The Murder of Mr. Wickham

 

I bought this a few years ago on a lark, thinking to pair something contemporary to Jane Austen July reading. But on reading the back cover I noted that it was, supposedly, a continuation of Emma, a title I’d not yet read. I set it aside, thinking I ought to have greater familiarity with those characters before this; and, let’s be honest, if this were truly a continuation of Emma, albeit a murder mystery, as hinted by the title, I expected there to be a whole lot of spoilers within it concerning the original, spoilers I’d rather not be party to.

How could there be spoilers concerning a 200-year-old book, one asks, one that has a number of screen and television adaptations? Well, I might opine that screen adaptations aren’t always entirely faithful to their source material; and, let’s face facts, after watching thousands of films and tv shows over the course of my life, not everything sticks. So, I set Claudia Gray’s 2022 novel aside for a spell.

To be honest, after last year’s reading of P.D. James’ Death Comes to Pemberley, I wasn’t expecting much. I’d long since come to the conclusion that, published author or not, whomever might hazard an homage to classical works, fan-fiction is fan-fiction. It’s someone’s desire to live in the world of their favourite characters.

I was rather shocked to discover that Claudia Gray (Amy Vincent, but I will continue to refer to her as her pen name, here) is very much one of those authors, and not in a way I might have expected. She has written a whole host of Star Wars novels. Seven, in fact. She is also a prolific fantasy writer, too. Luckily, I did not know this when I purchased this book, or else I may not have done. All prejudices included, I’m sure I would not have done. In my experience, fan-fiction, even that published by publishing houses, is not high-brow. It’s usually only tolerably proficient as literature, in my opinion. You may have a differing view, but I find that publishing houses understand that fans don’t particularly care how poetic the prose may be; indeed, fans prefer that the tale be cinematic, exciting, not layered with theme, nuance, and especially not with devices like unreliable narration. Fans want immersion. They want to live in that world. I’m pleased, then, that I did not know her past publishing history. That said, I wholly expected The Murder of Mr. Wickham to be an immersive experience for Janeites. (Yes, that is the term.) It is just that. So, if I’m not a fan of immersive fan-fiction, then why bother? Simply, I like murder mysteries. I don’t read them often, but I’d a stint when I read Ellery Queen Magazine, alongside Sci-fi pulp mags. Thus, why not? I’m game for a murder mystery set, unexpectedly, in Jane Austen’s Georgian world.

This does not say that something like The Murder of Mr. Wickham is ever going to become a literary classic. It is not Jane Austen. It lacks her biting wit. Her long exacting prose. Her slight of hand in expressing social commentary, when such a thing was not something a respectable lady was invited to do, especially in mixed company; and perhaps not even when not. But, as it turns out, Claudia Gray’s The Murder of Mr. Wickham is a tolerable pastiche of Jane Austen. In its favour it is modern as well: in its prose, social comment, in character depiction; and in its being up front in what it is: an homage to Jane Austen. Claudia Gray channels Jane Austen’s books well, in such a way as one need not have read Jane Austen’s works to appreciate her story (and Jane’s, as well).

I might add that while this is indeed a murder mystery, it is not an Agatha Christie mystery. Then again, perhaps it is. Agatha focussed a great deal on character. But, where Agatha focussed a great deal of energy on the actual murder investigation, Claudia Gray leans more on its characters histories. And there are a lot of characters in The Murder of Mr. Wickham. Those characters are not just drawn from Emma, either. Some are her own creation, the son of George Knightley and Emma Woodhouse of Emma , for instance, and the daughter of Henry Tilney and Catherine Morland of Northanger Abbey, who, it turns out, are the protagonists of all of Claudia Gray’s Mr. Darcy and Miss Tilney Mystery Series, four thus far.

Claudia Gray has taken some liberties: her book is not entirely true to Jane Austen’s books. Her story is a mishmash of the books and the movies. Colonel Brandon’s given name is never given in Sense and Sensibility, itself, but presented as Christopher in the 1995 film. There are other deviations, as well, some greater than others. Colonel Brandon’s ward in the book, for instance, was Eliza Williams; in the film Eliza was Colonel Brandon’s first love, and it was her illegitimate daughter Beth that was his ward. Claudia Gray uses the film’s plot devices and not the book’s; perhaps because, in this day and age, more people are familiar with the film than the book.

I mentioned that Claudia wove a number of Jane Austen’s characters into her story. Those were not only from Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility, as already noted, but also Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, and Mansfield Park. She has made a judgement call on when each of those books take place, in regards to Wickham.

