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Book review
Pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field

Piatkus 2000

Persuading Annie 

Piatkus 2001

by Melissa Nathan

Reviewed by Ruth Williamson

How many of us have devised scenarios in which Jane Austen’s characters are transported to our own time and space? Melissa Nathan, a journalist for a national women’s magazine in Britain, has produced two novels owing everything to the characters and plots of Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion.

In Ms Nathan’s debut novel (Pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field) the scene is set when the eponymous Jasmin – also a journalist – auditions for the part of Elizabeth Bennet in a stage production of Pride and Prejudice being performed for charity. She overhears herself being described by famous actor/director Harry Noble as ‘More of an Ugly Sister than a Lizzy Bennet’ but he soon discovers his mistake and begins to puzzle her by staring at her repeatedly.

The device of having the characters in the novel play their corresponding roles from Austen on stage is far from original. In this case, though, it does serve to underline just who represents which Austen character in what could otherwise be a confusing assembly of personalities.

Perhaps the most problematic element facing anyone seeking to ‘update’ Jane Austen’s plot is to find a social disaster of appropriate proportions to parallel the Lydia/Wickham elopement. Melissa Nathan’s solution is an extramarital affair involving her version of the Lydia figure, with repercussions for her extended family. In context this crisis seems to work, as the reader is swept along wondering how the hero will extricate Jasmin and her family from their predicament. Each scene in this novel has a familiar look as we move smoothly from play rehearsals to parties, all of which reflect those social encounters and dances we know so well in Pride and Prejudice.

Pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field is an enjoyable romp, sprinkled with amusing one-liners, such as when Harry Noble, actually trying to recommend himself to Jasmin the journalist, tells her he has ‘fallen for the charms of an unknown hack’. So, does this new novel stand on its own merits as a work of fiction? It does, although its appeal is rather like that of a soufflé - light, fluffy, slips down easily but not particularly sustaining.

In Persuading Annie, we have a 21st century version of Anne Elliot faced with the reappearance in her life of one Jake Mead after seven years. Our hero is indeed the captain of a ship, but not part of the Navy. He owns a highly successful management consultancy! The Markham family has financial problems and runs a failing PR company desperately in need of Jake’s expertise. The thought occurs that the world of business intrigue sits a little less comfortably as a setting than does the stage and magazine background of Pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field.

Much more successful is the way this updated version of Persuasion translates most of Jane Austen’s characters to the present day. At the same time Melissa Nathan shows that she has not exhausted her store of humour. We meet George Markham, Annie’s self-absorbed father, in an early chapter. He enjoys reading and re-reading the same article in which his name and family are listed, for he is ‘a man of small mind and large opinions…For a desperately needed early morning pick-me-up he looked at himself in the mirror.’ There can be no mistaking the fact that he is a clone of Sir Walter Elliot.

Such irresistible moments ensure that Persuading Annie scores as entertainment. It is at that level that both these novels work best. They will amuse JASA members who are sure to recognise the familiar personalities, problems and plots. Of course, when it comes to artistry, deft economy of technique and poignant emotional depths, Jane Austen’s inimitable originals remain unparalleled.

10 August 2002

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