Austen, as well as for those who love novels that feature strong intelligent heroines of any periods Mary was ten when she understood this would never happen. It was a warm afternoon. Mrs. Bennet was taking tea with her sister, Mrs. Phillips. Jane and Lizzy had vanished at the sound of their aunt’s arrival, leaving Mary alone, perched on the sofa, twisting the ends of her hair in her hands, wishing desperately to be somewhere else. Neither her mother nor her aunt paid her any attention. Their conversation rambled on, ranging from the likelihood of Lady Lucas’s cook leaving her—“and just before the bottling season too”—to the probability of the vicar’s wife being brought to bed this very week; but when Mrs. Phillips dropped her voice to a whisper and leant forward to impart a particularly choice piece of gossip, Mrs. Bennet was suddenly alert to her daughter’s presence. Le Faye, Deirdre (2003). Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels. London: Frances Lincoln. ISBN 978-0-711-22278-6.I didn't want to pretend that, actually, she was a beauty in disguise. There was never a moment in my book where [there's a revelation like] "But why, Miss Bennett, you're really rather beautiful." You know, she I think she's a perfectly ordinary looking woman in a family of beauties. And I think that's very tough. Parrill, Sue (2002). Jane Austen on Film and Television: a Critical Study of the Adaptations. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-786-41349-2. Kuiper, Kathleen. "Bennet family". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc . Retrieved 2021-04-10. The very first sentence of this book drew me straight in. It had a nod to Pride and Prejudice which caught my attention but it is very much its own story which is what kept me reading. I loved the passing references to some of Jane Austen’s other novels (especially the discussion about muslin!) and I thought that Janice Hadlow had captured Austen’s tone well. The portrait that flows from this is a multi-faceted and decidedly cheering one. Hadlow echoes the wit and surprising heft of Jane Austen’s prose without ever stooping to simple imitation, and, amazingly, she manages to create her own versions of some of the most famous characters in English literature. Mary Bennet has as many post-novel futures as there are readers, but The Other Bennet Sister gives those readers one to cherish against all others.