The books were published as follows:

·       Sense and Sensibility (1811, probably set between 1792 and 1797)

·       Pride and Prejudice (1813, set in the early 19th century)

·       Mansfield Park (1814)

·       Emma (1816)

·       Northanger Abbey (1818, posthumous)

·       Persuasion (1818, posthumous)

None are specifically anchored in time, although dedicated Janeites might be able to suggest, with evidence from the texts, when each either does or possibly takes place. Claudia sets them as follows:

·       Pride and Prejudice (1797-1798)

·       Northanger Abbey (1800)

·       Emma (1803-1804)

·       Persuasion (1814-1815)

·       Mansfield Park (1816)

·       Sense and Sensibility (1818-1819)

Claudia sets out her reasons for this in the introduction. Regardless her reasons for the changes she makes, most concerning how they are connected to the eponymous Mr. Wickham, the story holds together well, in my opinion. The characters are stronger than in Death Comes to Pemberley, smarter, more emotional, more thoughtful, altogether more realistic. Honestly, I found Claudia’s story more entertaining than P.D. James’.

What is more poignant here, to me anyway, is that, although this is a murder mystery, it is altogether more a Jane Austen novel than it is an Agatha Christie one. Which is to say that a great deal of this story concerns itself with how Claudia imagines how these beloved characters’ lives unfold following the plots of their original stories – as it concerns the dastardly doings of the nefarious Mr. Wickham.

Which is kind of what’s it’s all about.

 

Death Comes to Pemberley

 

Jane Austen’s works are quite beloved, so beloved by some, that certain writers and readers alike just can’t get enough of them, even though her oeuvre have been exhausted for centuries. There were only six novels, after all (seven if you count Lady Susan), two others left unfinished, a host of Juvenilia, and poems, prayers, and letters. That’s not a lot, but she died young, only 41 years old.

Now considered one of English Literature’s greatest writers, it only stands to reason that more than a few people lament she had not published as many novels as Stephen King. Then again, it is, possibly, that want for more that has risen Jane so high in our imagination. P.D. James is one such person who did so wish. This comes as a bit of a surprise, given her fame as a mystery writer. But what one writes and what one reads and loves need not be the same. That may be a good thing. To read what one writes might haunt her, with bits of other crime novels creeping into her own, unexpectedly.

P.D. James has only written two novels (as far as I’m aware) that are not crime fiction. The first was Children of Men (1992), a rather chilling near-future SF novel, the other Death Comes to Pemberley (2011).

Death Comes to Pemberley is a continuation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, set six years after its events. It’s a pastiche, but also a Georgian mystery novel. (Excepting her Children of Men, it would appear that her apple does not fall far from her tree.) Events begin when Captain Martin Denny and George Wickham are passing through a wooded area of Pemberley, when Denny calls for the carriage to stop, he leaps down and runs into the wood. Wickham chases after him. The coachman hears shouts, but horrified by the cries, does not run into the wood. He raises the alarm, and Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam discover Denny’s bloodstained corpse, Wickham beside him, confessing the death is his fault.

An investigation follows. Then a court case. I’ll leave out the rest. You know: spoilers.

P.D. James received generally favourable reviews for her effort. Some were wildly enthusiastic.

I found the book an altogether enjoyable read. Those characters from P&P are true to Austen’s original; and I’ll hazard that P.D. James did her homework concerning English law of the period. But I’m not wildly enthusiastic about this book. It contains a healthy dose of deus ex machina, followed by lengthy denouement. The book fails, in that regard.

If you are unfamiliar with those terms, deus ex machina (god in the machine) is a plot device where an unsolvable conundrum is brought to resolution by an unexpected, or unlikely, occurrence. Denouement occurs after the climax of a novel, where all the dangling strands are drawn together. Consider Hercule Poirot unfolding a mystery by lengthy exposition. Too long a denouement generally points to the author either weaving an unsolvable narrative, leaving out details, or being so oblique in pointing to crucial clues so that the reader could not possibly solve the mystery. (I should not be so dishonest in using Poirot as an example; one must read Agatha Christie carefully; she is never so perfidious; the clues are there, but you must be an industrially observant reader to catcher her out: her most crucial clue may only be a fragment of a sentence.) These days, such practice is generally frowned on. It leaves a bad taste in readers’ mouths. Show, as we say, don't tell.

Is this novel worth your time? That depends: Are you a Jane Austen fan? Do you love novels where contemporary authors revisit, or carry on, the narratives of others? (I have: early Star Trek novels. Long ago. Before the glut. But only those concerning the original series. But that’s another tale.) If you do, you will likely love P.D. James’ Death Comes to Pemberley.

