Book Review: Dear Mr. Knightley
Dear Mr. Knightley. Katherine Reay. Thomas Nelson Publishers, November 5, 2013. Trade Paperback, Library Binding, and e-book, 336 pages.
Reviewed byMarie Becker.
The hipness of Austenmania remains indefatigable almost twenty years after Colin Firth redefined Mr. Darcy on the BBC. But perhaps nothing illustrates Austenmania so much as the growing number of texts that question whether there can be too much of a good thing. Shannon Hale’s Austenland, the ITV mini-series Lost in Austen, and even Bridget Jones herself have been part of a dialogue about when Austenphilia becomes an obsession. Dear Mr. Knightley initially invokes the same question—at what point does taking refuge and solace in books inhibit us from venturing outside the comforts of the covers to take on real life?
However, despite the Austen-centric title and the plethora of quotes within, the real literary ancestor of this book is Jean Webster’s 1912 epistolary novel, Daddy-Long-Legs.
It’s been a good twenty years since I last read the story of Judy Abbott, its main character, but the extent to which Dear Mr. Knightley maps onto it is evident from the first few pages. Updating a classic of literature can be tricky—mores and tropes, which are self-evident in one era, can feel forced, awkward, or outright inappropriate in another.
Dear Mr. Knightley’s faithful adherence to Daddy-Long-Legs creates some dissonant moments, including the set-up itself in which a mysterious “foundation” gives the main character, Samantha, a grant earmarked for an elite graduate program she doesn’t particularly want to be in for which she must “pay” in personal letters to the donor under the pseudonym of one of Austen’s romantic leads. This set-up is potentially either bewildering or cringe-inducing to anyone who has slogged their way through grad school applications and student loans (or worked in HR). While Judy Abbott belongs squarely in the school of plucky and optimistic female orphans, Sam, a former foster child returning to the group home where she spent her adolescence, is far more psychologically fragile and much less resilient. Her character is often frustratingly opaque, less because of her constant citations than due to her fretfulness, naiveté, and harsh judgments of people based on little more than her literary stereotyping. I sympathize with Sam’s anxiety, but occasionally wonder what she makes of Austen’s delicately-wrought ironies. Austen is nothing if not funny. Interestingly, Reay notes that her upcoming work features a heroine with a sharper sense of humor.
On at least two occasions, Sam made literary allusions to ongoing scenes that baffled me—not because I didn’t recognize the scenes, but because I frankly couldn’t see the tenuous connections she was making between her life and the cited scene. Again, some of this is almost inherent in the literal-minded modernization the book is shaped around, but considering that Sam is surrounded by writers and professors, I longed for someone to challenge her to actually interpret the words she lives by and not just quote them willy-nilly. Sam’s problem is not so much that she has tried to organize her worldview by books but that she has a flat, narrow thinking about what she has read. Even Sam’s growing religious feelings, an aspect which surely demands introspection, feels a bit second-hand, as if she parrots more than she feels without even realizing it herself.
The novel, consisting entirely of Sam’s one-sided correspondence with her mysterious benefactor until the conclusion, follows her through two years of graduate school in which she befriends a prickly adolescent in foster care, finds her voice in reporting on issues relating to child abuse and welfare, dates a shallow man, runs a marathon, and befriends the author of her favorite (non-Austen) novels. But there’s often something a little pat and flat about it; her struggles and epiphanies feel a little bit too easy and external. Her position in the book feels less grounded in hard-earned wisdom than plot contrivance, and in some key ways, I felt the conclusion undercut the sense of independent strength one expects in a coming-of-age novel. I found this particularly troubling in a book, which struggles to fit itself to certain plot exigencies that made sense in 1912 but significantly strip the heroine of agency in 2014.
As someone who has read entirely too many books and thus addled her brain for real life, many of the concepts in this book had a strong appeal for me, but the execution left me a bit cold. The extent to which Dear Mr. Knightley works is heavily reliant on how appealing one finds Sam and how easily one can look past those contrivances. I struggled with both aspects at points in the novel, finding Sam too often to be self-pitying and passive and certain plot elements either implausible or uncomfortably retrograde.
Reay does have a distinct voice, and there are a handful of charming, vivid descriptions, especially among some of the supporting cast. And of course, her knowledge of and affection for books shines through; there are countless references and tidbits scattered like Easter eggs, which are undeniably fun to spot. Despite my qualms about this particular novel’s arc and heroine, I believe Reay demonstrates real potential in her deft prose that in a novel with fewer self-imposed restraints may sing.