Soniah Kamal’s Unmarriageable is an warm story about sisterhood and friendship, as well as a love letter to Pride and Prejudice. The five Binat sisters live in Dilipabad, a small Pakistani town just across the Indian border from Amritsar (the setting of the Bollywood spinoff Bride and Prejudice. Is that not how everyone learns geography?). A family estrangement has left their branch struggling, unable to live as they used to, so the older girls teach English, while Mrs. Binat schemes about beautification to catch wealthy husbands. Teenage Lady flirts with everyone, Mari is a pedantic Quran reader, and youngest sister Qitty is chubby and forgotten. This has everything we love in P&P, with a distinctly Pakistani style.
Jena and Alys are both over 30, a successful updating of the Bennet sisters’ impoverished gentry background, especially since handsome Bungles is only 25. This is exactly what Bingley sisters and gossipy aunties will turn into a massive mismatch and social disaster, when it’s really a tiny obstacle for a loving marriage. The Binat sisters are English teachers at the local girls’ school, which is respectable if not impressive employment, even if Alys keeps getting scolded for running her mouth in class and leading her students to question their roles as wives-to-be.
Alys and her friends have discussions about literature in translation and colonialism. (So yes, I immediately requested all the books that Alys buys in Lahore from my library. Naturally.) There are also some comments on the joys of rereading Pride and Prejudice, which make this feel like a real love letter to Jane Austen, and Unmarriageable characters discuss their favorite Austen characters and Jane’s view of marriage. I particularly enjoyed when Annie, a chronically ill former model with a secret Nigerian boyfriend, talks about how mild and silent Anne de Burgh is. But, if you’ve read P&P, though, how do you trust a Jeorgeullah Wickaam? Alys, don’t be distracted by a handsome face!
The question of marriage and finances is a central part of Austen’s work, but I’m not sure how well the impoverished-family can work as a plot device or character background right now. Current American morality sees poverty as a temporary setback to be overcome with hard work, and also considers laziness is an unforgivable personality failing. So, a poor young woman is no longer seen as an unfortunate victim of circumstance, but as a lazy taker. BOOTSTRAPS, BENNETS! Ugh. I kind of hate everything right now, and I double hate that our miserable news cycle leaks into my fiction reading.
Sherry Looclus, Alys’ coworker and friend, is even older and even more worried about money than the Binat girls. (OH! And Sir Lucas becomes Haji Looclus, a clever reimagining which took me a while to get. I just figured Haji was his first name, I didn’t realize he’d claimed the title of a Muslim who’s completed the Mecca pilgrimage.) Although it’s easy to see Mr. Collins as a ridiculous figure, we can also see how happy Sherry is to get out of her parents’ house (to fly the pigeon coop, maybe?), to mother her lovely step-children, and to have enough money that she can quit the girls’ school and work on her own projects. Of course she doesn’t have a love match, and Kaleen is still no Darsee, but you can see a partnership here.
Unmarriageable was such a great story that I forced myself to slow down reading it. I loved the revisions of familiar characters in a new setting. This novel is full of Pakistani style, but it’s still accessible to anyone with a gossipy auntie or a handsome crush.