Reading Side-by-Side

No, this is not really a post recommending reading side-by-side with another person, enjoyable as that is. This is about the concept of reading two books side-by-side. Not just any two books, though, but a pair especially made to go together: “companion” novels. Allow me to explain.

I wrote my fifth novel, Miss Georgiana Darcy of Pemberley, as a “companion” to my first. Darcy and Elizabeth dominated The Darcys of Pemberley, which was as it should be, but I always felt like I might have shortchanged the other Darcy: Georgiana. I kept thinking there was more to her story that deserved to be told and wondering what to do about it.

Then I remembered a pair of novels by Julia Quinn that I had read a few years before: The Lost Duke of Wyndham and Mr. Cavendish, I Presume. It was essentially the same story in both books, just told from the widely divergent viewpoints of the two gentlemen involved. And what’s more, it worked beautifully! Each novel stood well on its own merit, but together they made a fuller, more complete story.

So that’s what I decided to do. Rather than going back to amend TDoP into a longer second edition in order to give Georgiana more space on the page, I left the original as it was and wrote the new novel to augment it, this time telling the tale from Georgiana’s perspective – still plenty of D&E but filling in Georgiana’s thoughts and all her previously “off-camera” escapades.

The idea was that, like the Julia Quinn novels, my pair would each stand alone but be better and tell a more complete story when combined. With that in mind, I synced the chapter numbers of the second book with the first and suggested the two could even be read side-by-side, alternating back and forth chapter by chapter, for the richest reading experience.

Although I offered this suggestion in the Author’s Foreword of MGDoP and whenever I talked about the new book, Debbie Fortin – literature lover, consummate JA fan, and friend to JAFF authors everywhere – may be the only one who ever took me up on it. (Although if there are others, I’d love to hear from you too!)

I was delighted when Debbie, whom I have known several years from our internet contact, told me she’d completed the challenge! I was also curious about her parallel reading experience which she accomplished via the audio versions of the books. As is typical for Debbie, she went the extra mile by patiently answering all my questions:

Q: What made you take up my challenge of reading these two books together, Debbie?
A: I always thought it would be fun to try it, but I was so busy that I put that on the back burner at first. Then recently, when listening to the newest book in the series (The Ladies of Rosings Park) as an audio book, it brought back to my mind the idea of reading Miss Georgiana of Pemberley and The Darcys of Pemberley together.

Q: I love audio books myself, but why did you choose that format for this reading challenge? Do you think it enhanced the experience? A: Although I love to read, my time is very limited. So, since I commute 2 hours a day, I decided to listen to the audio in the car rather than waiting even longer to read the pair. It was also nice that I could listen while doing household chores. I really appreciated that even though the books were written over a span of a few years, the same narrator was used for the whole series. It enhanced the listening enjoyment as the characters’ voices were consistent throughout.

Q: Have you ever read “companion” novels like this before? A: No, I never have.

Q: What do you think were the pluses and minuses of reading both books together? A: The biggest plus was hearing the Darcys’ views of something that occurred followed immediately by Georgiana’s personal experience of either the same event or during the same time frame. The only minus was that I would sometimes get so into whichever book I was listening to that I would listen too long, forgetting to stop and switch back to the other one.

Q: Would you recommend others try reading these two books side-by-side, or would it be just as well to read them separately, in your opinion? A: I did read The Darcys of Pemberley on its own when it first came out, and I have since listened to Miss Georgiana Darcy of Pemberley on its own as well. I enjoyed both, but reading them together increased my appreciation of these works, giving the story more cohesiveness.

Thanks for the feedback, Debbie!

In true above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty form, Debbie has taken the idea of parallel reading one step further. As we were messaging back and forth, I told her that I was thinking about making a chart to show how all my P&P novels fit together (with each other and with P&P itself) chronologically, possibly even adding to it the many “missing scenes” I’ve written as well.

With that, Debbie was off and running. She’s undertaken to create a chart showing how all the missing scenes from our two group compilations – Pride and Prejudice: The Scenes Jane Austen Never Wrote (now out of print), Pride and Prejudice: Behind the Scenes – and match them up as to how they fit into the timeline of the original novel. Sounds like a huge job to me, but Debbie said,

“I think that would be so much fun. I just have to finish getting the timeline together. I have thought about doing this for a number of years, and this has been the catalyst to get me serious about accomplishing it.”

I hope she will share it with us when it’s complete! Can you imagine lining up all three volumes, side by side by side, and reading them in parallel fashion chronologically, with all the blanks now filled in?

Have you ever attempted this sort of thing with these or other books? What were the results?

“I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since one book is only a single unaccompanied note, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time.” – Virginia Woolf