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8+ teosta 194 jäsentä 10 arvostelua

Tietoja tekijästä

Carolyn Korsmeyer is Professor of Philosophy at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, USA

Tekijän teokset

Associated Works

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Yleistieto

Sukupuoli
female
Kansalaisuus
USA

Jäseniä

Kirja-arvosteluja

Set within the seemingly mundane, turn-of-the-millenium realities of post-soviet Poland, this novel begins as the straightforward tale of Adam, an uptight historical scholar, and his happy-go-lucky new girlfriend, Joan, who gamely agrees to join him on a research trip to Krakow. But the story digs much deeper than that, and sets the reader up for a rare treat. A crime caper goes crazily awry, with romantic undertones that will satisfy the most cynical of souls. Told with vivid characterization, clever plot twists, and—best of all—sly humor worthy of a Coen brothers film, LITTLE FOLLIES will entertain you from start to finish.… (lisätietoja)
 
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ReginaButtner | Apr 1, 2023 |
Tämä arvostelu kirjoitettiin LibraryThingin Varhaisia arvostelijoita varten.
Riffing on Jane Austen as spin-off or fan fiction or simply an alternate take seems to have gotten increasingly popular over the years. Or perhaps it’s just a matter of the years piling up, creating more and more opportunity for someone to try something a bit different (or not) from what has already been tried.

The thing is, that not every twist on Jane Austen really works. Even when they do succeed, such works are often so far and away from the original, or spliced up with some other genre entirely, that the Austen connection is more gimmick than anything else.

Charlotte’s Story by Carolyn Korsmeyer finds another path, resulting in a novel centered on Charlotte Lucas and her marriage to Mr. Collins that feels entirely true to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in genre as well as story-line. Perhaps most amazingly, even though it’s written more than 200 years after the original, it somehow finds its own voice while simultaneously avoiding sounding completely anachronistic. This is no small feat, given some of the more modern perspectives assigned to this alternate view of Charlotte at times.

Charlotte’s Story tracks closely to Austen’s original throughout the early part of the novel, its first-person narrative at first offering a new angle from Charlotte’s perspective for those events we already know well. Even when the novel veers off into its own story of Charlotte’s life at Hunsford and beyond, there are periodic ties that keep the reader grounded in the original story.

While it would be tough to match Austen beat for beat over the span of a couple of centuries, Charlotte’s Story is a pleasant and engaging read. It would have been altogether too easy to misstep into anachronism, gimmick, cartoonish-ness, straight-up imitation or just plain boredom - but the book doesn’t suffer from any of that, at least not to any extent that distracts from enjoying the story. It does test the limits of what one expects to find in an Austen novel at times, but Charlotte’s Story is fun to read in its own right, with its own plot and reasons to exist — and at the same time, it’s genuinely easy to feel you’re getting another glimpse into the universe that contains Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy.

Review based on Advanced Reader Copy provided through LibraryThing Early Reviewers program
… (lisätietoja)
½
 
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KimmViebrock | 8 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Oct 26, 2021 |
Tämä arvostelu kirjoitettiin LibraryThingin Varhaisia arvostelijoita varten.
I really enjoyed this book and the author seemed to really capture Jane Austin's voice. I could have believed that I was reading another of Austin's works, especially in the first half of the book where the familiar events unfold from a different point of view. Once the story moved into the second half of the book, the voice changed a bit as the story moved away from the know events of Pride and Prejudice. There were little events here and there that signaled that this was not an Austin work because they were events that I don't think would have been mentioned in works of the time, but they in no-way spoiled the tone or flow of the book. The story starts with Charlotte hearing of Mr. Collins visit to the Bennett's and develops from there. It was delightful to watch the characters grow and attain more depth as well as see what else was happening in the world of P&P. I am always curious about what happens next or what happened to those other characters in a novel and this novel answered the question of what happened to Charlotte and Mr. Collins as well as hinting at several other characters. I even became almost sympathetic to Mr. Collins. I definitely would recommend this book to fans of Jane Austin and to fans of the Regency Era.… (lisätietoja)
 
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clp2go | 8 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Oct 7, 2021 |
Tämä arvostelu kirjoitettiin LibraryThingin Varhaisia arvostelijoita varten.
I enjoyed reading this book for the most part. The author tries to imagine the life of Charlotte Lucas after her marriage to Mr. Collins. The story includes the cpuple getting to know each other in their marriage, their interactions with other characters known from Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte's own interactions and an unexpected friendship.

I thought this story was good but not great. I enjoyed it, but am not sure I will read it again. One thing I didn't care for, as another reviewer also mentions, is the uncharacteristic portrayal of Mary Bennet. I also don't feel that the question that has always been in my mind after Pride and Prejudice, why Mr. Collins didn't marry Mary, was not answered (lol).… (lisätietoja)
 
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NarnianLibrarian | 8 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Oct 1, 2021 |

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Teokset
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Also by
4
Jäseniä
194
Suosituimmuussija
#112,877
Arvio (tähdet)
½ 3.7
Kirja-arvosteluja
10
ISBN:t
25
Kielet
2

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