The Darcy Myth: Jane Austen, Literary Heartthrobs, and the Monsters They Taught Us to Love

Rachel Feder is a professor of English literature who teaches a course annually on Jane Austen during which, as she puts it, she "ruins" Pride and Prejudice for her students. Feder is clear from the offset that she really likes Austen, P&P, and Darcy but that when thinking critically about the novel, Darcy becomes a more problematic figure. Feder spends the entirety of the book digging into the "Darcy myth" as she calls it - the trope of the man who is initially awful but who is changed into a better person by love.

Professional reviews of this one referred to the writing as uneven, and I can definitely agree. The introduction is slightly unhinged but hilarious (honestly, I recommend reading just that even if the book doesn't seem at all show more your jam) and Feder includes several asides in the same tone throughout the book (my personal favourite is when she mentions that she watched parts of Fifty Shades of Grey in the middle of campus without headphones to confirm quotations because her work laptop hates her). But the book is not always that tone and Feder's academic roots are in full evidence - although it's not dry in its academic moments (I say as a former English major). My bigger criticism is that I don't entirely buy Feder's argument and that she tries a bit too hard to tie Darcy and P&P to the Gothic (her area of study). While I'll agree Gothic literature is definitely an influence for Austen, I don't completely agree with her stance. Nor do I agree entirely with her implied argument that the narratives we're exposed to have a direct impact on the relationships we choose and leads to a belief that we can change someone into loving us. There might be some correlations but the stance feels a little too much like the pearl clutching that happens over women romance readers and the harm reading things like dark romance or romantasy smut might cause to their expectations of real life relationships, which just makes me roll my eyes. I enjoyed the read and I think taking a class with Feder would be a grand time, but ultimately Feder failed to convince me with her argument. YMMV. show less

I was intrigued by this book because I'm a huge Jane Austen fan. Jane Austen as gothic horror? Ooh, do tell! And while I understand the perspective of the reviewers who gave this book only one star, I choose to give it four. Did it sometimes really reach in order to fit into a neat box the parallelism between Darcy and other characters like, say, Christian Grey? Yes. But there is some level of truth at the heart of this book, in that there are many of us who want our own Darcy and, in our attempts to find him, we are willing to be with a person who may not show all that much interest in us at first, who may be a bad boy on the surface, if for nothing else but to redeem him and hope that redemption leads to his declaration of undying show more love. Foolish? Perhaps. Have we been conditioned into overlooking the possibly darker elements of Darcy because we have been sold on the fantasy of the HEA? Quite likely so. Does this change how I feel about Darcy? Absolutely not! :)

I found this book to be an interesting read, not the most enlightening of literary criticisms, more entertaining than to be taken as seriously as some reviewers did. show less