A Completing of the Watsons by Rose Servitova

I loved this "feel-good" novel and recommend it highly. I read it by flashlight during a power outage and was grateful for the way its lively plot, dialogue and humor held my interest.

As I read it, I found myself ruminating on what it is that I love about Jane Austen's work. It's the humor and satire, the elegance of her style, the values and yes, the happy endings.

A Completing of the Watsons supplies all these things.

The Watsons, a fragment begun and abandoned by Jane Austen while she was living in Bath, has a real humdinger of a plot. Like Mansfield Park, there's more than a little edge to it as Emma, a young woman raised by her wealthy aunt and uncle, suffers a reversal in fortune and must return to the family home. There her three sisters are engaged in a hunt for husbands as their dying father has no money or property to leave them - and they talk about it constantly, adding to the atmosphere of gloom.

Emma's change in fortune has occurred because when her mother died when Emma was just six, she was given to her aunt and uncle to raise and was presumed by her family to be the intended heiress of her uncle's estate, Claperton Park. Her uncle has recently died, however, without making any financial provision for her and her aunt has remarried to an Irish captain who did not want Emma to continue living with them.

Given a good education, she's a little bit too refined for the modest situation in which she finds herself now living. As the book opens, she is meeting the eldest of her sisters, Elizabeth, for the first time in 14 years.

At the first ball she attends after moving to Stanton, she meets a man she is immediately drawn to, Mr. Howard, a vicar. But she is also spotted by the stand-offish and socially awkward Lord Osborne. Lord Osborne never dances; his disdain for balls and dancing reminds me of Mr. Darcy. Lord Osborne immediately wishes to be introduced to her, and while that does not happen, he begins a campaign of courtship of Emma which she finds, while not welcome, certainly makes her life more eventful.

What I love about Rose Servitova's writing is her humor, her writing style, her delight in the foibles of human beings, and her fidelity to the language, manners and concerns of the Regency period.

I find myself wondering if Austen abandoned The Watsons because the dilemma Emma faces was just too close to Austen's own.

There are many elements here which remind me of other novels. Of course, Lord Osborne reminds me of Mr. Darcy. The discussion of lady novelists reminds me of the many discussions of books and reading in Northanger Abbey. Emma's status as a dependent, with an uncertain future, reminds me of Fanny in Mansfield Park. There is a passing reference to Box Hill, which, of course, reminded me of Emma - not to mention the sad hypochondria of Mr. Watson, reminiscent of Mr. Woodhouse in Emma and Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. The close friendship Emma and Elizabeth form in this novel reminds of Lizzie and Jane in Pride and Prejudice. The somewhat frosty relationship Emma and Elizabeth have with their other two sisters, Penelope and Margaret, also reminds of Kitty and Lydia from the same novel.

The Longbourn Letters by Rose Servitova

I've finished The Longbourn Letters by Rose Servitova, and I enjoyed it hugely. What I liked about it most was its consistency in language. Servitova imitates Jane Austen's style in Pride and Prejudice, (and even quotes Austen at points) and her mimicry is inspired and consistent, her style beautiful and engaging. I found her fidelity to the original deeply satisfying. It's a real domestic comedy in which family members, including Mr. Collins, are quite often ridiculous, but one is which the importance of family is emphasized.

It's an epistolary novel, a form I really enjoy, and it's short (150 pages), recording an imagined correspondence between Mr. Bennet, the witty, sarcastic, judgmental and impatient father of the five Bennet girls, and Mr. Collins, his cousin and a socially inept clergyman with a comically pretentious manner.

In the novel, Pride and Prejudice, at a family dinner, Mr. Bennett mocks Mr. Collins' obsequious manner by offering a seemingly innocent question: does Mr. Collins offer "delicate compliments" to Lady Catherine de Bourgh spontaneously or does he practice? Mr. Collins answers the question frankly, by offering that that he does practice in his spare time. Mr. Bennet never betrays through his expression his mockery; the family struggles to hide their mirth.

This gentle mockery is continued in the correspondence of Mr. Collins and Mr. Bennet, and the tone is perfectly maintained throughout. What surprises me is the gradual evolution of a sincere friendship of the two men, despite their great differences (and despite a brief dust-up between the two when Mr. Bennet, urged by Mr. Collins to oppose a match between Kitty and Colonel Fitzwilliam, does absolutely nothing; here, again, Mr. Bennet's talent for doing absolutely nothing seems to benefit his family).

The portrait of Mr. Bennet is entirely consistent with that of Pride and Prejudice, but here is fleshed out so that we learn Mr. Bennet loves a joke, especially those of a practical nature, loves science, and while occasionally sharply satirical in his comments about his wife and daughters, generally accepts them. In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Bennet is often wry, witty and playful, but is obviously impatient with his wife and daughters. Servitova's exploration of Mr. Bennet's character presents him as a man who enjoys science, etc., softening some of Mr. Bennet's hard edges. The Longbourn Letters suggests the being the only male in a family with six women has the potential to be quite lonely.

Fans of Pride and Prejudice will, I think, enjoy learning the eventual fate of the entire family and I imagine that must have been fun for Servitova to imagine these stories and share them.This is my favorite "Jane Austen spin-off" novel that I've ever read. For fans of Pride and Prejudice, I imagine that it will be pure entertainment.