Why you should read yet another Pride and Prejudice adaptation (Soniah Kamal's Unmarriageable)le

I have read a LOT of Pride and Prejudice adaptations in the last few years. Some of them work really well - Ibi Zoboi's Pride and Jo Baker's Longbourn are particular standouts, and Bridget Jones's Diary has become something of a comfort read for me. Soniah Kamal's Unmarriageable (subtitled Pride and Prejudice in Pakistan), however, is my new favorite, not only because it works, but also because it is so smart and enjoyable.

Similar to the film Bride and Prejudice, Kamal's version uses the backdrop of a marriage-obsessed (including arranged marriage-obsessed) society to show how the class and gender issues that Austen wove into her plots still operate in some parts of the world. The Bennet sisters' dilemma is not an antique artifact for Alysba Binat and her sisters, but a constant pressure.

But Unmarriageable doesn't work just because the social strictures of early nineteenth-century England translate well to Pakistan in 2000. Kamal has re-imagined the plot and the characters in ways that are unique to her narrative and add a richness to the framework of Austen's story. Take, for example, Sherry Looclus, the Charlotte Lucas character, who has formed an alliance with Alys over cigarettes and frank conversations in the graveyard near the Binat house. The friendship between the two women has developed through sharing frustrations over work (they’re both literature teachers at a local girls’ school), their parents' determination to get them married, irritation that the only respectable way to have sex in Pakistani society is to get married, and the tedium (particularly for Sherry) of meetings with increasingly unappealing potential mates. Kamal has fully re-imagined Sherry’s need to marry without it seeming mercenary, but rather as a believable and deeply considered imperative. Plus, Kamal’s rendering of the horrible meet and greet with an old man who makes Sherry give him a neck massage before rejecting her makes clear how limited her options are - and where Kaleen would fall on the desirability spectrum. As a reader, I was genuinely sad when Alys and Sherry’s friendship is tested by Sherry's marriage (a marriage that is as compromised and complicated as in Austen's original).

Alongside the re-workings of Austen’s story, this novel is a lot of fun. I found myself googling many of the clothes that Kamal mentions so that I could visualize the splendor of the gatherings. Alys is also a smart and funny character who cares about her family, but also has her own ideas about how she wants to live her life and what her connection is to Pakistani culture.

As for the Alys/Darsee romance...after the expected display of pride and dislike on both sides, Alys’s relationship with Darsee is sparked by a mutual love of books and a sense of feeling between cultures. When they inevitably get together at the end, it feels right both for Austen’s world and for the one Kamal has created. Overall, this is a satisfying read.
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