Death Comes to Pemberley and Unnatural Causes -- Conjoined Reviews

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  Kudos to the BBC production of “Death Comes to Pemberley” adapted by Juliette Towhidi from P.D. James’s novel of the same name. Which was an homage to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.  

I watched the first of the two episodes of the television production, then read Ms. James’s novel before the second episode aired. As it turns out, I much preferred the TV production to the book.

  I don’t think anyone has ever heard me say that before. Well, there was Gone with the Wind. The movie was reissued and I saw it while I was in high school. Then I read the book. My teenaged and early adult self liked the movie better than Ms. Mitchell’s novel. Why? Because watching the movie I could believe that Scarlet was merely a victim of her times, doing what she had to to keep Tara going. And, of course, there was Rhett Butler/Clark Gable. And I wanted to believe he would come back. In the book, it was pretty obvious that Scarlet did what she wanted to to get what she wanted when she wanted it. And I thought she deserved to lose him. So, still being a romantic, I liked the movie version better.

  My mature self prefers the novel because I understand that what she did was amoral, but effective. She made sure that both she and Tara survived. And I admire her determination. She would come out on top, no matter what.

  But that’s not what I come here to talk about. This is about Jane Austen’s characters through the mind of P.D. James remolded by the BBC.

  The TV production follows James’s plot very closely with a few changes of who does what when and where. It makes wonderful use of Lizzie’s parents and sister Lydia, bringing humor to what could easily have been a dreary drama. Mrs. Bennet is the shallow, status-seeking, hypochondriacal woman we remember from Austen. And Lydia is her mother’s daughter (Bless her heart.) – a shamelessly self-centered drama queen. And dear Mr. Bennet is a sensible, tolerant man who hides in the library.

  Lizzie and Darcy are devoted to each other within the limits of their natures. Conflict. Conflict. And there’s even a sex scene which neither Ms. Austen nor Ms. James ever wrote for these characters.

  If the novel had not been written by the P.D. James, it would never have been picked up by any of the major publishers. Written from the point of view of an omniscient narrator who has no part in the story, it breaks the primary rule of current writing fashion by telling us rather than showing us.

  A good 85% of it is expository writing – another no-no in modern fiction. However, this I actually liked. It told me about the times. The modes of travel, dress, class distinctions, architecture, and manners. All things for me to think about.

  The novel hardly played the Bennets at all. And the romance between Darcy and Elizabeth is maudlin at best. Darcy is portrayed as having lost not only his arrogance but his independence because he is so overcome with love of Lizzie. Give me a break! A man like that could not hold the interest of Elizabeth Bennet – the Elizabeth Benet we all know and love from Ms. Austen would not love a besotted Darcy even for all the wealth and status which Ms. James keeps reminding us of.

  I’ve enjoyed James's stories on Masterpiece Mysteries all these years. Were they rewritten to make them exciting and suspenseful? I’d never read James before and I wondered how she could have received all the awards and recognition she has if Pemberley is an example.

  So I read Unnatural Causes, her third book. I like traditional murder mysteries. And I liked this one. Published in 1967, it precedes Death Comes to Pemberley published in 2011. In Unnatural Causes all the characters had motive, opportunity, and access to the means of murder. The climax is exciting and satisfying. In the tradition of her countrywoman Agatha Christy, Ms. James summarizes the plot and dastardly deed in the dénouement.

  In one scene James describes Adam Dalgliesh, her Scotland Yard detective, opening his bedroom window during the beginning of a storm coming in from the sea:

          “The wind rushed into the room swirling the bed cover into folds,
           sweeping the papers from his desk and rustling the pages of his
           bedside Jane Austen like a giant hand.”

Just so, she connected her genre to Ms. Austen forty-four years prior to publishing Pemberley.

  She marked Dalgliesh, as a writer of poetry as well as an Austen aficionado. She even includes an example of his poetry. (Creditable, but it would never make it on a slam stage.) I do not know whether she gave him those attributes as an inside joke or to give him some distinctive characteristic like the fastidious Poirot or the fiddle-playing opium user Holmes. Whichever, it works for me.

  I will read more of her mysteries but no more of her Austen. And I will continue to watch PBS's Masterpiece Mystery!