In her Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen, author Fay Weldon calls the Regency era “by our standards, a horrible time to be alive.” She also writes that the class society was “fair enough if you were Jane Austen, but supposing you were the maid?” That is what Jo Baker’s Longbourn does: supposes you were the maid. And it does the supposing brilliantly. For me, this was one of those books where the reading experience is so emotionally magnificent, it seems like a […]
The Bennets Are the MacGuffin
Longbourn by Jo Baker is proof that new work based in an homage can be so much more than the wish-fulfillment and bizarre tangents of fan fiction. A lot of literature provides alternate perspectives of a known works and Baker took Pride and Prejudice, a novel known so well by so many, and used it as a starting point for an interesting and compelling new story. The Bennets and their love lives are the MacGuffin to hang the narrative upon, but what Baker shows the […]
The other side of Longbourn
I cap off my month of Pride and Prejudice with Jo Baker’s Longbourn. I had read several favorable CBR reviews already, and I was eager to see what the fuss was all about. Can I just say, I would like to see this as a PBS special over Death Comes to Pemberley? Because I just did. If you *have* to make a fanfic, do it right: give us something new. We all know the plot to Pride and Prejudice. But we often don’t think about […]
Work, Love, and Happiness
God I love this book. In fact, I may love Longbourn more than Pride and Prejudice. I know, Blasphemy! But Baker uses Austen words (“The butler… Mrs. Hill and the two housemaids…”) as a launching pad for the contemplation of no less than the meaning of life. In addition it’s an amazing love story too! Swoon! Also, I learned the word chilblain. Jo Baker sets Longbourn in its historical home explaining the drudgery of everyday life for the servants. The amount of work required to […]