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Janice Hadlow based her novel The Other Bennet Sister on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It is what is termed as an adaptation but fits into the spin off genre. Spin off novels based on Jane Austen usually means Pride and Prejudice and what happens to Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy in the years after the novel ends. I have dipped into one or two of those type. They are usually wordy and have an over use of adjectives in an attempt to sound literary and disguise the fact that the writer is not Jane Austen and that their take is always rather childish and flimsy. I am always disappointed with this genre . I can’t see its worth. I decided to watch the first episode merely because I wanted to have a view about what other people in the Jane Austen world would undoubtedly talk about.
The first episode changes the stories focus to Mary Bennet, played by Ella Bruccolerie, the third and middle of the Bennet sisters, set within the parameters of the original novel.Her other sisters appear, Fitwilliam Darcy makes an appearance and Mrs Bennet, the incomparable Ruth Jones, features strongly from the start. The matriarch whose aim in life is to get her daughters married becomes ferocious in her efforts to get Mary settled with an eligible husband. The ineffectual Mr Bennet is played by Richard E Grant and he plays his part well in his interactions with Mary which is, as in the novel, trying to limit the affect Mary has on an audience with her pianoforte playing and singing, which is average and not performance worthy. Mary embarrasses the rest of her family.
Mary is not deamed attractive like her other sisters. She does not have the feminine skills that a well bred young lady in search of a husband requires. At the end of the first episode my thoughts were that,yes, the focus is on Mary and we discover Marys feelings and thoughts about herself and others but the rest of the Pride and Prejudice story was flat, a mere ghost of the original. Almost a necessary backdrop.However once Mr Bennet has died, and the original story is left behind, the story of Mary really takes off. I became gripped.
There are not many adaptations and spin offs of original novels that have been successful over the years, especially written hundreds of years after the original. A writer in a different century can’t possibly copy or continue the original. The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys a feminist post modern novel, a spin off from Charlotte Brontes novel Jane Eyre, explores marriage from the point of view of Bertha Mason, Mr Rochester’s mad wife in the attic. Racism and feminism are the key themes. It is an excellent novel which stands on its own.
This adaptation of Pride and Prejudice explores women’s lives and opportunities or the lack of them in the 18th century. It also explores what it is to be human at any time, learning to believe in yourself and making choices never mind how hard given the society you live in. As such I think this adaptation can stand alone as a piece of literature. A difficult thing to pull off.
There were clues that made me think of the 18th century feminist writer Mary Wollstonecroft that has been so important to our attitudes and the beliefs we have today.
Mr Ryder, played by Laurie Davidson is wealthy and inherits an estate. He offers marriage to Mary at the end of the series, only after first, earlier, suggesting they go off to tour Europe and live in Rome together without getting married. A kind of pseudo nod to Wollestoncroft. An idea at the time that would have destroyed her.
Gracechurch Street in The City of London today.
The other thing that suggested Wollstonecroft to me was the attitude of the Gardeners, played by Indira Varma and Richard Coyle the Bennet sisters aunt and uncle who live in Gracechruch Street in the City of London. Gracechurch Street was an area of warehouses, multiculturalism and non comformist religions such as the Quakers and the French Huguenots.. The Gardeners lived in. this area dominated by the East India Company offices and warehouses. An area of enlightenment ideas that perculated up into society from the coffee houses. The Gardeners wanted Mary to be happy on her own terms and do whatever she wanted in life.
In the first episode Mary dances twice with the local optician at a ball in Meryton to the strong disaproval of her mother. An optician was a lowly tradesman. Mary was not following and seemed to be unware of the decorum young ladies of her class should follow. Later in the series she meets him again in a London Park, when both have taken their own course in life and they stop to talk. He suggests that to be happy Mary should be herself. An echo of the Gardiner’s wishes for Mary.
