Death Comes to Pemberley by P. D. James

I wonder what would happen if a dead body was found in the woodland behind Pemberley ?

Book Description :

In their six years of marriage, Elizabeth and Darcy have forged a peaceful, happy life for their family at Pemberley, Darcy’s impressive estate. Her father is a regular visitor; her sister Jane and her husband, Bingley, live nearby; the marriage prospects for Darcy’s sister, Georgiana, are favorable. And preparations for their annual autumn ball are proceeding apace. But on the eve of the ball, chaos descends. Lydia Wickham, Elizabeth’s disgraced sister who, with her husband, has been barred from the estate, arrives in a hysterical state—shrieking that Wickham has been murdered.  Plunged into frightening mystery and a lurid murder trial, the lives of Pemberley’s owners and servants alike may not   be the same.



My views on the book:

  I am not quite sure if I want to call this book a murder mystery. Yes there is a mysterious murder in the plot but everything else that makes a book a thriller or a mystery novel is wanting.

  The author P.D. James ( Phyllis Dorothy James), literally drops a dead body in the Pemberley estate and the events that follow, make up the rest of the story. An attempt is made to keep the tone of the narrative as similar as possible to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, but Austen's subtle wit is lacking, naturally as that would be hard to emulate.

  The book is a spin-off of Pride and Prejudice. The plot is a sequel to Jane Austen's masterpiece, so in this book Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet are married.  I was looking for a Agatha Christie style detective in Elizabeth Darcy but the character seemed very subdued . The plot just goes with the flow. A body is discovered, a suspect is apprehended, an inquest follows shortly after and a trial is held before all  of it is wrapped up with a neat confession, so incredibly predictable.

  I had really hoped to read an entertaining piece of good fiction but this book has been disappointing. The idea is great, a murder in Pemberly, but in my opinion there is nothing exciting in the book.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

And sometimes, against all odds, 

against all logic, we still hope.

  This is the only other book based on the Holocaust that I have read, my first being The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. This book too is a child's perspective of the Holocaust, the exception here being that the child is outside the fence. 

  The Boy in the Striped Pajamas tackles one of the most gruesome tales in human history, through the eyes of Bruno, a nine year old German boy, who is trying to make sense of the  depravity in Auschwitz under the command of his father. He befriends Shmuel, a nine year Jewish inmate of Auschwitz. How this friendship between a German boy and a Jewish boy succours is what you have to read and find out.

  The Holocaust and the history of the German Nazis is most likely known to all of us. John Boyne in his book, does not thereby dwell on these horrendous acts , he has simply left it to the readers' imagination. This is probably the reason why the movie is more appealing than the book.  I have read some reviews criticizing Boyne for portraying Bruno as being naive, ignorant of the harsh reality. Different strokes for different folks... In my opinion Bruno chooses to be in denial especially because his Papa is the malefactor. 

    The book works best to introduce the Holocaust to young minds through a powerful fable written sensitively. I will recommend this book to mature readers too, because the Holocaust is history but we still harbour prejudices and choose to act on it. Sometimes a children's tale is all we need to help us stay human.

Quotes from the book that I like :

“...Despite the mayhem that followed, Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel's hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let go.” 

“What exactly was the difference? he wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?” 

“. . .only the victims and survivors can truly comprehend the awfulness of that time and place; the rest of us live on the other side of the fence, staring through from our own comfortable place, trying in our own clumsy ways to make sense of it all.”