The blurb:
HA scandal and vicious rumor concerning the Binat family have destroyed their fortune and prospects for desirable marriages, but Alys, the second and most practical of the five Binat daughters, has found happiness teaching English literature to schoolgirls. Knowing that many of her students won’t make it to graduation before dropping out to marry and have children, Alys teaches them about Jane Austen and her other literary heroes and hopes to inspire the girls to dream of more.
When an invitation arrives to the biggest wedding their small town has seen in years, Mrs. Binat, certain that their luck is about to change, excitedly sets to work preparing her daughters to fish for rich, eligible bachelors. On the first night of the festivities, Alys's lovely older sister, Jena, catches the eye of Fahad "Bungles" Bingla, the wildly successful—and single—entrepreneur. But Bungles's friend Valentine Darsee is clearly unimpressed by the Binat family. Alys accidentally overhears his unflattering assessment of her and quickly dismisses him and his snobbish ways. As the days of lavish wedding parties unfold, the Binats wait breathlessly to see if Jena will land a proposal—and Alys begins to realize that Darsee's brusque manner may be hiding a very different man from the one she saw at first glance.
Okay, confession time: the last time I got anywhere near Jane Austen was in high school, when Pride and Prejudice was one of the set texts. And I hated it. Loathed it. Got about a quarter of the way through and decided I'd read the summaries and cheat notes and pray I got two poetry questions and one novel question in the HSC exams rather than two novels and one poetry, because I was pretty sure I could write convincingly about The Great Gatsby, and I had enjoyed the poetry we'd covered (The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock and Five Bells, from memory), but there was no way I'd be able to tap-dance up an even halfway-decent essay about the Bennetts.
I did get lucky, got a decent HSC score in English, and promptly erased all trace of P & P from my mind so far as I was able to.
So, nearly 40 years later, Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal was on one of the display shelves at the local library. I picked it up, with a bit of trepidation, given that it's basically a straight retelling of P & P, just shifted in time and space to Pakistan, around the year 2000. For reasons given above, I can't really judge it on how closely it hews to Austen's original (but, judging by the summaries I've found online, pretty closely) or how it measures up to P & P; I can only look at it as it stands on its own.
Alys Binat is the stand-in for Elizabeth Bennett. She teaches English literature at a school in a backwater Pakistani town, using Pride and Prejudice to try and get at least a few of her female students to consider that, perhaps, maybe, there might be something in the world for them besides marriage. When the family is invited to a prestigious wedding, her mother goes all out to get at least one of her five daughters married off.
In addition to poking fun at the social structures and strictures faced by the daughters, the fact that their mother is verging on being a completely delusional social climber and their father has more or less resigned from anything more than hiding out in his garden, Unmarriageable looks a little at the clash of cultures: Alys teaches English in a post-Partition Pakistan, so what does that mean for her, culturally? Her friend, Sherry, teaches Urdu literature and one gets the feeling that subject is definitely viewed as 'less' than the English courses (part of Alys's qualification for teaching is her nice English accent, for instance). It's not the main feature of the novel, but it's definitely there, and I enjoyed those moments of exploration.
Even without knowing Pride and Prejudice, I did enjoy this novel. It was funny, the characters were given room to grow and change throughout the course of the story. As I said, I think it sticks fairly closely to the plot of P & P based on online notes and summaries, but it really does feel at home in the society Kamal describes.
I have (with even more trepidation) put P & P on reserve at the local library thanks to enjoying this read, so we’ll see how that goes.
Started: 28 June 2025
Finished: 1 July 2025
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