Eligible, by Curtis Sittenfeld

For a Jane Austen fan an update of Pride and Prejudice set in modern day Cincinnati sounds like a very bad idea. In fact, the romantic tribulations of the five Bennet sisters translate quite well, in a story that is largely clever and funny despite a few quibbles. The Bennet family’s personalities are kept exactly as in Austen’s original text, with the heroine Lizzy particularly well realised. A pity then that the author introduced an unnecessarily large age gap between the five sisters. It makes sense that Lydia is now 23, rather than 15, and for Jane to be more than the original seven years older, but not 16 years older. Darcy as a surgeon is a good fit, while Bingley as a reality TV contestant is an interesting gambit. One quibble - if Darcy could keep his ridiculous first name of Fitzwilliam, why couldn’t Mr Bingley keep his perfectly reasonable Charles rather than being renamed Chip? Charming deceiver Wickham is split into two, quite effectively in the form of Lizzy’s lover Jasper Wick, less so as Lydia’s problematic boyfriend Ham. It is odd that some characters are almost exact, while others – such as Katherine de Bourgh – bear no resemblance and are seemingly there just to drop the name in. It’s all pretty entertaining, if lightweight and overly long. Mary is probably the least successfully translated Bennet sister, so it is a strange choice to end with her in a postscript that bears no relation to Jane Austen’s classic. Perhaps the author was trying to put a modern twist on the end of a classic – meh.