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Khora: Rise of an Empire

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Tabletop Game

In Khôra: Rise of an Empire, you are the ruler of a resplendent city in Ancient Greece. It's up to...

The Pebble and the Boy (2021)

8.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

Movie

The story follows John Parker, a 19 year old from Manchester who embarks on a journey to Brighton,...

Paradigm Lost: Jamari and the Manhood Rites: Part 1

R. Roderick Rowe

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Book

A forest paradise surrounded by lands gutted from corporate greed. The Elk Creek Tribe holds the...

Fantasy LGBTQIA+ Dystopian Futuristic Forbidden Love Magical Realism

Goddess in the Stacks (553 KP) rated Unmarriageable: A Novel in Books

May 7, 2019

Unmarriageable: A Novel

Soniah Kamal | 2019 | Fiction & Poetry, Romance

9.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

One of these days I really need to read Austen. I enjoy so many retellings - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Bridget Jones' Diary, and I know I have a copy of Mr. Darcy, Vampyre around here somewhere! (And now that I pulled up The Lizzie Bennet Diaries to link it here, I'm sorely tempted to sit down and watch the whole thing again but I have books to read!)

Anyway. Austen. I've read a bunch of retellings but believe it or not, I haven't read the original. I really need to get on that, but instead, I read Unmarriageable, which is Pride and Prejudice set in modern-day Pakistan! It's SO GOOD. The themes of family honor, class structure, and rumors damaging reputations translates incredibly easily into Pakistani society, which is why Soniah Kamal wrote it. In her Afterword, she writes:

"Was there any worry more Pakistani than the concern about what might bring a family honor or dishonor? .... Was there anything more Pakistani than [Charlotte's] calculated, 'arranged' marriage? ... Was there anything more apropos to Pakistan than class issues, snootiness, and double standards?"

She goes on to say she was already reading the book as if it was set in Pakistan, so why not write it that way for other Pakistanis? Kamal explains that Pakistan is very much a mix of Pakistan and English culture, and that the emphasis on learning English and English culture comes at the expense of their own indigenous culture, something forced upon them by colonizers. Unmarriageable is her way of melding the two cultures.

I really enjoyed this version of the classic, and it has me even more interested in other versions, such as Ibi Zoboi's Pride and Sonali Dev's Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors. Book Riot actually ran a short list recently on diverse Austen retellings, and I've added every one of them to my To-Read list!

You can find all my reviews (and links to the things mentioned above) on my blog, http://goddessinthestacks.com