Darcymania - still going strong

Phew. I started my new job Monday this week, and although it's good to have a reliable source of income again, working is - well, hard work. A lot of self-indulgence literature is needed to sweeten those half-hours of lunch. I have recently ordered a new batch of sequels to or reworkings of Jane Austen's novels - a kind of fanfiction in print, in other words. This has become a huge genre, and is a good source for light reads. One may wonder why Austen's work is especially popular in this context: other authors, such as the great Victorians, aren't nearly as much of a draw to sequel/prequel/story-from-another-point-of-view/story-reset-in-modern-times writers. But I'm not complaining: I like Austen, but not enough to feel protective of her or her characters, which makes me the ideal market for these kind of books.

One thing you can't help noticing when looking for light reads inspired by Austen at, say, Amazon, is the predominance of Pride and Prejudice-themed books in general, and Mr Darcy-themed books in particular. "Loving Mr Darcy", "To Conquer Mr Darcy", "Seducing Mr Darcy", "Mr Darcy's Tempation", "Mr Darcy's Obsession", "Mr Darcy's Decision", "Mr Darcy's Diary"... These are only a few of the mass of titles containing the name of Pride and Prejudice's famous hero. Now, I'm a little ambivalent when it comes to this trend. On the one hand, I like to see other women - the authors of these books are mostly female - admitting to having a literary crush and indulging their fantasies. It makes me feel less of a freak for salivating over entirely fictional male characters. And as heroes go, Mr Darcy isn't that bad. He's intelligent, interestingly flawed and capable of improving under the benevolent influence of his love for Elizabeth: a very romantic and appealing idea. Of course, the Davies TV adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice" did a lot for Mr Darcy, not only because of the famous "wet shirt scene" (it is really very chaste - I don't quite see what the fuss is about), but because it depicted Mr Darcy's sulky behaviour as owing more to a feeling of unease at social gatherings than to family pride. Mr Darcy, one feels, would absolutely hate to attend a modern cocktail party, and that is undoubtedly an endearing characteristic.

However, I have some problems with Mr Darcy as well: family pride is a flaw I have difficulty in forgiving anyone, and he does have it in spades. When he is acting as if Meryton society is beneath him, it's because he really thinks it is. Elizabeth's "inferior connections" pain him, and by that he means the fact that her uncles are mere - gasp - merchants and solicitors. He is only nice to the Gardiners later in the book because he wants to curry favour with Elizabeth. Moreover, I don't think he ever did properly apologise for separating Bingley from Jane. All this is forgivable, certainly, and I still feel friendly towards Mr Darcy, not least because he broke the mould for how a hero had to behave. But if, like me, one does not positively fancy Mr Darcy, then Darcymania can become a bit wearing.

My own interest in Austen sequels is shallow enough - I'm fascinated by the matchmaking element. Perhaps there is a reason why "Emma" is my favourite Austen novel. When I read a "Pride and Prejudice" sequel, it is because I want to see how the love lives of Georgiana, Kitty, Mary and the other girls who were unattached at the end of "P&P" develop. Little dramas within the already settled marriages are welcome as well, as long as everything turns out all right. Just because a marriage is happy doesn't mean that the couple in question has to spend all its time billing and cooing. I'm equally interested in sequels to the other Austen novels. However, the prevailing Darcy obsession being what it is, much of the Austen sequel/reworking market is focused on how good Mr Darcy is in bed with Elizabeth, and on novels which retell "P&P" from his viewpoint. I can understand the existence of the first kind of Darcy novels: though I find Darcy/Elizabeth sex scenes extremely embarrassing myself, this is obviously a matter of taste, and I would probably feel very differently if I read an equally graphic scene featuring one of my favourite Dickens villains who had finally managed to score. But a retelling of "P&P" from Darcy's viewpoint? Is it really necessary? Doesn't Austen manage to cover his angle quite well in the original? A retelling from the point of view of one of Austen's bêtes noires - Mrs Bennet? Mr Collins? Lady Catherine? - would yield more surprising insights. Yet there seem to be dozens of variations on the Darcy's diary-theme.

But why whine when it could have been so much worse. There are heroes who would have deserved an enormous female fan club much less. Knightleymania - now that would really have been hard to understand.