I found it lacking because of that deus ex machina.

Emma

 

I mentioned in an earlier post that, some time ago, I experienced certain BookTubers talking about a thing called Jane Austen July. As I’d never read Jane Austen, but had heard prominent Canadian authors declaring Jane Austen one of English Literature’s greatest writers, I decided to set old prejudices aside and read her most famous of novels, Pride and Prejudice. I was not disappointed. Her prose is precise, exacting, and beautiful. Sense and Sensibility followed, the following year. Then Mansfield Park.

This year, I read Emma, her longest novel. Like all her novels, on its surface it is about single ladies finding their marital match after nine-ish or so months of trials, tribulations, and misunderstandings. Emma is about relationships, sexual mostly, not that Jane Austen would be so bold as to stoop to anything remotely overt or torrid. It is Georgian at its core, after all.

The novel begins with Emma Woodhouse’s former governess’ marriage, to which Emma takes credit, professing that it was she who made the match, followed by Emma’s earnest vow that she, herself, should never marry. Honestly, she would have already, given Regency expectations (she’s 21); but whatever she might say, the real reason for her not having married (not a huge surprise, given that there is a limited supply of eligible bachelors in her village of Highbury) is probably her devotion to, and her caring for, her aging valetudinarian father.

What follows is what one might expect in an Austen novel. Emma snobbishly decides that she knows best, about just about everything. Following her supposed success of having matched Miss Taylor (now Mrs. Weston), she sets about making matches for her lesser status friend, Harriet Smith. Things go awry. Her match marries another. She sets to match her with another, and that is also a failure, for reasons not disclosed here.

All the while, she flirts. She passes judgement on others. She decides on the merit of others’ character, usually wrong, given her limited experience of romantic love and society. Indeed, Highbury is too small to even have dances, until Mrs. Weston’s dashing stepson comes to visit.

Emma is very much a comedy of manners. Emma butts into others’ business. Mr. Knightley despises gossip, but passes judgement on others once Emma expresses her opinion of them on to him. Mr. Knightley, otherwise, is the paragon of patient virtue. Emma’s sister, and Mr. Knightley’s sister-in-law, Isabella, often has little desire to speak on any subject, except her own children. Jane Fairfield appears distant and aloof. Harriet is easily convinced that she might marry above her station (one must not yourself pass judgement on past prejudices; it is what it was). Reverend Elton and his wife are snobs of the first order, he a flirt before marriage, but interested primarily in station and dowry; she, boasting, pretentious, and vulgar. I might opine that Miss Bates, an aging spinster, may be the best of the bunch: she is written for comic effect, is garrulous by nature, and quietly ridiculed behind her back for it by Emma, is hopelessly optimistic, despite her fallen circumstances, always putting others’ wellbeing and happiness before her own.

There is much more to Emma than meets the eye, however. Of course there is. There is subtle nuance: gendered space, for instance. Women spend most of their time “imprisoned” indoors, mostly in drawing rooms. Men’s scenes are primarily outdoors. It’s all about boundaries, opportunities, constraints. There are subtle hints about the “Irish Question.” The women worry what might happen to the Dixons while in “Bally-craig,” in County Antrim, in Ulster, the site of a great deal of upheaval in 1798.

Jane Austen never comes out and pontificates on a subject, but the mere mention in her novels of slavery and Ireland and relatives being in the navy, and their long absences expected, of money troubles, of entailed estates, and inheritances, and doweries, speaks of greater depth than mere romances. Jane Austen is not chic lit.

Am I done with Jane Austen for the year now that July is coming to a close? Yes and no. I’ve begun a contemporary novel, The Murder of Mr. Wickham, by Claudia Gray. It’s something of a sequel to Emma. And Pride and Prejudice, and Northanger Abbey, and Mansfield Park, and Sense and Sensibility. It’s one of a series of murder mysteries set in Jane Austen’s works, this one in Donwell Abbey, Mr. Knightley’s ancestral seat, about 20 years after the events of Emma. It’s an easy read, thus far (I’m only a couple chapters in), the prose good, with characters from the above works introduced without heavy-handed exposition. Ms. Grey (Amy Vincent) obviously loves Jane Austen’s works. Which is surprising, given her other works: She’s written several Star Wars novels. And Fantasy novels. One doesn’t expect a science fiction and fantasy writer to also write Agatha Christie inspired Jane Austen murder mysteries. But she does.

