Longbourn, by Jo Baker

I think this blog has established that I’m a fan of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.  I’ve read it multiple times, as well as some of the books that it’s inspired in recent years (see here, and here).  So when I saw my latest read at Chapters, I was intrigued.  Longbourn, by Jo Baker, tells the story of Pride and Prejudice from the servants’ point of view; think Downton Abbey meets Austen. 

Longbourn is, principally, the story of three of the domestic staff of the Bennett family; Mrs. Hill the cook/housekeeper, Sarah the first housemaid, and John Smith the footman (who Baker notes is introduced once in the original text as the deliverer of a message to Jane from Bingley).  From the small crumbs of the staff that Austen sprinkled through her great homage to Georgian domesticity, Baker created a complementary plot and back stories for these almost invisible, and yet incredibly crucial, people in the Bennett household.

When I picked up this book, I thought of it as simply an interesting way to tell the love story that is so well known to me.  However, I quickly realized this wasn’t Baker’s purpose.  I’ll give you an example of what I mean; one of the most indelible moments in Elizabeth and Darcy’s love story is when she appears at Netherfield Hall with her petticoats with at least six inches of mud running up the hem.  It’s at that moment that Darcy recognizes Elizabeth’s vitality and kindness, and starts to fall in love with her.  That’s all well and good, but what about those petticoats?!  For a family with five girls on a limited income, they can’t just be replaced!  Oh no, it’s Sarah’s job, with her cracked and rough hands and the homemade lye soap she boiled, to make them wearable again.  

And the hits keep coming!  Kind, considerate Jane?  Barely notices Sarah or has a care for James’ role in the household.  The kind and gregarious Bingley?  He becomes a lot less desirable as a husband when you realize that his fortune, so coveted by the mamas of Merriton, comes from the sugar/slave trade.  And Mr. Bennett, in not wanting to hear his wife complain about Mr. Collins’ arrival doesn’t tell her about it until the morning of the day he’s expected; great for him, but what about Mrs. Hill?  She’s got to get a guest room ready, and then feed the man who will eventually decide her fate at Longbourn – Mr. Bennett left her no time to prepare!  In Baker’s telling of the story, the Bennetts sit on the periphery of the lives that those below-stairs are living; their actions necessarily dictate what the staff do day-to-day, but they and their concerns are removed from the personal live and concerns of the staff.  It’s an interesting dynamic.

Plot is one thing, but what about the characters and writing style?  Baker gave herself the task of creating characters and plots that run in the background of one of the most beloved pieces of English literature.  And she did a great job.  It’s clear Baker lived with Austen’s works for years, as her history is spot on and her character profiles match what you would expect for an early 19^th century household staff.  Mrs. Hill, Sarah and James, who trade the focus of the narration between them, are all dynamic characters with back stories that are fleshed out, believable, and which make them into engaging characters.  And Baker’s talent isn’t limited to the characters.  Her writing style also reflects a great comfort and familiarity with the world of Austen; her tone, pace and tenor match with Austen’s almost pitch perfectly.  It’s almost as is Pride and Prejudice and Longbourn could be considered to be parts one and two of the same story, written by the same author.

So, final verdict?  In a world that is increasingly being bombarded with works of fiction inspired by Pride and Prejudice, Longbourn seems to be a wonderful addition to the pack.  Leave aside your stories about Darcy, or Miss Darcy, or the married Mrs. Darcy, and instead focus your attention on those whose lives are lived to make the genteel and matrimonially-obsessed characters of Austen’s works possible.  I would definitely recommend this book to Austen fans out there.

Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen

Fun fact: even though I live in downtown Ottawa (the national capital of Canada), I hate going to Parliament Hill for the Canada Day celebrations on July 1^st.  It’s usually too hot, too crowded, and the government department that plans the show on the Hill is apparently either high or grossly out of touch with the average Canadian.  So, in light of all this, I’ve developed my own Canada Day tradition; I generally read until 6pm-ish, then I’ll watch the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice.  Having just recently read P&P, I was inspired to pick up another Austen work, and settled on Northanger Abbey.

Northanger Abbey is the story of Catherine Morland.  Catherine, as might be expected from an Austen work, is a young woman on the look out for a husband she could love.  After accompanying a family friend to Bath, Catherine becomes fast friends with Isabelle and is introduced to her brother John; Bath is also where Catherine meets Mr. Tilney, and almost immediately falls in love.  However, John (who’s kind of a douche.  No, wait, he’s a douche), fancies himself as the prime contender for the roll of Catherine’s husband, and does what he can to upset the Catherine/Tilney apple cart.  In the mean time, Isabelle has fallen in love with James, Catherine’s brother, and accepts his proposal.  All this happens at Bath, but the climax and most of the dénouement of the novel happens at Northanger Abbey, the Tilney family home, where Catherine is invited to visit as Tilney’s sister’s friend.  It’s an Austen novel, so I’m sure you can guess the end, but there’s a minor twist in the climax of the story, so I won’t say any more here.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that this work had more of Austen’s innate sense of humour than my last Austen read, Mansfield Park.  Right off the bat, Austen opens with a tong-in-cheek assessment of her main character.  This frank and humourous bent continues throughout the entire work as Austen continues to introduce her other characters, who are in fact archetypes in the Austen/Georgian world; we have the pompous (John), the well-meaning (James), the dastardly character (Captain Tilney), and the true gentleman (Mr. Tilney), just to name a few.  Austen’s pen at once lambasts her characters and yet makes them all highly engaging, if not endearing.

