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Book review
Pride and Promiscuity: the Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen
By Arielle Eckstut and Dennis Ashton
Fireside, 2001
Reviewed by Elsa Solender, immediate past President, JASNA
I groaned aloud when I first received an uncorrected proof copy of Pride and
Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen. An accompanying letter from a
publicist virtually dared me to provide a blurb for the cover.
I tucked the paperback into my briefcase to take along to a doctor’s appointment,
convinced that I would never agree. Still, courtesy demanded that I take a look at the
thing.
Once past the preface, I found myself chuckling aloud. Soon others in the waiting room
were staring oddly at my gleeful outbursts. By the time I finished the book, I could not
resist the challenge to provide the blurb, and I did.
The following words were extracted for quotation on the book jacket (I am told) from a
paragraph I submitted: ‘…irreverent and salacious…so wickedly funny, I
could not resist.’
Pride and Promiscuity is a wickedly funny collection of X-rated parodies.
It spoofs Jane Austen’s fiction by adding explicit, New Age sexuality to the
‘mix’ of issues she presented. At the same time, it pays implicit homage to its
source by echoing her incomparable style with astonishing fidelity. In addition, the
authors managed to retain the consistency of the Austen characters as they explored their
erotic potential. While nothing is predictable, everything is supportable. Thus, we have
some clues as to how Charlotte Lucas survived sex with Mr. Collins. A very naughty
charade hints at the reason Mr. Knightley took such a dislike to Frank Churchill. And we
witness how Anne Elliot was ‘persuaded’ to say no to Captain Wentworth. I leave
you to figure out how Emma achieved satisfaction in the chapter called ‘Emma
Alone.’
Co-author Arielle Eckstut is a literary agent. ‘Dennis Ashton’ is the nom
de plume for a New York-based playwright who may well be (if my detective work is
correct) David Auburn, whose Proof, a brilliant play about genius, has recently
made the rare leap from the Manhattan Theatre Club production to Broadway hit status.
Be forewarned: Pride and Promiscuity is not for the squeamish, nor for those who
prefer to clothe their Jane Austen in Victorian ruffles, bustles and stays, nor for those
who cherish the romantic prequels and sequels that – in the words of Deborah Kaplan
– ‘harlequinize’ Jane Austen.
Of course the authorial impulse for Pride and Promiscuity is not entirely
divorced from that of the writers of the scores of sequels and prequels that Jane
Austen’s fiction has stimulated; but this book is something else entirely. What
rescues it from banality is its abundant irony and the cultural cynicism with which the
sexual mores of both Austen’s age and our own are handled. Here is an entirely new
example of what Marjorie Garber has termed ‘The Jane Austen Syndrome’, as well
as another (ironic) example for her long list of instances of the best known Austen title
taking on ‘an unstoppable career of its own’.
We can only speculate as to what Jane Austen might think of these parodies. I believe
that those Austen enthusiasts who would have their Jane ‘Run mad as often as you
chuse; but [do]...not faint,’ may very well join me in laughing out loud while
reading it. They will find much wit and satiric insight here, some of it worthy of Swift
or Pope – or at least Maureen Dowd of The New York Times when she’s
writing about the Clintons.
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