“Darcy’s Struggle” by Kelly Dean Jolley, Songs and Stories, excerpt + giveaway

Love the title, Darcy struggling for…

Let’s have a look!!

Brilliant, sensitive, and private, Fitzwilliam Darcy finds himself at the Meryton Assembly, consciously troubled by recent events in Ramsgate and unconsciously troubled by himself.  He insults Elizabeth Bennet, at whom he has only glanced.

It is not until she appears at Netherfield—full of life, skirted in mud, and eager to attend to her sick sister—that Darcy truly looks at her. When he does, he knows she is the woman he has been searching for, the elusive her of his heart. He falls for her completely…despite her apparent unsuitability to be the Mistress of Pemberley and his half-hearted efforts to convince himself he can live without her.

Shortly before Elizabeth leaves Netherfield, Darcy apologizes for what he said at the Assembly. Will that apology and the depth of his sudden but durable feelings give him hope with Elizabeth? Might George Wickham’s arrival frustrate his hopes, especially after Darcy blunders into a marriage proposal to Elizabeth? 

Romantic, reflective, and ironic, this is a story told from Darcy’s point of view, a story of the struggle from intellect to heart—a deliberate character study and a delicate love story. 

I need to read that proposal now 😀

It may be good to also see if Wickham is not such a pain in the… neck.

I am really happy to welcome this author again in my blog. I like his writing although I have not read his JAFF variations yet, but you could check his detective novels too.

Moreover, he is bringing not only a nice excerpt but some songs too… keep reading!

 Kelly Dean Jolley, a professor at Auburn University, has penned several novels. His first, Big Swamp, is a detective novel, which he followed with a Christmas mystery, The Vanishing Woman. He also composed a book of poetry, Stony Lonesome.

       Using the pseudonym Newton Priors, he released three additional novels: Balter (A Retelling of Pride and Prejudice), Tides of Bath (A Retelling of Persuasion), and a Western, Heaven and Hell: A Romance. 

       Professor Jolley has made contributions to many academic publications as well. He is the author of The Concept ‘Horse’ Paradox and Wittgensteinian Conceptual Investigations, the editor of Wittgenstein: Key Concepts, and has published over forty academic articles. He is a past Alumni Professor and currently the Goodwin-Philpott Endowed Chair in Religion and Professor of Philosophy.  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kellydeanjolley

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jollekd/

Blog: https://www.kellydeanjolleyauthor.com/

You may remember that I like and enjoy reading author’s writing inspiration, process of writing, etc. However, this songs and poems that Kelly Dean Jolley brings is very interesting. If you do not know the song Overload, please check it as I have done. You can check all the other songs too.

SONGS AND STORIES

It’s typically true when I write a novel that a song or two ends up as crucial to the process. Sometimes the song precedes the story, sometimes it only occurs to me early in the writing. Once I have it, I play it often, and, since I often write with a guitar in my lap, I play it to myself. The song or songs usually focus on a theme of the story, helping me keep that theme in mind.

Depending on the story, the song may move from inspiration to content, and find a place inside the story itself, mentioned by name (as does Richard Buckner’s “Beautiful Question” in Big Swamp or Sam Phillips’ “Reflecting Light” in The Vanishing Woman). But the song may stay outside the story, as the song of Darcy’s Struggle does. The song I was playing to myself as I wrote the story was Ingrid Michaelson’s Overboard, although it did not strike me until I was three chapters or so into the writing.

Darcy’s Struggle circles around and through the notion of love at first sight, the possibility and the challenges and the consequences of it. (Recent science supports the reality of love at first sight, for what it’s worth. Take a look.) So too Michaelson’s song, as I hear it; it centers on the same notion. Since Michaelson’s song would be unforgivably anachronistic, it never becomes any obvious part of the content of the story; instead, I present the notion in the story by means of a poem (technically an excerpt from Christopher Marlowe’s Hero and Leander):

It lies not in our power to love, or hate,

For will in us is over-ruled by fate.

When two are stript long ere the course begin,

We wish that one should lose, the other win.

And one especially do we affect,

Of two gold Ingots like in each respect,

The reason no man knows, let it suffice,

What we behold is censured by our eyes.

Where both deliberate, the love is slight,

Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?

Although Michaelson’s song presents the woman’s point of view in the couple of which she sings, I used it (primarily) to present Darcy’s point of view, giving the gender roles a hard twist. (“If I play the girl, will you play the guy?”)

For me, a story plot is not just a series of events befalling a set of characters, it is a bearer of meaning. As such, it needs to be unified, held together by something more than this happened, and then this happened, and then that happened. (The way a sentence is more than just a sequence of words.) The songs that I rely on as I write typically help me to have and to hold that plot unity. If I succeed — if — always a problem, and for my reader to decide, not me — then there should be an all but audible “click” as the story ends, a feeling of tumblers locking into place, a feeling of completeness. In other words, the story should not just stop. (This is one difference between art and life.) Many songs have a similar aim, achieving their unity across verses and chorus, instead of chapters. (A ‘punny’ song example: Elvis Costello’s “Everyday I Write the Book”.)

Both the writing process and the conception of stories that guides it are of course highly individual, idiosyncratic. I’m not prescribing duties to other writers, but to reveal how I think about my duty to myself. This duty and my hope to discharge it creates much of my motivation to write, the challenge to which I am responding.

You can but the book using this Amazon Universal Pre-order/Buy Link:

https://mybook.to/jolleyDS

So many good stops on this tour! Check them out!

June 12 From Pemberley to Milton

June 13 My Vices and Weaknesses

June 14 Austenesque Reviews

June 17 My Jane Austen Book Club

June 18 So little time…

June 20 Interests of a Jane Austen Girl

June 21 Delighted Reader Book Reviews

I like to know how the Meryton Assembly goes but this Darcy seems more annoyed, I think.

Bingley did what Bingley always did in such situations. He flourished. 

Darcy watched. 

In mere moments, his friend had met and charmed practically everyone, the entire room—weaving through the crowd as if socializing itself were a dance—and declared the ball all he could have wished. Soon after that, he was dancing with the one obviously handsome country girl in the room.

Not for the first time, Darcy envied him. The world seemed to open itself to Bingley, providing him scope and freedom of movement; it closed itself to Darcy, crowded him.

He disliked dancing, but he did ask to dance with Caroline and with her sister. Caroline was all delight; Mrs. Hurst was pleased enough. He danced with each out of duty, not inclination. 

He was never inclined to dance. 

Bingley caught at Darcy’s elbow as he walked across the floor, having finished his dance with Mrs. Hurst. 

“Darcy, are you going to allow my sister to poison an evening of pleasure? There are many very pretty girls here, and I would have you dance. Please, be willing to be pleased; don’t stand about in this stupid way. It will not harm you or your dignity.”

“No? I have danced with the only women in the room with whom dancing would not be a punishment and a lowering. Well, there is one other—but you have monopolized her.”

Bingley smiled and glanced at that young woman across the room, a lovely, soft-eyed blonde with a beaming, celestial smile. “I know,” Bingley effused, smiling back. “She is the most perfect creature I have ever beheld! But look, her sister is not dancing. She is just behind you and is most agreeable. Let me go and ask my partner to introduce you.”

Standing straighter still, stiffening more, Darcy nonetheless managed to twist and glance. He turned back to face Bingley, who was grinning, poised to ask for the introduction, taking a first step in the direction of his partner. 

“No,” Darcy said, annoyed by Bingley’s presumption that agreeability would be enough to compel him to dance with a stranger. Although he had noticed her before Bingley pointed her out, Darcy had not looked closely at the lady, had not attended to her. But he had known he did not need to look closely. 

He repeated his answer as Bingley reluctantly stopped and stepped back toward him. 

“No, she is tolerable but not handsome enough to tempt me. And she is not dancing; I am in no mood to confer consequence on young women who have been slighted by other men.” I am no woman’s hero, especially not here. “Go and dance with your partner; you are wasting her smiles and your precious time.” 

Bingley frowned but took his advice, and Darcy, unable to keep himself from doing so, turned to glance at the sister again. She was looking at him now, he discovered, and her eyes were peculiarly bright. 

He worried suddenly that he had spoken more loudly than he intended. Although his words had been about the young woman, they had been aimed at Bingley, a rebuke, an expression of annoyance with his claim that Darcy was unwilling to be pleased and with Bingley’s having called his manner stupid. 

Darcy’s manner was never stupid.

He turned away. If the young woman heard him, that was his mistake (annoyance had perhaps increased his volume), but he was no more likely to apologize to her than he was to dance with her. He was utterly scrupulous about saying what was true. So long as he did that, he deemed himself free to be unconcerned about how his expression of those truths might affect others. 

Still, reluctantly, he turned to glance at her yet again. 

She had smiled faintly to herself, the object of her attention apparently the floor. Her slightly lowered eyes, lidded, had kept him from knowing if they were still peculiarly bright. 

Bright eyes indeed 🙂

Meryton Press will give away one eBook of Darcy’s Struggle to one reader of this blog. Let me know what you think about everything that Kelly Dean Jolley has shared with us today.

The giveaway is international. If you are the winner, I will ask you for your email address to send it to Meryton Press in order to receive the ebook.

The giveaway is open until the 20th of June 2024 at 23:59 CET. Good luck!