The entitled, unintelligent Mr Collins, played played supperbly by Ryan Sampson, of the book starts out as boorish as we all think he is but he develops , appears to be on course to change and becomes reflective. He begins to understand other peoples view of himself. He is aware of his failing and unhappy marriage to Charlotte Lucas, played by Anna Fenton Garvey who herself is excruciatingly unhappy with her lot too. Mary gives Mr Collins some advice to look for the good in Charlotte. The viewer begins to think there might be some hope for Mr Collins and Charlotte. Mary who had been reading Fordyces Sermons a book Mr Collins approved of intitially and lead her to focus on intelligence, piety and living a disciplined life.Mr Collins in his turn appears to be developing an understanding of true human relationships gives Mary the advice to be hersef and perhaps in so doing was advising against the strict limiting views of Fordyce. Another suggestion that mary should let herself be free. This refrain echoes throughout the series.
Mary also learns to stand up to her mother in the end and tells her that she wants to be herself and be happy as an unmarried woman. She finds London and living with the Gardiners liberating.Mary becomes the governess to the Gardiner children. She gets a job. She wants to explore what London has to offer. Both very Mary Wollestonecroft.
Mary Wolstonecraft, thought marriage was a form of legal prostitution in the 18th century. For a marriage to be on equal terms between the man and the woman, women should be educated as boys. They should be able to take up careers in medicine, science and education. Inheritance should favour women as much as men, whoever is the eldest sibling in the family. They should be able to run businesses. By default, “shore wives’” the wives of Royal Naval Captains and officers often remained at home and became proxy financiers, business women and landlords while their husbands were at sea often for years at a time.Jane Austen through her own naval brothers would have known about women like this. Only when women who are equal in the ways Wollstonecraft described , she thought love can truly flourish among equals. If women are only good for sewing, playing the piano , dancing and looking pretty, with no understanding and conversation then what worth are they? There are characters in Jane’s novels that can be seen as examples. Lady Bertram in Mansfield Park is an example.
Not only did Janice Hadlow explore the enlightenment ideas of Mary Wollstonecart about relationships she includes the Romanticism that William Wordsworth developed with his friend Samuel Coleridge. Mr Hayward, played byDonal Finn ,recites , William Wordsworth's, Composed upon Westminster Bridge September 3rd, 1802, to Mary Bennet. He also recites lines from Tintern Abbey to her during a later, pivotal scene in a rowing boat. This helps Mary develop an emotional awakening. Romanticism and the Enlightenment are often seen as opposites but I think in many ways they are two sides of human experience that can go together.
When in The Lake District walking up to the top of Scafell Pike, the tallest mountain in England, Mary experiences a storm which moves her emotionally. The diaries of Dorothy Wordsworth, come to mind. Mary is walking in the footsteps of Dorothy.
Janice Hadlow, has looked at the plight of women in the 18th century and explores what life was like for women by way of Mary Bennet, the least likely of the Bennet sisters to ever marry or make something of herself.
The Gardiners eventually reach The lake District. In the original novel, when they travel to Derbyshire with Elizabeth they intend to go on to The Lake District but that journey is never taken.In this story they take Mary to The lakes where other friends and acquaintances also gather. The lakes are one of my favourite places and although Snowdonia, the Welsh mountains, are used for filming, the lakes and mountains are spectacular. It is here the rivalry between Mr Ryder and Mr Hayward for Mary’s hand is closely fought.
Only after rejecting the idea of ever marrying, and deciding to make her own way by being a governess and deciding to be happy by herself and confident in herself does she find freedom. It is then that marriage to Mr Hayward who all along has wooed her with poetry and listened to what she has to say becomes possible. He himself had given up the prospect of marrying Mary mainly because the land owning wealthy Mr Ryder had finally proposed. His humility and willingness to want happiness for Mary above all else won the day. They had both learned to let go and believe in themselves before marriage was possible it seems.
The story of The Other Bennet Sister is set in the 18th century but its depth of human understanding and development ,just like in Jane Austen’s novels such as Emma teach us something about life and living today. There is good advice. I think this series and supposedly the book , which I haven’t read and now must, teaches us something. If all spin off stories and novels could be as good.
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