so today we're going to be talking about
death when it comes to pimpily okay it's
not that dramatic
but we are going to be talking about
death comes to pemberley and
is the book worth reading so this is a
review of both the book and the bbc mini
series how they're different and
if you do love the miniseries is reading
the book worthwhile
i will give you my opinion on that in
just a bit
so let me know in the comments below if
you have read a scene
or i've even heard of death comes to
pemberley my name is ellie dasho and
this is my channel where we talk about
classic literature history
and death at pemberley so death comes to
pemberley was written by pd james who is
a
very famous crime author in 2011 it was
published and in 2013
it was made into a bbc's miniseries
starring
anna maxwell martin and matthew reese i
have
long been a fan of the mini series but
recently
my friend died actually no she got
married moved to canada but when she did
she gave me this book so i say i
inherited it
when she died moved to canada and got
married to the love of her life
so i hope you're having fun in canada
kelsey i miss you
but thanks for the book anyway so let's
just talk about the very basic storyline
first because it is the same in both the
book and the movie
overall there's obviously differences
but the basic
plotline is that it is a sequel
to pride and prejudice and it's six
years into the marriage of
darcy and elizabeth they're living in mr
darcy's glorious house at pemberley
and they're about to have a ball called
lady anne's ball
it's named after mr darcy's mother lady
anne
anyway elizabeth is busy making
preparations
when all of a sudden lydia shows up who
was not invited because again remember
lydia's married to wickham and
wickham's creepy anyway lydia shows up
but she's screaming that there's been
murder
and so it turns out that lydia was gonna
come crash the ball
and she was in a coach with wickham and
denny who if you're also a big
pnp fan you know denny's another soldier
from prime prejudice
and they're coming up the road through
the pemberley woods when demi gets out
runs into the woods and then ends up
dead and wickham is the number one
suspect but
did wickham kill denny what's going on
and it goes into the sort of crime
investigation and we see the court trial
and all of that greatness while of
course a lot of the characters from the
original are in it
bingley and jane are in the book just
jane shows up in the miniseries for some
reason of course you have georgiana who
has a
love triangle going on always love those
and
of course lydian wickham and mr mrs
bennett so up next here's a quick review
of the book so overall the good of
the book i feel like it's very cozy in
an austin way it's like the cozy little
austin world
and i also love that she treats the
awesome world like
it contains all of austin's novels
so there are references to characters
both from persuasion and
emma in the book now you could actually
sort of miss that almost
in the miniseries there's just one very
quick reference
to a character from emma in the
miniseries but it's much more obvious in
the book with pd james being this very
famous crime writer she served a lot
of course in the british government i
feel like she definitely did a lot of
research
into how trials and investigations
worked back then
and you definitely see that in the book
like she's going two links to make it
accurate
but then at the same time there's a lot
of like tongue-in-cheek references
or things said that are like well
wouldn't it be great if this thing
happened instead and of course it's
what's going to happen
in the future or oh that's not possible
but it's something that's going to
happen in the future so it's very aware
of itself
as historical fiction which i think too
on the maybe
i don't know if it's bad but it's just a
fact is it's obviously historical
fiction historical fiction versus true
classics
has some pale tale signs as soon as it
starts happening which is where they
describe
in detail something that an author of
that time period would assume
everyone knew and they wouldn't describe
in detail it would be like
us talking about opening a refrigerator
what the inside of the refrigerator
look like this and that where in a real
book written now you'd just be like oh
they grab something from the fridge
because everyone knows where the fridge
is and what the inside of it looks like
so in historical fiction authors do this
and she definitely did that where she
would describe
in detail something that austin would
have taken for granted
that her audience knew and so on some of
the aspects of that were maybe not the
best parts of the book
i feel like petey james wanted to have
a lot of commentary on the first
book she had a lot of flashbacks where
she would have the characters
almost re-analyze what happened in pride
and prejudice the original
or she had this huge conversation
between darcy and elizabeth where he
analyzes all his past actions
and i think a lot of it was just her
trying to reinterpret
the first book in her own fashion which
didn't really move the plotline along
and i didn't think made the book
stronger she also would take a lot of
quotes which at the beginning
of the book was okay like there's a few
like rehashing of famous quotes from
the original prime prejudice and i'm
like okay just trying to set the scene a
little bit
but it just kept happening to the point
that it would take me out of the story i
was like
okay like i don't think the characters
and the narrator would be constantly
saying the same thing over and over
again just because it was in the first
book
and of course she made alterations to