I’ve also begun Lucy Worsley’s celebrated biography of Jane, Jane Austen at Home. Again, I’m only a chapter in, but it’s obviously meticulously researched, as one would expect of the Chief Curator for Historic Royal Palaces, and the host of God knows how many thought-provoking television documentaries. She is a self described Janeite.

Jane Austen July

 

Jane Austen, by her sister Cassandra, c. 1810

Most anyone reading this might wonder what the hell Jane Austen July is. It’s rather self-explanatory, I imagine. It’s simply a celebration of Jane Austen’s works in the month of July. It’s nothing official, just something that some Booktubers dreamed up some years ago.

It’s also something I began “participating” in some years ago (four years ago, to be exact, at time of writing), if participating is proper usage here, considering my depth of participation, or lack thereof, as it were: it’s not like I’m actively engaged in some group activity, aside from reading something by Jane Austen during said month. There are those who do participate in the Booktube community, in “group readings” and discussions, over on certain Booktubers’ Patreans, and the like. I do not. I just like that I might make the personal dedication to finally consuming the body of work of one of the most celebrated authors of English Lit canon.

Why? Why not. It’s about time I’d set my mind to finally read them, given my age. I’ve no excuse as to why I waited so long to do so, other than the usual male prejudice against what certain males might label “chick lit.” Is it? Chick lit? Her books were most certainly written by a woman, obviously, and originally published as such, as well, under the anonymous pseudonym “By a Lady.”  But I would now (now that I’ve read her) never consider her oeuvre an example of that now somewhat maligned category of modern marketing. It is serious literature and should be considered such. It’s riven with social commentary, to say nothing of complex characters, and biting wit. It matters not a whit that its subject matter focuses on women’s lives (Jane was a women, after all, and wrote what was within her experience), and their deathly serious pursuit of the best matrimonial match they can gain (woe to those, in her time, who did not). Are they sentimental fiction? They are indeed novels of sensibility, but they are also excellent examples of 19^th Century literary realism. If you are still of a mind that works about women are only about women, and should only be read by women, it’s high time you divorced yourself of the notion. Henry James wrote novels about women. So did Thomas Hardy. I’d neglected classical works by women for far to long. Better late than never, I say. 

Back to the subject at hand. What must one do to participate in Jane Austen July? It’s simple, really:

1.      Read one of Jane Austen’s six novels

2.      Read something by Jane Austen that is not one of her main six novels

3.      Read a non-fiction work about Jane Austen or her time

4.      Read a retelling of a Jane Austen book OR a work of historical fiction set in Jane Austen’s time

5.      Read a book by a contemporary of Jane Austen

6.      Watch a direct screen adaptation of a Jane Austen book

7.      Watch a modern screen adaptation of a Jane Austen book

In truth, no one need read anything other than a single one of her novels to have participated; anything more is a bonus.

What do I intend? I’m reading Emma this year. In prior years I’ve read Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Mansfield Park. I’ve also read “Lady Susan,” and “The Watsons” in years past. I’ve also read Death Comes to Pemberly, by P.D. James. Longbourn, by Jo Baker, was a wonderful discovery, well worth your time. It illuminates the lives of the servants of Pride and Prejudice.

I’ve cheated some, truth be told: I’ve read “contemporaries” published outside Jane’s lifespan (1775 to 1817) during Jane Austen July. But, seeing that I’m not involved in JAJ in any official capacity, I tend to do what I choose. Those supposed contemporaries were Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (1847), and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (also1847). The year I read Jane Eyre I also read Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), by Jean Rhys, a reimagining of Charlotte’s classic novel.

Personally, I believe participation in this “event” is an excellent use of your leisure time, whether you’ve read Jane Austen or not. If you’re a fast reader you could, conceivably, read most, if not all, of her novels in the course of the month; if not, as I said, one will do. I believe delayed gratification is a good thing. One per year gives one something to look forward to. It also gives one time and licence to become acquainted with other Regency writers: Sir Walter Scott, for instance; or Robbie Burns. Playwrights and poets are as admissible as novelists, so indulge in a whole host of Romantics, if you’ve a mind to.

As to contemporaries, there’s a whole host to choose from: Bridget Jones Diary, Where the Rhythm Take You, Unequal Affections, The Other Bennet Sister, etc. o nuts, if you will, with Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, if the mood takes you.

Whatever. There are not hard and fast rules. Unless you wish to follow those noted above; so, I suppose there are hard and fast rules. I just choose to ignore them and colour outside the lines.

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! – When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice