NZ Festival of the Arts
Badly-served Mary Bennet gets to shine in her own satisfying story of hope and a brighter future.
Visiting NZSO conductor Kristjan Järvi talks about the works he’s bringing to the NZ Festival About Mary Bennet of Pride and Prejudice fame and LGBTQ+-affirmative writing, a novel by Karina Sainz Borgo, a round-up of thrillers, and a biography of Star Wars’ Carrie Fisher
For those of us who like to regularly reread Pride and Prejudice and have faithfully watched every single good and bad interpretation of Jane Austen’s 1813 novel, including Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, reading Janice Hadlow’s The Other Bennet Sister is a no-brainer.
For Austen followers, developing the earnest, awkward Mary character is an intriguing idea. An ugly duckling, perhaps, but the Bennet middle child fighting for attention among her prettier, more popular sisters, is only 18 when we meet her in Austen’s tale, and how many of us were fully formed at 18?
Hadlow – a former BBC Four and BBC Two controller, who played a big role in popularising history on TV(she was behind Simon Schama’s A History of Britain, and commissioned the Wolf Hall series) starts Mary’s story before Mr Bingley and Co come to Meryton, so we relive some of Austen’s drama through her eyes.
Hadlow digs more deeply into hints Austen dropped that Mary considered herself a good match for Mr Collins, although she remains largely invisible to him when he is choosing a wife.
This interpretation also creates an important relationship between Mary and Charlotte Lucas, as Charlotte advises Mary on how to approach life as a plain, unmoneyed spinster of the parish.
In The Other Bennet Sister, we also get to see how Jane and Mr Bingley and Lizzy and Mr Darcy fare post-marriage, as Mary stays with various family members after her father’s death and the family home passes to the Collinses.
Things take a turn for the better when Mary becomes a guest of her aunt and uncle, the Gardiners, in Gracechurch St, London. The Gardiners take the lost soul in with genuine affection, including her in their busy London lives, and she sees what a happy household looks like and how a true partnership between a man and a woman can be. For the first time in her life, Mary finds she has nothing to apologise for, is only asked to be kind to herself, and grows into herself with the unwavering support she is given.
The Mary Bennet we get to know is an intellectual, a conversationalist and a warm person when valued by the people around her.
Hadlow gives Mary a good old 19thcentury makeover, she is helped to find a dress style that accentuates the positive, she gets new spectacles, and suitors emerge in London society who appreciate her intellect and questioning mind.
Of course, the path of Mary’s story does not run smooth. Where would be the fun in that? The horrid Caroline Bingley is still trying to put her oar in, jealous over the attention Mary is getting – and the management of two possible suitors takes some dexterity that she does not have, but eventually she rises to the occasion. Hadlow is no Jane Austen, and Mary is no Elizabeth Bennet, but she delivers a satisfying story of hope and a future for the badly served Mary. This big book – 655 pages – has been optioned for a TV series, so the Austen bandwagon rattles on, thanks to Hadlow.
THE OTHER BENNET SISTER, by Jane Hadlow (Macmillan, $34.99)
The Mary Bennet we get to know is an intellectual, a conversationalist and a warm person when valued.