This is the first book that I bought new in a very long time and a purchase that I made reluctantly. I had my biography of Mary Wollstonecraft in my bag ready for a coach journey when disaster struck and my water bottle leaked making it unreadable for days! I was in the mood where I really wanted to read and so I caved and went to the little WHSmith in the station. It is a very little shop and so only had the top ten best sellers that week. I read through all of the books and there was nothing that really caught my attention. The book that I really wanted to read was very much still soggy in my bag and I didn't want to buy a book just for the sake of it. Luckily I was saved from a bookless journey and a wasted purchase by Longbourn.
The thing that eventually made me plump for this novel was that I realised it was set around the same time that Mary Wollstonecraft lived. At first glance I thought that it would be a re-imagination of Downton Abbey. I'm sure that all Austen enthusiasts are completely lost as to how I could have looked so much at this book and not realised that 'Longbourn' is the name of the house that the Bennets live in in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Well, I didn't. It's been only three years since I read Pride and Prejudice and yet it wasn't until I sat down to actually read the book that I figured out that Longbourn is in fact a re-imagining of Austen's from the perspective of the servants.
I loved this book and was caught from the first moment. The story is set all of the servants but heavily focuses on the maid Sarah. Her life parallels the life of Elizabeth Bennet as she too is blinded by pride and prejudice when the mysterious James turns up at Longbourn as the new footman. Having said that Sarah is lively and hard-working and the first half of the novel focuses on her longing for adventure. Sarah was orphaned as a young girl, but never settles for her lot in life. She always feels that she needs, wants and deserves more than the monotonous life of a domestic servant. We see this when she moves to Pemberley after Lizzie is married to Mr Darcy and finds that their is very little to do. With all of her free time she almost becomes a lady of leisure which she rejects in the name of adventure and true love.
The portrayal of the war in France and Spain is interesting as it is far from glorified and wholly sympathetic to the deserter, James. It tells the story of starvation and hardship and in the end we are left with very little regard for the army and it's officers. Wickham's appearances in this novel hep to add to this idea and I find myself feeling just the slight hint of sympathy for Lydia. The barbarity of the army is wholly fitting with the general questioning of authority and one's place in life.
There were some interpretations of characters that showed them in a completely different light to how I saw them in Austen's original novel. The detached, yet jolly figure of Mr Bennet in Baker's novel becomes just another entitle rake. We find out out that James is in fact the illegitimate child of Mr Bennet and Mrs Hill and whose disappearance is from Longbourn is paralleled closely with the disappearance of Lydia from Brighton. It is quite clear by My Bennet's actions which remain focused on Lydia where his loyalties lie.
Lizzie is also shown in a different in a different light in this novel. I had always thought her to be a fiery character, someone who breaks the mould and I do still admire her, but only in the context of Pride and Prejudice. Lizzie in this novel is entitled. Sarah quite rightly remarks that Lizzie might not dirty her dresses so much if she had to wash them which is the reality of who she would have been were she real. There was one incident in the book that encapsulates this entirely and that is when after receiving Sarah's resignation at Pemberley she has her brought to Darcy who scolds Sarah for her choice whilst Lizzie sits in near silence. I struggled to really believe this interpretation of her as I still want to believe that she is kind and not selfish. Perhaps the romantacised version is still firmly stuck in my mind.
This mini-review does depend upon someone having read Pride and Prejudice but the novel itself does not. Some of the parallels and so the irony would be lost, but I believe the novel can still hold it's own. It is an unflinching look into the life of domestic servants of the late Georgian period and challenged the romantacised view of that time proselytized by Austen novels. Lovers and non-lovers of historical fiction will gain so much from this book and I look forward to reading more from Jo Baker in the future.
Rating: ★★★★★
The portrayal of the war in France and Spain is interesting as it is far from glorified and wholly sympathetic to the deserter, James. It tells the story of starvation and hardship and in the end we are left with very little regard for the army and it's officers. Wickham's appearances in this novel hep to add to this idea and I find myself feeling just the slight hint of sympathy for Lydia. The barbarity of the army is wholly fitting with the general questioning of authority and one's place in life.
There were some interpretations of characters that showed them in a completely different light to how I saw them in Austen's original novel. The detached, yet jolly figure of Mr Bennet in Baker's novel becomes just another entitle rake. We find out out that James is in fact the illegitimate child of Mr Bennet and Mrs Hill and whose disappearance is from Longbourn is paralleled closely with the disappearance of Lydia from Brighton. It is quite clear by My Bennet's actions which remain focused on Lydia where his loyalties lie.
Lizzie is also shown in a different in a different light in this novel. I had always thought her to be a fiery character, someone who breaks the mould and I do still admire her, but only in the context of Pride and Prejudice. Lizzie in this novel is entitled. Sarah quite rightly remarks that Lizzie might not dirty her dresses so much if she had to wash them which is the reality of who she would have been were she real. There was one incident in the book that encapsulates this entirely and that is when after receiving Sarah's resignation at Pemberley she has her brought to Darcy who scolds Sarah for her choice whilst Lizzie sits in near silence. I struggled to really believe this interpretation of her as I still want to believe that she is kind and not selfish. Perhaps the romantacised version is still firmly stuck in my mind.
This mini-review does depend upon someone having read Pride and Prejudice but the novel itself does not. Some of the parallels and so the irony would be lost, but I believe the novel can still hold it's own. It is an unflinching look into the life of domestic servants of the late Georgian period and challenged the romantacised view of that time proselytized by Austen novels. Lovers and non-lovers of historical fiction will gain so much from this book and I look forward to reading more from Jo Baker in the future.
Rating: ★★★★★
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