Georgiana Darcy's Diary
Series: Pride and Prejudice Chronicles, Book 1
By: Anna Elliott / Narrated By: Mary Sarah
Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
Liked it but not as much this fourth time around… what can I say? I doooo adore re-listening to faves…!
I’ll just go ahead and kill it for us all by saying that yes, I liked this book, but probably only because I hit the series in order. Had I listened to Kitty Bennet’s Diary first? Then this audiobook, Georgiana Darcy’s Diary miiiiiiight have been a bit of an eye-rolling annoyance. Cuz author Anna Elliott wrote the former sooo well, with such emotion and action and heart. And this one?
Okay, it’s like this, see. Elliott prefaces the whole thing by pointing out that the character Georgiana Darcy didn’t have any dialogue in Pride and Prejudice, so writing in diary entries made most sense. We get dialogue, certainly, but mostly we get the thoughts of a very introspective young lady. So yes! a diary works well here, especially as (Though I’m a bit of a fan) Ms. Elliott is NOT Ms. Austen. Which is not to say that she’s bad at all, nooooo! It’s just that, even though we see Georgiana grow as the novel progresses, she really isn’t true to Austen’s Georgiana.
The story opens with Georgiana’s aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh throwing eligible men at the poor lass left and right. Most are fortune hunters, none are whom she truuuuuuuly wants: Colonel Fitzwilliam, her older cousin who’s been a protector of her all her life, newly back from the wars, and not seeing Georgiana for the full-grown young woman that she is. As she pines for the man, she also stumbles into a rather unlikely mentorship to another cousin, the frail and wan Anne de Bourgh, whom she starts to lead from the restraining apron strings of her harsh and domineering mother, Lady Catherine. Also, who should come back into the picture but the noTORious George Wickham? What P & P Variation would be complete without the man showing up?!?
All in all? Yesssss, I totally got my Austen Fix, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a few reservations. First, the meek and mild and quiet Georgiana pretty much starts off the book like gangbusters—roundly calling a gentleman on his duplicitous hypocrisy—Whazzaaa? Georgiana tough as nails? At the very outset?
Yup.
And then there’s the fact that, tho’ she doesn’t know Anne well, doesn’t much like her, she’s SUDdenly THE strongest woman in the room, the only person capable of helping Anne break out of her shell (And I did like Anne’s story and evolution, as I’ve always had a soft spot for the character—got a bum rap in life… and in the original…). I mean, where on earth did this new and ultra strong and uber confident Georgie come from?!?
Yup.
And then, and THIS is what gave me greatest cause for dismay, throughout the story, Georgiana will NOT be seen as a child any longer! She WILL be seen as a grown woman, dang it! And so she stomps her foot like a 2-year old a lot, and she shrieks like a fishwife a whole HECKuva lot. Doesn’t matter what the character (Most notably Colonel Fitzwilliam) does or says, and Georgiana is off and braying her lungs out, berating for all she’s worth. And she doesn’t even feel baaaad about it! What kinda “shy” person doesn’t feel bad about tearing everybody a new one?
Okay okay okay; I’ll shut up about her being shrewish at times. I think what made the screeching tolerable was Mary Sarah’s narration. She has a light and sweet voice, and it gets becomingly thick with emotion when the text and situations call for it. So while Georgiana does indeed get all hypersensitive and knee-jerk Lemme-Tell-Ya-What-I-REALLY-Think? Well, Ms. Sarah’s lightness of tones and the emotion temper what COULD have been ear-shattering. So, 1) Brava, Ms. Sarah! and 2)? PHEW!
While I can’t say that I enjoyed this fourth listen of an old Like as much as I did the first time I listened to it, I can say that it was enough to make me wanna dash off and listen to Part 2, and it CERtainly made me wanna get to Kitty Bennet’s Diary as I remember sobbing my head off near the end of that one.
Still, gotta love All Things Jane Austen! Huzzah!
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