"Duty and Desire" by Pamela Aidan

DUTY AND DESIRE by Pamela Aidan is subtitled “A Novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman”.  Fitwilliam Darcy, for those not acquainted with the characters of classic literature, is the “Mr. Darcy” of Jane Austen’s famously popular work “Pride & Prejudice”.  This novel is a retelling of that same tale but this time from the perspective of Fitzwilliam Darcy, rather than Elizabeth Bennett and her family.

This is the expectation I carried with me into my reading of DUTY AND DESIRE, and to a point it is a true picture.  But it is not a complete visual of what Pamela Aidan has done.  She has not just given a possible scenario as to what Jane Austen might have written of Mr. Darcy’s point of view, she has created her own unique tale on what a man goes through, especially a man of standing from the early 19^th century of England, when a woman unknowingly enraptures him to the point of, even though he seeks to vanquish her image from his mind, nearly else.  Somehow she has become a part of him, though he wishes it were not so.

So what is a man to do?  Darcy starts this particular tale in church.  It is the first Sunday in Advent.  He is where his duty leads him.  However, his mind is not on the service or the minister’s sermon.  His thoughts have him angrily musing over the sighting of George Wickham and the traitorous memories to Darcy’s family that man’s visage returns.  He seriously hurt Darcy’s young sister Georgiana with his attempted seduction of her virtue.  Does a man like Wickham deserve the forgiveness the minister seems to be preaching about?  Should his egregious actions against Georgiana, and against Darcy’s family, be excused for reasons of the natural frailty the minister infers?

Fortunately, Georgiana is in an apparent recovery from the ordeal and heading home to Pemberly, the family estate – that which Darcy is now master over since the death of his father.  Her letters, and her subsequent appearance, reveals a joyous new creature who carries a renewed exuberance for life -- along with an odd interest in those of less fortunate means that herself.

This is naturally an appalling proposition to Darcy.  The poor people of his lands, who welcome him home as he arrives, are people he carries sympathy for; but this is point where their separate stations in life must keep them separate – and Georgiana is apparently resolved to cross that line for some unknown reason.  To interact with those who fail to carry his same standards is to invite disaster and rebuke upon his family name, which he sworn to protect.  For Georgiana to be around them, in the capacity she is seeking, is firmly out of the question.  Such was far too dangerous to ever take seriously.

Yet, as it is known to those who have read “Pride & Prejudice”, Darcy has done exactly what he seeks to protect Georgiana from – he has associated with those beneath his status, and Elizabeth Bennett enraptured his thoughts and his heart.

The only thing for Darcy to do is to find a woman who can replace her vision with one even more palatable to his situation, a woman of standing who is just as lovely, just as charming, to vanquish his memory of her sight.

The opportunity comes with the invitation from some old college friends for a week together at one’s residence.  Normally, such romps in frivolity would repel him, but as Darcy believes only another woman, one of his own standing, can extricate the sight of Elizabeth from his person, he accedes to the date.  He must consider the Darcy name and what marriage to someone of Elizabeth’s lower status would do.  But what he discovers in this week demonstrates to him stature in this life is not always defined by what material possessions one is able to possess. 

To remark that DUTY AND DESIRE was simply an astounding read for me would be to sell the triumph of this tale short.  This is not simply a book extremely well-written; it is sublimely constructed, logically placing the necessary people and events in Darcy’s path to show him Elizabeth is not the one to be forgotten.  She may not be a young woman of means (as Darcy knew means), but character and resolve were of a nature far above what Darcy’s college friends showed.  Bravo, to Pamela Aidan.  She has written a love story any man can actually enjoy – for any man out there honest enough to give a hearty amen to everything Darcy goes through.  It is what we all go through when this creature of the fairer sex has caught our eye.