characters overall personalities such as
colonel fitzwilliam
i think too just on the level of writing
itself she did this thing
several times where she would repeat not
really essential information
almost word for word it was like random
details and it would be repeated three
times within 50 pages and i was like
okay we get it elizabeth was like we
don't need these flowers
and then like a few chapters later
elizabeth was
again like oh yeah we don't need these
flowers five pages later
elizabeth had decided they didn't eat
the flowers and it wasn't even
relevant to the plotline it was just
like why are you repeating
the same thing over and over again and
then finally i think on plotting
things were underdeveloped things she
should have really went into were
passing mentions and too much of the
story
was saved for the end and then brought
out in conversation
it was like okay here's the bulk of the
book where you get a few hints of what
happened and at the very end it's like
boom
let's just have long conversations about
what's happened
not really emotionally react to any of
it and then move on with our lives
okay so now let's talk about the
miniseries i feel like
ultimately what happened with the
miniseries is the writers came in
and they took stuff that had overall
good bones like maybe it was like a good
first draft
and they made it so so so much better i
have to say this is one of those times
where the movie
or the miniseries is so much better than
the book first of all i just have to
give a shout out to kimberly
which is of course you know my ultimate
favorite place on the planet
which is played by chatsworth house and
if you haven't seen my video
my trip to chatsworth house pemberley
then definitely check that out because
i'll tell you
all about my trip to pimperley there
obviously but overall i feel like what
they did is they found
those aspects of the book that could
have been really interesting if she had
delved deeper into them
like mr darcy's feelings about his
marriage
the issues with the bid will baby the
whole love triangle with georgiana the
love triangle ended in like chapter two
it felt like oh we have a love triangle
for one second in the book and then now
it's done
where they actually really developed it
into a
full issue in the miniseries and i feel
like that was the thing like everything
that was barely glazed over in the book
was finally fully developed
also everything was more dramatically
told everything was like
way way more dramatic and more
emotionally intense
and also tightened obviously the
timeline was tightened
an investigation was tightened and also
you felt like
at least i felt like you got to see the
story play out
more believably where all the
information is told throughout
the plot versus not much happening and
then all of it's
coming out at the end also i feel like
in the miniseries they bring
in lydia bennett and mrs bennett into
greater comic effect
and also elizabeth becomes more central
to the story
so in the book mr darcy i feel like
takes over a lot of the story probably
because at this time in history
a man would be more involved in the
investigation than the woman was
but in the miniseries elizabeth
definitely comes to the forefront she
has this more active voice
and a bigger impact on how the whole
story plays out and i feel like
i think a few things that happened in
the miniseries that might
not be the best is that they did
simplify the investigation they
simplified the trial
so i feel like a lot of maybe historical
accuracy was thrown out
in order to do that for the series and
of course we don't get as full of
backstory
on characters like mr alviston which is
one of the guys in the georgiana love
triangle and that
sort of thing and also i want to point
out that the ending is different
i mean it's not hugely different in that
like the outcome
of the investigation and trial is not
different
but a lot of the things that happen to
secondary characters and how it happens
is significantly different so i just
want to throw that out there
i do love the mini series ending but
there's a couple things especially when
it's referencing other characters from
jane austen's world that i thought was
was kind of cute
in the book so overall i definitely
would
recommend watching the mini series from
the bbc it's absolutely
amazing obviously is it fully capturing
jane austen's characters no but this is
what i have to say on that
first of all honestly i don't like the
majority of
sequels or spin-offs of jane austen's
works most of them are
awful just terrible this one is actually
on the good side of that
and i think part of it is a lot of them
lack depth and
another thing is is jane austen's
characters were real in her head
like they were very real to her she
understood them and so anyone else
trying to take jane austen's characters
they can't do it they're not the people
jane austen's head there now
the people threw a filter in this new
person's head so they're never going to
fully capture
what jane austen wrote in any sort of
spin-off or sequel but i feel like for
what it is
it did it well right you have to sort of
like accept that it's not going to be
the same
and that's okay but i did really enjoy
it anyway so that is my
review of should you read death comes to
pemberley and
ultimately only if you want to
because honestly the miniseries is
better my name is ellie dashman this is
my channel where i talk about classic
literature and history
if you like either of those things
please subscribe and have
an awesome day bye there's a ups guy
whenever i sit here and do videos just
delivery people just fall out of the sky
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