What happened after Fanny Price's marriage to Edmund Bertram? Here, by the author of "Eliza's Daughter", is a witty sequel to Jane Austen's classic novel.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By Raina
Format:Paperback
Well, where should I begin? This book is really bad! There I've said it!! Miss Aiken does not find it necessary to let Fanny appear at all and to give Edmund more than four or five lines before he disappears for the rest of the book!! They are the main characters of Mansfield Park, for crying out loud, they are the ones we're interested in, at least they are parts of what we are interested in. Also, this book should carry the subtitle "A vindication of the Crawfords", because Mary and Henry are basically depicted as reformed, misunderstood and victims of other people's mean spite and Fanny's jealousy and lack of interest in Henry. My heart bleeds for them..... In short, the author ignores every single one of Austen's obvious intents with the characters. The Crawfords are bad, unfeeling people, and Fanny and Edmund are the nice, centrally interesting people.
The hero and Heroine of this book, Susan Price and Tom Bertram, are a stale rehash of Fanny and Edmund,(without having half their depth, interest or likeability) involved in the same aborted relationships with Mary and Henry..
Also, the author has removed every single possible source of intersting conflicting emotions with removing Fanny and Edmund out of the range of the Crawfords. IT would have been worth my while to read the book if Fanny and Edmund would have been allowed to rise to the challenge to deal with the dying Mary Crawford. As it is, the book has not one character that kept me interested, and the only reason I finished the book was to find out if Joan Aiken would be as obvious as I thought she would be.
To summarise: the book was insipid, rather boring, totally predictable and the matches she made( Tom and Susan- oh please) were farfetched as coming with no prior sign of liking on both sides. The author failed to make me care about even one of the characters... Read Mansfield Park, it is so far superiour to this book...
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
There are thousands of books which have been written as sequels to Jane Austen's novels. Some are good, some are bad and some are just dreadful. This is one of the good ones in my opinion. It starts a few years after the conclusion of `Mansfield Park'. Sir Thomas Bertram is dead.
Edmund and Fanny are happily married with small children and Susan Price - Fanny's sister - is the indolent Lady Bertram's right hand woman. Edmund and Fanny go off to the West Indies to deal with the Bertram family's business interests there. Mary Crawford - a much mellowed Mary Crawford - returns to the area. She is seriously ill and has very little time left to live.
What follows is a gentle story which shows Susan to have all of Fanny's strong principles but more fire. She disagrees with Julia Yeates - formerly Bertram - on many occasions when Julia attempts to take over at Mansfield Park and to squash what she sees as Susan's pretensions.
I feel the book is faithful to the spirit of the original and that Jane Austen would have recognised her own characters in this work by Joan Aiken. I loved the catastrophic excursion to look for Roman ruins which reminded me of the excursion to Box Hill in Jane Austen's `Emma'. I recommend this book to anyone who would like to know what happened to Susan Price.
Edmund and Fanny are happily married with small children and Susan Price - Fanny's sister - is the indolent Lady Bertram's right hand woman. Edmund and Fanny go off to the West Indies to deal with the Bertram family's business interests there. Mary Crawford - a much mellowed Mary Crawford - returns to the area. She is seriously ill and has very little time left to live.
What follows is a gentle story which shows Susan to have all of Fanny's strong principles but more fire. She disagrees with Julia Yeates - formerly Bertram - on many occasions when Julia attempts to take over at Mansfield Park and to squash what she sees as Susan's pretensions.
I feel the book is faithful to the spirit of the original and that Jane Austen would have recognised her own characters in this work by Joan Aiken. I loved the catastrophic excursion to look for Roman ruins which reminded me of the excursion to Box Hill in Jane Austen's `Emma'. I recommend this book to anyone who would like to know what happened to Susan Price.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Marie
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I'd forgotten about Joan Aiken's great Austen-sequels, and very much enjoyed reading this novel, recently.
I loved the way that Aiken took the orginal story (seen from the viewpoint of the Bertram family) and helped us view it from another angle, opening out the characters of Mary and Henry Crawford, who though no "angels" still, were allowed to develop into more rounded characters.
Tom Bertram (now the head of the family) also does some maturing, through his reconnection with a dying Mary Crawford, who, though greatly changed still shows a spark of her old devilish spirit in some comments of hers shortly before she expires. Susan's fresh and unjudgemental viewpoint on the previous history of the "dreadful" Crawford pair, helps us to see the situation in an adjusted light. Reassuringly some of characters stay just as they were - notably Lady Bertram, and her daughter Julia, still lazy and waspish respectively!
Susan and Tom marry, in the end, after being at loggerheads for most their history, after gradually coming to see and respect the value of each other. Maria, the disgraced elder Bertram daughter does some growing of her own, too - away from the influence of her family; and altogether the story closes satisfactorily, as any good "Austen write-alike" should!
It's such a shame the Joan Aiken (God bless her) has passed on now, but I hope reprints will keep her quality and well-researched work alive for our enjoyment for many years yet.
This novel, along with the rest of her sequels, will join my "Austen" collection, permanently. I can say no more.
I loved the way that Aiken took the orginal story (seen from the viewpoint of the Bertram family) and helped us view it from another angle, opening out the characters of Mary and Henry Crawford, who though no "angels" still, were allowed to develop into more rounded characters.
Tom Bertram (now the head of the family) also does some maturing, through his reconnection with a dying Mary Crawford, who, though greatly changed still shows a spark of her old devilish spirit in some comments of hers shortly before she expires. Susan's fresh and unjudgemental viewpoint on the previous history of the "dreadful" Crawford pair, helps us to see the situation in an adjusted light. Reassuringly some of characters stay just as they were - notably Lady Bertram, and her daughter Julia, still lazy and waspish respectively!
Susan and Tom marry, in the end, after being at loggerheads for most their history, after gradually coming to see and respect the value of each other. Maria, the disgraced elder Bertram daughter does some growing of her own, too - away from the influence of her family; and altogether the story closes satisfactorily, as any good "Austen write-alike" should!
It's such a shame the Joan Aiken (God bless her) has passed on now, but I hope reprints will keep her quality and well-researched work alive for our enjoyment for many years yet.
This novel, along with the rest of her sequels, will join my "Austen" collection, permanently. I can say no more.
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