Gentle Readers, You may have noticed my previous rant about Mitzi Szereto’s blog post on Huffington Post. I had struck an attitude of silence and indifference to her sexy parody of Pride and Prejudice (Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts) until I read her fighting words. Then I realized, why not debate each other and find out what we really think? Mitzi has graciously agreed to a discussion about her book and sequels in general.
Vic: Hi Mitzi, it took a while to find my pitchfork and untwist my knickers. Now that the elderberry wine has calmed down my poor nerves and heart palpitations, I can ask you this question: What on earth were you thinking writing that Huffington Post ramble? Only a few vocal Jane fans objected to your book, as most of us were too busy swooning over Colin’s wet shirt to notice the brouhaha until you pointed it out.
Mitzi: Glad the elderberry wine helped. I’ve never tried it; please send a bottle over! I should say that Colin’s little swim left an indelible impression on me as well and accounted for Pride and Prejudice becoming a major favorite of mine. As for my piece in the Huffington Post, I found that all the pitchforks being aimed at me were getting to be a bit silly, particularly when the overwhelming majority of their wielders had not even read my book, let alone anything I’ve written! I have no issue if someone simply does not like the book; everyone has their own taste in reading material. But I figured that since everyone seemed to have so much to say about Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts (and me as its author), I too, had a right to speak and point out the absurdity of these arguments. Many of the comments were being directed at me in a quite personal way, not to mention insulting. Not very polite for people who claim to be defending the honor of our beloved Jane Austen! The LA Times and the Guardian were the first instigators of this whole thing. I actually didn’t think anyone’s hackles would be raised by the publication of my book, especially when it was meant to be a historical parody in the same spirit of the highly popular Zombies versions. I still don’t see what the big deal is, unless it actually is the sexual element in the book that’s upsetting people the most, because the tons of romance and chicklit versions don’t appear to be inspiring upset. If literary purists have an issue with re-imaginings of classic works or writers taking inspiration from them or borrowing from them, they should do a bit of literary investigation into the very long history of this practice and aim their pitchforks at others as well. After all, fair is fair!
Vic: Actually, the Zombies were not well received in some quarters either, but Quirk Books won me over by their cheerful willingness to forego pride and forge into new marketing territories, like toy stores, hardware stores (I kid you not), and gag stores . As an established author you must know from the outset that you can’t please everyone and that you would raise a few hackles with your rapier pen. I am thinking of statements like: “I wonder if these hecklers from the peanut gallery have even read the original Pride and Prejudice…” At this point, my teeth gnashed involuntarily for I sensed an INSULT. (Although I must admit to having met many a rabid Darcy fan who has only seen the movie.)
Mitzi: I don’t expect to please everyone, nor do I wish to! As for insults, I don’t see that it’s an insult to point out that things were not all pristine and squeaky clean in the original novel, and those who claim to have read it might be wise to do so again. Let’s get real: Jane Austen was giving us some very strong hints of the kind of impolitic behavior that was taking place between some of her characters (particularly Lydia Bennet and Mr. Wickham). Of course you’re going to get people saying we don’t need the lurid details, but you must remember that Jane Austen lived in a time when women authors were not taken seriously and were generally relegated to the category of “hack.” If she wanted to be taken seriously and keep her respectability as an author (which she clearly did), she had to be very cautious regarding how far she could go and just how much she could say. Had she been a man writing, things would have been different. But she wasn’t. So when my critics start getting all hot and bothered by my comment, they should wake up to the fact that Jane was a female writer who did not enjoy the kind of literary freedom female writers enjoy today.
Vic: OK, I see your point, but methinks I smelled a publicity stunt in that article. If so, kudos to you, for the controversy forced us to think about why we cling to our preferences AND notice your book.
Mitzi: On the contrary. As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t start the brouhaha; the Los Angeles Times did, followed by the Guardian. Hey, I’m more than happy to get publicity and maybe sell a few books to help put some food on the table. But in all honesty, I wrote a book that was intended to be a fun and entertaining historical parody/sex farce. So yeah, I do think some people definitely need to get a sense of humor! If they’re that upset, then go after the various mash-up authors and the Jane Austen romance authors as well. And let’s add to this all the Jane Austen chicklit authors. Go on, have a field day and get those bonfires burning! It worked for Salman Rushdie (though I’m not sure the fatwa on him has been lifted yet).
Vic: I finally wound up reading the Jane Austen/Zombie mash ups and they were FUN. I realize that your book is written along the line of parody and harmless entertainment, but think about the readers’ perspective. While you wrote only one Austen sequel and regard this as a noble literary tradition, we are inundated with them. Literally.
