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Friday, October 12, 2007
Me and Mr. Darcy by Alexandra Potter
I just finished reading Me and Mr. Darcy by Alexandra Potter. It’s a book I bought in August in preparation for two whole days that Johnathan would be out working. It didn’t end up happening that way because Johnathan worked from home for most of the first day, and the second day, I napped most of it, so as it turned out, I didn’t finish the four or five books I was expecting to finish during the trip; I didn’t even finish one until the plane ride home.
That said, I did pick up and start reading this book on and off over the last month, and finally read it cover to cover in earnest over the last two days. I would have finished sooner (it’s not a difficult or slow read), but I kept putting down the book in disbelief. For those who haven’t read it and would like not to have their reading of it spoiled, I’ll put this behind a… thingy. I don’t know what it’s called. Anyway.
My disbelief was fueled by the fact that the main character kept having run-ins with Mr. Darcy. Not just a man with the surname of Darcy, but the genuine flesh-and-blood representation of the Mr. Darcy of Pride & Prejudice fame. The interludes would only happen when she was alone and separated from her tour group, and would end quickly with her being jolted back to reality by someone else. I found it entirely unbelievable. We’re supposed to subscribe to the magic, I’m assuming, but I really wasn’t buying into it.
Something else I found a bit grating was the very, very obvious parallels to the aforementioned book. Discussing every woman’s obsession with Mr. Darcy is not at all a problem to me, but the only thinly veiled likenesses to the book without any mention or recognition of this fact until nearly the end of the novel was also a bit annoying to me. I love Pride & Prejudice – I truly do, but I would rather read the book itself rather than a copy of it set in modern time with added alcohol and hallucinations.
The book wasn’t bad, but I found it a little forced. I knew there would be a Darcy-type character, but in the guise of “magic” or as I found it more like, hallucination, it didn’t work for me. I think this book is going into the give-away pile because I doubt I’ll find myself wanting to read it again.
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