Longbourn in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Jan 24, 2014 Jeff Scott rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, audiobooks, england-fiction, downton-abbey

Jo Baker provides a clever combination of Pride and Prejudice and Downton Abbey in her book Longbourn. The book chronicles the life of a housemaid in the Bennett household, complete with daily travails and the behind the scenes aspect of Pride and Prejudice. While most of the book focuses on the downstairs of the Bennett household, it shows how decisions by the Bennett’s impact them. What’s most clever about the book is how Jo Baker is able to mimic Austen’s work and adapt it to the life of a se Jo Baker provides a clever combination of Pride and Prejudice and Downton Abbey in her book Longbourn. The book chronicles the life of a housemaid in the Bennett household, complete with daily travails and the behind the scenes aspect of Pride and Prejudice. While most of the book focuses on the downstairs of the Bennett household, it shows how decisions by the Bennett’s impact them. What’s most clever about the book is how Jo Baker is able to mimic Austen’s work and adapt it to the life of a servant. Sarah must endure her daily tasks, but the introduction of a new footman, James, complicates matters. Furthermore, the introduction of new neighbors, the Bingleys, impacts both the lives of the Bennett’s and her own life as well.

Sarah’s life is one of drudgery. The story starts off with her getting up before the crack of dawn, filling up buckets of water with a freezing pump handle, and then slipping in pig shit. This is not the most glamorous of positions. Sarah’s life is one of hardship. She is an orphan and remembers the times when she had a family. There is always that time of happiness she can look back upon that contrasts so sharply with the hardship of her daily life. In contrast, the other housemaid Polly has always been an orphan so to her this life is as good as it gets. Everything is thrown into disorder with the introduction of the new footman James who mysteriously enters the household without any notice. Sarah’s growing suspicion of his origin goes along with her growing infatuation of him providing the perfect Austen formula to this story.

Everything mirrors Pride and Prejudice with heady Sarah trying to expose James, becoming infatuated with another (as if he were a suitor), and then a happily ever after…almost. James’s back story is where things are diverted. It’s both shocking and fascinating. It provides a level of detail that terribly missing during the timeline of these books. The Napoleonic Wars are some conversational footnote for the household, but through James’s eyes, we see so much more of what it was like.

Baker paints the main characters from Pride and Prejudice as larger than life. When Sarah addresses Mr. Darcy, she speaks into his cravat. Sarah’s reaction seems to embody how most fans of Pride and Prejudice would feel about the characters, larger than life, god-like. It further makes Sarah’s actions all the more brave and the ending all the more satisfying. ...more

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May 13, 2016 Cindy rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, female-author, 19th-century, audiobook

This book has been getting a lot of buzz, and it’s not hard to see why. Jane Austen is still hot, and thanks to Downton Abbey, readers are curious about the split between how the upper crust and the working class. We’re already familiar about the world of Elizabeth Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy. The book is still super popular, with film versions, graphic novels, and so many spinoffs it’s impossible to keep track. You may be wondering if we really need one more.

Yes.

You see, most of the other ver This book has been getting a lot of buzz, and it’s not hard to see why. Jane Austen is still hot, and thanks to Downton Abbey, readers are curious about the split between how the upper crust and the working class. We’re already familiar about the world of Elizabeth Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy. The book is still super popular, with film versions, graphic novels, and so many spinoffs it’s impossible to keep track. You may be wondering if we really need one more.

Yes.

You see, most of the other versions still revolve around Elizabeth and Darcy – new takes on their romance, throwing a zombie or vampire in there, adding some sex, looking at what happens after the wedding, making them spies, and on and on. But what about the other characters in the story? What about some characters that aren’t really even named as characters, but still contribute to the story? Like, say, the servants?

The main characters of the original book are still here, but only at the fringes. In English major terms, this is a Marxist look at Pride & Prejudice. The real story revolves around the household staff: Mr. and Mrs. Hill, Sara the housemaid, little Polly the kitchen maid, and the new footman, James. The arrival of James, who clearly has a secret, has upset the household routine. In fact, everyone in the story has a secret, from Mrs. Hill’s past, to Mr. Hill’s romantic persuasion, to the handsome coachman visiting at the Bingley’s estate.

The book starts off with Sara up to her elbows in laundry, scrubbing the dirt once more out of Miss Elizabeth’s petticoats. And that’s just for starters. Someone has to make all those cups of tea the girls keep requesting, arrange those dinners for the neighbors, support Mrs. Bennett’s failing nerves. Someone has to clean up for Mr. Collin’s visit. And while the ladies of the house may be solely concerned with flirting and finding husbands, the rest of the world is dealing with the war against Napoleon, labor unrest, getting in the harvest, slaughtering livestock for the winter ham, starching the laundry, and so on and on.

This book is not for everyone. If you want your Pride & Prejudice to stay just the way the author wrote it, nice and clean and happily ever after, then you really won’t enjoy this book. The characters are not politely repressed gentlefolk – they fight, they swear, they have sex. James has flashbacks to the war. None of this is graphic, but it’s certainly a change from the well-mannered Jane Austen. But if you like learning about how all members of society live, not just the wealthy, then I strongly recommend this book. I listened to it on audio, and the reader did such a good job with the drawing room accents of Miss Elizabeth and the lower class speech of little Polly. I would definitely put this on your Audible wishlist. 4.5 stars ...more

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Mar 11, 2014 Melissa rated it really liked it

Shelves: austen-for-everyone

A great way to invert Pride and Prejudice in a way that hasn't been done before. This was a five star read for me, right up until about Lizzie's wedding. I'm not sure the point of all the wandering about for years and extended "epilogue"-ness of those last pages. It seemed very much about agency and free will but I don't know why it had to take so long. ...more

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Sep 03, 2015 Cin rated it liked it

I enjoyed Elizabeth Bennett not being so perfect. The life of the Longbourn servants was just as entertaining. The book does start off slow but hang in there the pace picks up.

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Aug 09, 2024 Rossie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

In January, I had started this and then put this on the “did not finish” pile because it was a slow start and also I was reading it in winter and the chilblains references physically hurt.
Then in July, a friend who is a huge Pride & Prejudice fan, picked it for our book club, so I tried again. This time it was enjoyable! Likely due to a combination of the summer weather and asking her if a particular character was a good guy or not (I needed the tension wiped away.)
If you know P & P it’s fun to ...more

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