England Has Three Syllables by Apolla

Are you ready for some football?

(Sorry, Americans, I mean literal football, the kind with a round ball and a goalkeeper.)

In this modern epic, Will Darcy is a star Arsenal forward and Elizabeth Bennet a sassy girl reporter. A cast of thousands (no, really) joins these two on their road to sporting glory happily ever after.

Put differently: Public schoolboy turned football legend Will Darcy is at the top of his game, literally and metaphorically… but what happens when something you love to do becomes tedious- a job of work, even?

Why you should read this: Any sports fan will love the seamless integration of the world of Premiership football and Pride & Prejudice. The writing is solid, the dialogue is witty, and there’s a good balance of plot and fluff. As a bonus, you’ll get Apolla’s tight, clipped style, decade-spanning British cultural references, and somewhat-snarky-but-always-informative footnotes.

Why you might not like this: If you hate sports and all they stand for, want your Darcy and Elizabeth dressed in cravats and corsets, and think any story longer than 20 chapters needs extensive sessions with a red pen, you’ll probably find EH3S to be as uninspiring and painful as a double overtime nil-nil youth football match played in below-freezing temperatures.

Modern, AU, Teen(?), at AHA (login required)

The best way that I can describe the experience of reading EH3S is to say that it’s like watching a World Cup final when it’s gone all the way to a penalty shootout. On one hand, you’re thrilled at the inherent drama that exists in the moment, the potential for greatness and glory, or for defeat and despair.

On the other hand, you’ve had to sit through two hours of football and it’s still not over.

EH3S jumps off to a quick start, with an attention to detail in the early chapters that draws one into the story and fleshes out the characters quickly and fluidly. In terms of consistency, Elizabeth and Darcy in particular resemble their canon counterparts, though Elizabeth is a bit more brash and Darcy rather more broody than I typically like to see. Some of this can be attributed to EH3S’ modern interpretation, and there’s nothing glaring in the characterization that made me wonder who these characters were. At least not at the beginning of the tale, which sticks quite close to the plot of Austen’s novel with some modern updates that generally make sense for a reporter and a star footballer.

However, somewhere about two-thirds through the story, it begins to feel like the seventieth minute of a match between Brazilian Hall of Famers and a collection of farmhands from Montana: pointless and headed to a rather obvious and unfortunate conclusion for the farmhands. Apolla turns the story around in a moment of character development that I really appreciated; it’s both relevant to the story she’s written and nice commentary on other stories which make the relationship between Elizabeth and Darcy a little too unbalanced for my taste. Unfortunately, after this point, the story delves back into the kind of minute relationship development that can be quite boring in P&P fics. We all love the characters, but as even the author notes, we don’t really care what kind of napkins they had at their wedding.

That said, even as she’s aware of it, Apolla seems to get caught in her own stylistic trap. The careful writing at the front end of this novel-length story has forced her to continue to provide details at the end that I almost felt like even she didn’t care about. She also introduces a bevy of new characters, many with their own plot lines and spotlights. They all add something unique to the story, and help Elizabeth and Darcy feel as though they’re part of a real world of characters and not an isolated couple obsessed with their own relationship. However, it does get difficult to keep track of everyone. (Note: Apolla has also written two other short stories in the EH3S universe, but you’ll have to ask about those if you want my opinion on them) While there’s enough wit, snark, and plot development in EH3S to keep you interested, I would have liked to see the story tightened up a bit as it grinds toward its close.

On the whole, EH3S does what I want most moderns to do: give me a believable set of characters who closely match the ones I met in canon, provide realistic situations and conflicts that either match the plot of the novel or create a believable AU, and utilize a writing style that doesn’t make me cringe. Apolla’s managed to accomplish most of what I want, and done so in a way that the story feels truly contemporary.

Now, a word of caution for those who may imagine that this modern story has any resemblance to real life, or who may be in search of a perfect sporting Darcy. With as much similarity as Apolla’s story has to current  football, be advised that Tomáš Rosický, the Czech player currently wearing #7 for Arsenal may be (at least on the surface) a match for a dark-haired, football-playing aristocrat. Still, it’s probably best not to give a shout for “DARCY!” while you watch him on the pitch.

You can do that during the straight-ahead narration of the football matches in EH3S, which, despite its faults, remains one of my favorite moderns.