"It is a truth universally acknowledged that hasty marriages are nightmares of bardasht karo, the gospel of tolerance and compromise, and that it’s always us females who are given this despicable advice. I despise it.”
I was cautious before I could even properly
decide how I felt about this book since I had recently read a horrible desi adaptation of P&P. There’s only so many
versions of the same story you can read, waiting for at least one of them to be
good. But I was pleasantly surprised, because Soniah Kamal, who has already
written a short story that I loved, managed to do good things with
Austen’s characters.
I’m not going to bother actually going over
the story, because I’m assuming that most readers checking out a desi P&P
adaptation already have some idea of what the original is all about. Of course,
with adaptations the possibility of creating something great is as present as
doing it all wrong. Because if the new setting doesn’t work, it can fall apart
spectacularly since the reader has an original source to which they are
constantly comparing. But when it works, it can be such an experience.
Kamal veers closer to the latter, managing
to create an authentic setting while still retaining most of the dynamics that
Austenites so loved in the original. It’s already obvious that the Pakistani
marriage system closely resembles that of the times in which the Bennet sisters lived, but the ways in which Kamal creates a
parallel world, taking into account Jane Austen’s setting while also remaining
conscious of Pakistan’s current reality, really shows. The most obvious example
of this is how Alys, our Lizzie Bennett, is in her thirties and unmarried. Since
the age of marriage can now reasonably be mid-twenties for girls in Pakistan,
it isn’t until you hit your thirties that you’re considered way past your marriageable
date. These slight changes show that we have an author who wanted to create the
same dynamics but in a set-up that was faithful to her setting, for which I gave
her full marks.
Soniah Kamal’s characters are also
refreshingly original, which is a funny thing to admit about an adaptation,
since you already bring so much of what you know about the characters from the
source story. The way she explains why people are the way they are show how
sympathetic she is to the characters she creates, especially Mrs Bennet, whose frequent
insistence about her daughters’ marriages is shown as more than just silliness
and swooning. It is, in fact, quite amazing how the author manages to lend
credibility to characters in whose actions I didn’t place much stock when I
first read Austen’s version. This is especially true for Sherry, the Charlotte
to our Lizzy, who is a forty year old unmarried woman frequently reminded by
her brothers and parents about what a burden she is to the family. As such, her
decision to marry a man whom our heroine has turned down so recently makes more
sense. Not only do these actions feel more realistic the way Kamal has
explained it, she has also managed to introduce great dynamics within the
female relationships she has explored (mother daughter, sisters, friends),
which is always a plus for me.
Of course there were a few things I didn’t
care much for. My personal pet peeve, that of the italicization of the desi
word, very faithfully popped up, but once again that argument of whom the story
is written for followed soon after. Since this story has been published by a
United States publisher, one could argue that it’s written for a non-desi
audience. I know that argument, I get it, and I’m still pissed, so there’s
that.
There’s also the fact that the story came
very, very close to being very heavy handed in its rants about patriarchy and sexism.
I’m usually always up for stories which are smart and aware of all these topics
which are very close to my heart, but I prefer that these things be embedded
into the story itself, rather than delivered verbatim through the mouths of my
characters. I think what was ultimately the saving grace of this story was that
the person who expressed such frequent and strong opinions was Alys, a
character who is supposed to be strongly opinionated anyway. Also, of course,
the story doesn’t tilt all the way over into being didactic, but just skirts
the edges a little, in ways which I can find a little forgivable.
‘But,
Miss Alys,’ Tahira said resolutely, ‘there’s no nobler career than that of
being a wife and mother.’
‘That’s
fine.’ Alys shrugged. ‘As long as it’s what you really want and not what you’ve
been taught to want.’
I also realize that I’ve barely talked
about the Darcy, or Valentine Darcee, as he is known in this story. But a month
after having read the story, I remember absolutely nothing about him. And a
story where one of the two major protagonists is so forgettable as to be barely
worth discussing did something wrong. I do remember liking him well enough when
I read this story, but the fact that I can’t think of a single scene worth
mentioning about him should explain why I overall gave the book three stars.
‘Unfortunately,
I don’t think any man I’ve met is my equal, and neither, I fear, is any man
likely to think I’m his. So, no marriage for me.’
It’s still a good book, no doubt about it. Smart
and witty and aware of the ways in which marriage works in a Pakistani setting.
For someone who is in the early years of their reading habits, or someone
looking for a cute, desi book about relationships, or even someone who wants a
pleasant time pass, I’d definitely say give this a go. Recommended.