ELIGIBLE

By Curtis Sittenfeld

Random House, 492 pp., $28

Curtis Sittenfeld’s modern retelling of “Pride and Prejudice’’ opens on a familiar note. Chip Bingley — with a BA from Dartmouth, MD from Harvard, and sizable family fortune — is shopping for a wife. How do we know this? He recently starred in a reality television show akin to “The Bachelor’’ and refused to propose to one of the lovely contestants because he hadn’t found “a soul connection.’’ But, of course.

“Eligible,’’ the name of both the television show and the novel, starts off with a wicked and witty premise. Sittenfeld, author of “Prep’’ and “American Wife,’’ seemingly sets out to skewer the culture of celebrity and 15-minute fame. Transplanted to Cincinnati, the members of the Bennet family bear parallels to those in Jane Austen’s classic but with updates. Jane, the kind beauty, is a yoga instructor, while Elizabeth, the independent spirit, is a writer for a magazine named Mascara. Since women get married much later these days, both are pushing 40, with nary a suitable prospect in sight.

Younger sisters Lydia and Kitty are irreverent sorts, but instead of chasing after military men, they are addicted to CrossFit and the Paleo diet, which gives them a “dewy beauty.’’ Mr. Bennet has just suffered a heart attack, and the two older sibs arrive home from New York to care for him while Mrs. Bennet occupies herself with the Women’s League annual fund-raising luncheon. The family blissfully ignores the fact that Mr. Bennet’s “large but dwindling inheritance’’ has been squandered. Their Tudor house is a mess, and Mrs. Bennet devotes “extensive attention to house wares’’ — in other words, she is a shopaholic.

The plot moves briskly at first, and it is fun guessing who’s who from Austen’s masterwork. Sittenfeld has a knack for nailing characters with a single phrase. Who cares whether Chip, Jane’s would-be paramour, is a doctor who “wept profusely’’ on national television? He’s the “guy in the seersucker shorts,’’ which tells us all we need to know. Mr. Darcy is now Dr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, a neurosurgeon, naturally, who looks like “a model in a local department store newspaper insert: handsome, yes, but moody.’’ The negative attraction between Elizabeth and the doctor is there from the start, and their bickering is heated — until it becomes hot.

Clearly, Sittenfeld is having fun with this fourth novel in the so-called Austen Project, an attempt to have contemporary writers take a stab at updating the British author’s six books. But you get to a point where you hear the writer’s wheels grinding (not spinning), and the attempt to inject current references into what started as satirical commentary becomes as trite as the subjects she tackles. The prejudice of the original title is racial here: Mrs. Bennet mistreated a housekeeper named Mervetta. Mr. Collins becomes Cousin Willie, a dot-com entrepreneur who is an utter bore. Lydia and Kitty are crass beyond credulity, particularly during a scene at a charades party. Wait. A charades party? The whole thing feels labored.

The longer this goes on — and at nearly 500 pages, it does go on — Sittenfeld loses track of any attempt at the kind of social satire that made Austen’s work sing, and the novel devolves into silliness. Austen’s characters, which are so fleshed out and loveable in the original, end up Twitter stand-ins for human beings. The effort to create a profession for Elizabeth is laughable: Her job at a women’s magazine is fine, apart from the fact that her biggest coup is interviewing a movie star whose husband cheated on her. But her long-sought interview with Kathy de Bourgh (the haughty Lady of the novel who is turned into a Gloria Steinhem lookalike) is enough to send me begging to see “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.’’ This half-hearted attempt to marry the feminist movement with Austen falls flat. A contemporary Elizabeth, a journalist, would not be cowed by this icon: She would be a compadre.

The novel begins so strong, so fun. But we have to read through “hate sex.’’ And extramarital affairs. And scenes in a Cincinnati diner where Dr. Darcy digs the chili. By the time we get to the conclusion — which includes reality television and a bride with Chip on her arm and a bun in the oven — the whole project has become exhausting. I want to love my modern Austen women. But the only one I ended up loving was the transgender character who comes out of nowhere. He, too, ends up with a wife.

ELIGIBLE

By Curtis Sittenfeld

Random House, 492 pp., $28

Patti Hartigan can be reached at pattihartigan@gmail.com.