Don't Listen To Me

Longbourn by Jo Baker

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Oh dear, oh dear. I am afraid I carried out my threat and gave up half way through - a heinous crime in my own eyes, but life is short and my to-read pile very high.

Perhaps it was because I was still reeling from the powerful, moving, gripping 'A Little Life', which I read and reviewed here a few weeks ago. Perhaps Jo Baker's 'Longbourn' never stood a chance.

More generally, I find myself irked by the way writers milk the works of other, truly great writers for their own purposes. Jane Austen was a genius. Her story about the Bennet family is one of the greatest novels ever written. It stands as a wise and joyous classic for all time. And so no, I do not want to read some imagined version of what the servants were doing while Elizabeth was falling in love with Darcy, whether it was washing menstrual blood off her and her sisters' sheets or preparing their meals.

Yikes, I'm sounding like a horrible spoilsport. Better to end it there.
Read 'Longbourn' and decide for yourselves.



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