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The Strange Disappearance of Lizzy Bennet
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:date: 2023-07-24T16:51:33
:category: literature
:tags: review, austeniana, blogComment, fromReddit
(my comments on “`The Strange Disappearance of Lizzy Bennet`_” by HelenaMira, originally
published on Reddit_)
I really wanted to like this story. The beginning of the story
promised a good plot and I like neglectful!Mr Bennet and evil!Mrs
Bennet as a fresh alternative to otherwise generally boring canon
personalities. Mr Bennet unwillingly running all around England
looking for his daughter and scheming Mr Gardiner were both also
pleasure to observe.
And then finally Elizabeth meets Mr Darcy and it went down the
drain. Well, not immediately, although I have to confess that
their meeting was a great disappointment. There are situations in
life, where no matter what you say and no matter what are your
actual intentions, asking a girl to marry is just shamelessly
exploiting her. A true gentleman would in such a situation
leave his feelings and hopes for himself and help the girl to
achieve safety and establish her in a safe position in the
world. Yes, Georgiana needed a governess and I am quite certain
Elizabeth could very well be one, and the situation can slowly
and naturally arise to the “Jane Eyre”-like situation of a
governess turning into the Mistress of the House (especially
after revealing that she is a daughter of a gentleman, so there
is nothing wrong with marrying her).
Although this fortunate scene could be probably silently ignored
and pushed to the hidden wardrobe, where many fanfictions have
hidden their less fortunate parts, it was by far not all wrong
with the story. It seems to me that the author fell into that
classical shock of every other fanfiction writer that although
she hoped to write the biggest novel since Pride and Prejudice
itself, there is enough plot just for a very brief version of P&P
itself (124 713 words) or even less. But that is not enough for
the GREAT and SERIOUS novel she was writing, so the length must
be extended by endless repetition of the same three thoughts and
endlessly analysing what has been already talked to death. And
yes, the length (without any changing actual content) increased
to twice the P&P size (223,347) as yet another example that
the elimination of editors from the publishing process is an
unfortunate disaster from which the literary world won’t recover
for a long time. 220,000 words are more than Herman Melville’s
“Moby Dick” (215,839) and I have to ask you, Reader, does “The
Strange Disappearance of Lizzy Bennet” have the same amount of
plot and character development (or even deep thoughts)? It does
not.
In the beginning, I was prepared to give an enthusiastically
positive review of the story, but I am not still at the end of
this slog, and I question my decision to start.
.. _`The Strange Disappearance of Lizzy Bennet`:
https://meryton.com/aha/index.php?/topic/17995-the-strange-disappearance-of-lizzy-bennet-revised/
.. _Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/JaneAustenFF/comments/155t8zc/comment/jt9hkms/
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