{"id":6779,"date":"2016-04-28T11:56:42","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T11:56:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=6779"},"modified":"2016-05-10T11:27:32","modified_gmt":"2016-05-10T11:27:32","slug":"eligible-by-curtis-sittenfeld","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=6779","title":{"rendered":"Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published by The Borough Press UK\/Random House US, April 2016<\/strong><\/p>\n

528\/512pp, hardback,\u00a314.99 \/$28<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Elsbeth Lindner<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As guilty pleasures go, Curtis Sittenfeld\u2019s update on Pride & Prejudice<\/em> takes some beating. Among the other contenders in the Austen Project (‘ a major series in which six contemporary authors including Joanna Trollope,\u00a0Val McDermid and Alexander McCall Smith reimagine the six complete novels of Jane Austen’) Sittenfeld and McDermid seem to be making the best job of a questionable enterprise.<\/p>\n

While the timeless perfection of the original creates the rock-solid foundation for Eligible<\/em>, this modern version of the Bennet family story, set in Cincinnati, is a clever and diverting revision, substituting CrossFit training, IVF and reality television shows for Austen\u2019s periodisms. Indeed one dimension of Eligible<\/em>\u2019s charm is in observing Sittenfeld\u2019s choices of contemporary tropes, alongside what she chose to jettison in the cause of twenty-first century plausibility.<\/p>\n

No longer does Darcy dash off to salvage Lydia\u2019s good name, however he does restore family unity by using his medical knowledge (he\u2019s a \"\"<\/a>brain surgeon) to convince a rather less likeable modern-day Mrs Bennet that a transgender husband may yet be acceptable for one of her daughters. Darcy\u2019s sister Georgie, whose role has been diminished, has not been seduced by Wickham (journalist Jasper Wick in Sittenfeld\u2019s tale) however is suffering from anorexia. Most striking, probably, is Liz\/Elizabeth\u2019s final decisive act when, subsuming her prejudice and overlooking Darcy\u2019s pride, she proposes to him.<\/p>\n

While critics have pointed out Sittenfeld\u2019s failure to modernize Austen\u2019s larger satire on wealth, there\u2019s still plenty of attention here to money, snobbery and prejudice of many kinds (racial, sexual, class). Best of all this book is fast, funny and very tidily crafted. Many Austen fans will naturally feel protective towards the undimmed brilliance of the original, but this new facsimile does a good job of adding fresh layers of compulsion to one of the most re-readable novels in the English canon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Elsbeth Lindner<\/p>\n

While the timeless perfection of the original creates the rock-solid foundation for \u200bEligible<\/em>, this modern version of the Bennet family story, set in Cincinnati, is a clever and diverting revision, substituting CrossFit training, IVF and reality television shows for Austen\u2019s periodisms. Indeed one dimension of Eligible<\/em>\u2019s charm is in observing Sittenfeld\u2019s choices of contemporary tropes, alongside what she chose to jettison in the cause of twenty-first century plausibility […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6779"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6814,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6779\/revisions\/6814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}