Mitzi: Oh, I agree with you. It has gone a bit haywire of late. I guess when something hits big, you’re bound to get a whole lot more of it. That’s why I wanted my book to be very much its own kind of thing, rather than just another straightforward romance or fan-fiction-ish version. This is the first time I took a classic novel and remade it, though technically I did a similar kind of thing with my book In Sleeping Beauty’s Bed: Erotic Fairy Tales. In my research I discovered that these tales went back a very long way, some even into antiquity. Perhaps Jane Austen’s works have become the new fairy tales, and will continue to be adapted and remade and re-imagined well into the future.
Mitzi Szereto in London
Vic: I cannot tell you the number of email requests I receive from authors and publishers who want me to review yet another Austen sequel, prequel, or parody. They range the gamut from truly well written pieces to stuff not fit for the shredder. Right now my mind is in a whirl. Precisely what time do Darcy’s fangs come out? Why did he disapprove of Lizzie for bearing him five daughters and one mewly son? When Wickham soiled his diapers, who changed them? Is Mary Bennet really more beautiful than Jane, who has turned into a brood sow? At this point I am in danger of forgetting what is what, and so my reaction to your book was one of indifference. I am done reviewing most of the sequels, except for a very few.
In addition, many authors are not fan fiction fans. Diana Gabaldon, author of the incredible Outlander books, dislikes fan fiction and has publicly said so, and yet you make a good point: Many authors, playwrights, and film makers have had their works reinterpreted or have reinterpreted the works of others.
Mitzi: Absolutely. Because so many of the Jane Austen authors have made the original work all but unrecognizable, the story and its characters can get lost, as you say. That’s why I used Austen’s story as the framework; it’s essentially the same story in my book, but I’ve taken it on a major tangent. My version is not fan fiction at all, nor is it a sequel. Those are again more erroneous assumptions being bandied about by people who’ve not read my book. I wonder if these same people would accuse Dean Koontz of writing fan fiction with his Frankenstein series or want to burn him at the stake for taking a literary classic and remaking it into something else, just as I have done with Pride and Prejudice. I can mention a slew of other authors who’ve done likewise, but we’d be here all day!
Vic: Good point. Now, let’s cut to the chase. Is there anything you would like to say about your book to my readers?
Mitzi: Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts is intended to be pure entertainment and fun. I wanted to write a book that read exactly as if Jane Austen wrote every single word of it. Whether you love or hate my book, I know that I’ve been successful in achieving the Jane Austen illusion and remaining true to the essence of her characters. My book is raunchy, rude, outrageous and outlandish. It’s also extremely funny. If that sort of thing appeals to you, by all means go out and buy my book. If it doesn’t, then by all means choose something more to your liking. Thanks very much for inviting me to chat with you, Vic!
Vic: My pleasure. I wish you much success with your book, Mitzi, and thank you for visiting my humble blog.
Find Mitzi’s books and information at these links:
- Coming in July 2011: “Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts“
- Coming in Sept. 2011: “Red Velvet and Absinthe: Paranormal Erotic Romance“
- Check out my latest book “In Sleeping Beauty’s Bed: Erotic Fairy Tale“
- “Errant Ramblings: Mitzi Szereto’s Weblog” http://mitziszereto.com/blog
- Mitzi TV http://mitziszereto.com/tv
- Twitter: @mitziszereto
- Also @ Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, etc.
Jane Austen's World 
Mitzi and Vic, I’m glad to read your exchange. In general, I think, people underestimate both Austen’s understanding of human sexuality and the amount of sex in her books. Each of her plots involves the consequences of pre-marital or extra-marital sex, and each references the “natural” children of a character or characters. Between her protagonists, sexual encounters follow the twelve stages of intimacy, with which romance writers of more sexually explicit works are familiar.
Here, here!
This is exactly how it should be done! Good job, Vic. Jane would be so proud.
A civil, rational exchange of ideas. :)
“but you must remember that Jane Austen lived in a time when women authors were not taken seriously and were generally relegated to the category of “hack.” If she wanted to be taken seriously and keep her respectability as an author (which she clearly did), she had to be very cautious regarding how far she could go and just how much she could say.”
You seem to be suggesting that jane Austen would have described the sexual element to her characters relationships in more detail if she could. I think this shows a lack of understanding of the life she lived and the beliefs and upbringing she had. I don’t think Jane Austen would ever have conceived of describing a sexual romp.I’m not saying she was prudish but to emphasise this side of things would have totally unbalanced her life. Anyway, as you say, only men like Henry Fielding could get away with writing explicitly about sex.Reading Fielding there is the social emotional and moral consequence aspect to his writing.Moll Flanders is a three dimensional person struggling in a real world. The sex in Fielding is not without consequences and deeper meanings.
