"He has been bludgeoned..."

Started new job! Yay!

Took a spectacular fall onto concrete on July 4th. Skinned knee, twisted wrist and ankle, my left palm looks like I took a grater to it, and I skinned the tops of my feet!  That's the one that amazes me. Yes, it was a total faceplant.

So, right. Book! Death Comes to Pemberley.

Tiny spoiler alert (sorry):

But I am upset that it isn't Wickham who bites it.  I would have cared more about him.

For that matter I would care about all of them a lot more if they were the characters I love and not just a story of people with the same names as characters I love.

Elizabeth isn't witty. Darcy isn't scathing. Jane and Bingley have no personalities at all.  Neither does Lydia, who we don't see much of and has lost all spark, made into this screaming, unreasonable, but still vain caricature.  And Colonel Fitzwilliam, the almost other contender for Elizabeth in P&P, is now the creepy guy with no alibi.  I smell red herring.

I feel I'm like those fans who are always upset that the movie version doesn't exactly fit the original.  Or the remake is wrong.  Or something.  There had to be changes in the characters.  Of course there had to be.  But without the sparkling wit those characters had in P&P they don't work as characters.  James does mystery, which is interesting and I am continuing to read for that story.  But the characters have none of the intelligent spark.

Aaaaand, horror of horrors, there has been no fainting to keep count of! Though I guess that part does fit the original characters.  Lizzie and Jane weren't the fainting sorts.

Death Comes to Pemberly and I will be disappointed in Lydia Wickham

Okay.  Not exactly gothic novel that is hundreds of years old, but I have come to the conclusion, given that I am reading other things at the moment, that I define horrid novels, so I'm expanding.  I know.  Big revelation, right?  My blog.  Therefore write what I want.  So now that I have removed my own self imposed restrictions, I'm reading one of my favorite authors, P.D. James.  And it's a sequel to Pride and Prejudice!  It doesn't get more awesome than that.

There is the return of one of my favorite characters in literature.  Of course I mean Lydia!  Who is great fun and a bit self-destructive and foolish in the original novel, but independent and strong.

So it is 6 years later and everything is happy and then Lydia rides to Pemberley in hysterics because Wickham is dead.  That is all I know.

What I suspect is that no matter how wonderful P.D. James is, I will still be disappointed in Lydia, largely because I have my own hopes for her.  I see her and Wickham not working out and her running and diving gleefully into the demi-monde a la Harriet Wilson--Greatest courtesan of her age.

 Lydia would be great at it.  Harriet had freedom, independence, and her own money.  She was involved with Dukes and Princes and routinely told them where to stick it if they annoyed her.

Harriet wasn't acknowledged by the virtuous women of the age, but she still was a trendsetter and set the styles they wore. She was in the newspapers and gossip columns as if she were royalty, and her every move (and her clothes) was watched like we watch celebrities today.

If I were to write a sequel to Pride and Prejudice it would involve the demi-monde where Lydia rules and is involved in scandals. I'd give her a happy ending, like when Elizabeth Armitage married Charles Fox.  It would be gloriously wicked and fun. Sticky, stuffy Darcy and Elizabeth could go be boring somewhere else.