Sorry, I made a mistake. Moll Flanders was written by Daniel Defoe.Henry Fielding wrote Tom Jones. Well there you are, two men from that period who wrote about sexual adventures but set in “reality” I must say. You can learn about a real slice of life from them.Yes you are right Mitzi I still haven’t read your book but can you learn about real life from it or are is it just one dimensional? An honest answer please.
Well, Tony, as I said, my book is intended to be quite over the top, but I do think it demonstrates that people were up to all sorts of things in those days, but kept that veneer of respectability intact. It also emphasises some of the hypocrisy in relationships – just as Jane Austen demonstrated in her book. Jane saw through the bullshit and pointed it out with a wonderful sense of wit. I think that’s why we all love her so much and why she continues to be a source of inspiration for authors (and filmmakers)!
Good point, Tony; I think that, although Jane loved to insinuate and use plenty of tongue-in-cheek references and humor, she wouldn’t have elaborated even if she could have. She was a religious person, and would have found that kind of thing distasteful and uncivil.
You’ll note that the people behaving badly in her books turn out to be the bad eggs. Her leading men and heroines strive for virtue (in all segments of their lives), and that’s why the romances are so appealing- they strike at our deeper selves, elucidating the qualities that we all would hope for in a true love, though we may not realize it in our over-sexed age.
Thanks for your reply Mitzi. Yes, well, “over the top” In the context of every day life a little of this stuff can do no harm as long as it is kept within the bounds of ,”fun..” However, just as there are people prone to alcoholism, and perhaps shopaholicism ( not sure that is a real word, but you know what I mean) and other things that can get out of kilter in peoplles lives, because sex is such a powerful element in our make ups it is easy for this sort of writing to warp our lives and overwhelm us to the detriment of relationships and our own mental state.
I doubt anyone would be warped by my book. In fact, it’s more likely they’ll split their sides with laughter!
Thank you, Vic and Mitzi, for a most illuminating exchange; it is delightful that such intelligent discussion is sparked by a 200 year old original. My only reservation is the comment “Had she been a man writing, things would have been different”. I don’t think they would. Even Byron (whose works Jane knew and read) was only able to refer obliquely to such matters. And as for the scrambled sexuality under the surface in Dickens only a few years later … no, I think Austen’s depiction of sex is all the more urgent and powerful for leaving so much of it to our imaginations.
I think Austen should be re- read in the light of the philosophy of the extreme Darwinists like Dawkin, “The Selfish Gene”. The whole point of the Austen matchmaking strategy, is for women to maximise the life chances of their offspring, by marrying men who are rich, reliable and kind and of good reputation. Being handsome is a secondary consideration, but it does help sell the books, and mean that the offspring are likely to be good looking as well, thereby increasing their chances of a good match to procreate the following generation.
My ambition is to write about a fictitious encounter between Austen and a man who is rich, handsome, influential and articulate, but in other ways, definitely the wrong stuff, Lord Byron. His spirit and style infuses “Sense and Sensibility” and comes with a clear author’s health and sanity warning.
“My ambition is to write about a fictitious encounter between Austen and a man who is rich, handsome, influential and articulate, but in other ways, definitely the wrong stuff, Lord Byron.”
Well John, I hope you won’t have them get married. Jane would never have had time to write her novels if she was married and producing offspring.
So Mitzi are you saying the whole thing is a sexual laugh? The eroticism won’t have any effect then? Is that a self evaluation about your ability to write sex in a story? So what should sex in story be about? Laughter apparently.
This does not ring true.
I suggest you check out my various books if you’d like to investigate the variety of work I produce. They are all different from each other, as is the style (or even presence) of “erotic” content. P&P is a sexual laugh, but there are steamy bits as well, particularly between our beloved Darcy and Elizabeth. I’ll leave it to you to read the book. Or not, as it were. ;-)
Hi All, I love a healthy debate. One of my favorite sexual romps in the Georgian Era is Tom Jones. All fun, all melodrama, all tongue in cheek. My problem is in not recalling which scenes from the book were my favorite, or whether they came from the Albert Finney movie version. (Who can forget Tom and his mama eating those oysters?)
I imagine Mitzi’s foray into Regency sex to be more like Henry Fielding’s than Harlequin Romance.
What I love about Jane Austen is her acerbic wit, which I think was cut out of most of her letters (or the letters were burned), but that she could not hide in Lady Susan, her Juvenilia, or her great novels. But I do believe she was a lady of her time and a dutiful minister’s daughter. While she would not have written explicitly about sex, she did hint at it (Willoughby’s love child with Liza; Mary Crawford’s remark about “Rears and Vices”, which many construe to be about sodomy). The entire story of P&P is about Lizzie’s and Darcy’s hots for each other despite their differences.
Because she rarely socially made a faux pas, I think that Jane followed convention willingly. Would she have written a different novel today? Who knows. I think she would have written a great novel regardless of the age she lived in because of her fine mind, her talent, and her quest to delve behind the surface and study her characters through and through.
Would she have chuckled over this debate? Surely.
While I enjoyed the exchange between Vic and Mitzi (and, of course, wish Mitzie every success), hers is not the book for me. “Rauncy, rude, outrageous and outlandish” and “quite over the top” are just not my thing. Rather than feeling Jane Austen was held back from something more, I should think much writing today could be improved by the restraints of the sort imposed on Jane (whether by herself or society).
I like Tony’s comments. I feel no one has actually said much about the text of this novel. I read the first few pages and did not find it “stimulating” or humorous, but simply a book with no literary value. PT Barnum said it right, “There’s a sucker born every minute” so some will buy this book on the strength of the publicity and will be content with it if they don’t like literature.
Great interview, Vic. I admire you for taking the book and your feelings about it head on. I enjoyed the exchange. I won’t read it (sorry Mitzi), as I’m quite happy with Jane’s version and have ODed already on the amount of fan fiction out there. I think I need at least a 6 month sabbatical from it. I started rereading Henry James’ stories to cleanse my palate and give another part of my brain a workout.
What’s great about Jane is that she isn’t explicit. She leaves room for the reader to fill in the blank. As does James. That’s intelligent writing to me. But then James was influenced by Jane, so there you go. In good company.
I like what Mitzi said about Jane’s work perhaps being the new fairy tales (though I hate the term ‘fairy tales’ so maybe we could come up with something else). It would certainly teach young women (marrying for money and security aside) how to value themselves and be true to themselves and who they are, no matter the cost, and counteract the terrible Disney version of things!
I have read and enjoyed many sex farces/hilarious romps whether in books or on screen. And I have recognized and commented upon, perhaps even on this venue, the matter-of-fact occurrences already delineated in others’ comments: Lydia
and Wickham co-habiting, Col. Brandon having fathered a child out of wedlock, various improper occurrences and comments by the Crawfords and Bertrams; Jane was nothing if not clear-eyed. Certainly in that era when the Prince Regent and most of his siblings casually acknowledged a multitude of bastards, sex and its consequences was well-understood and widely practiced. Jane was satiric, but not a satirist; her books are far better rounded than that. I recognize that fan-fiction has become a genre all its w these days whwere one can be a celebrity by being, well, nothing but a celebrity. But I cling to the belief that if a book has worth — whether as a serious piece of literature or a merry romp, it ought to be able to stand on its own merits rather than depending on a well-known title from a different era.
Rude, raunchy, outrageous and outlandish? Plus dear Jane’s style of writing? Plus a timeless story of love? Sign me up!! Seriously, I never heard of this book before this discussion and now I want to read it. Just because certain things weren’t talked about in “polite” society doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. How do you think Mr. And Mrs. Bennet begat all those girl children? A polite handshaKe? Bring on the sex and seduction.
Wait till you find out the story behind Mrs. Bennet. You’ll soon realise why she had all that trouble with her nerves!
Vic and Mitzi,
Very much enjoyed reading your conversation. Sex in Jane Austen novels (be they prequels, sequels, spinoffs, spoofs, etc) is always going to be a hot-button topic. I applaud you both for being able to have an articulate and rational discussion of the issue!
Thanks for reading our exchange!
Kudos to you Vic for offering us all such a civil discussion, and to Mitzi for your responses – always good to get these things on the table – though I agree with Beth that this will always be a “hot-button topic”!
I still come back to, as many commenters have, that there is enough passion and sex in the original Pride & Prejudcie to keep one’s imagination going at full tilt through many a reading – and a realistic view of the good and the bad of it from Austen, the ever-diligent social observer – but I do wish Mitzi the best with her book – likely an enjoyable must-have read for those, as Stephani says, who holler “bring on the sex and seduction”!
Thank you both for this!
This was a horrible book and a waste of money.
Some like it hot, and some like it cold.