While Austen is busy harpooning her characters, she’s also busy doing the same to herself as the author.  There are numerous passages where Austen mocks the contemporary novelist; this can distract from the plot, but it’s also quite telling of her own assessment of her chosen profession.  During my last year of undergrad, I wrote a seminar paper of the gender-dynamics of the Victorian author (of which Austen doesn’t quite fit, admittedly, with the time frame), and many of the complains and observations that Austen makes with her own words were supported with the research; novels were considered trite ways to pass time for uninformed women, novels gave women un-reasonable expectations of every-day life, and most damning of all, novels created in women an impression of the men in their lives that just weren’t reasonable.  Austen plays on all these criticisms with her characters, while also addressing them head-on.

So, final verdict.  Read this book.  It’s one of the few works that Austen left to the world, and it embodies so much of the classic Austen world-view that it’s worth the read.  While I’ve yet to find an Austen book that lives up to the Pride and Prejudice of it all, Northanger Abbey is a close second with its wit, characters, and self-awareness.  

Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë

I have no patience for drama.  Anytime someone tries to bring it into my life, I shut down emotionally and then I shut that person out.  I think it’s a waste of time and energy.  Want to compare me to your ex-girlfriend?  Not on my watch.  Want to complain for the millionth time about your boss?  If you’re not going to do anything about it, then I don’t want to hear it.  Wish you could loose weight, but just can’t get there?  Put down the potato chip, then we’ll talk.  I think people who are happier with something to complain about are a waste of space and time in my life, and I’d rather they not be there.  So, what does all this have to do with my latest read?  Well, as it turns out, Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë, is nothing but useless drama.

A ‘quick’ re-cap of the plot: The Earnshaw family takes in a young orphan, Heathcliff, when the children, Hindley and Catherine, are in their early teens.  Hindley takes against Heathcliff in a big bad way, but Heathcliff and Catherine become inseparable.  When Mr. Earnshaw dies and Hindley inherits, his treatment of Heathcliff gets even worse.  By a twist of fate, Catherine meets the son of one of the neighboring manors, Linton, and being unable to do what her heart really wants which is to marry Heathcliff (because of his lower station), she marries Linton.  Heathcliff, heartbroken, disappears for a few years.  The night that he leaves, Catherine is so upset she develops a serious ‘fever’ that will forever impact her health.  When Heathcliff returns, the fight between himself and Linton so upsets Catherine that she has a relapse which eventually kills her.  During all this main drama, Heathcliff marries Linton’s younger sister, who leaves him, and later has his son, and Catherine has a daughter by Linton, only to die shortly after she’s born.  Heathcliff spends the rest of the book pining after Catherine, plotting to have his son marry Catherine’s daughter, to reduce the Earnshaw and Linton heirs to a lower station that he was originally in, and to destroying the happiness of everyone around him.  Ugh.  So much useless drama.

I have no patience for any of these characters.  Catherine is a spoiled brat who doesn’t really have a heart, and is literally feld by a long drawn out temper tantrum.  Heathcliff is just a monster.  Linton is a weak man who lets his heart take a beating and comes back for more time and again.  Catherine’s daughter is just like her mother, but worse because there’s a certain naïveté that makes you roll your eyes non-stop.  Heathcliff’s son is little more than a toddler in a young man’s body because he was so coddled by his mother.  The saving grace of all the characters is Ellen Dean, the long-time family servant, but even she’s got moments that make you wonder what the hell she’s thinking.

The worst part, to me, of the whole book, has to be Catherine’s cause of death.  The night Heathcliff leaves, she waits up for him all night, part of it outside (and in the rain).  The next morning, she’s developed a fever.  This is a completely reasonable expectation.  What’s not reasonable is the local doctor diagnosing her with a nervous condition as a result, which means she should not be upset by anything for fear of causing a relapse.  Then, when Heathcliff returns and a fight ensues between her and her husband, she locks herself in her room for three days without taking any food and very little water.  This causes a massive relapse of the nervous condition and when she recovers from this fever, she’s little more than a blithering idiot.  When she gets a visit from Heathcliff and they finally confess their love for each other, she goes almost catatonic, goes into premature labour, and dies later that night.  Why authors of the era thought that woman had such weak constitutions, I’ll never understand.  And Brontë, a woman herself, should have known better… But, Catherine is one of those women that we all know – she loves drama, seeks it out, and it eventually did her in.  As a reader, I fully feel she deserved the end she came too.

For all these complaints, Wuthering Heights isn’t a bad read.  The plot moves along at a good pace, and as much as they are unlikable, the characters are still quite engaging.  There’s only a little of the religious moralizing that makes some of the ‘classics’ impossible for me to get through.  I know, I just went on and on with complaints, and in the end I’m saying it’s not the worst book I’ve ever read.  But, for all the hassle around my problems with the characters, that I can still admit that it’s a good read shows how good the author was at her craft.

So, final verdict?  Read it if this is your type of book.  Wuthering Heights is closer in tone to Jane Eyre (which makes sense, as it was written by Brontë’s sister) than Pride and Prejudice, but what it lacks in light-heartedness, it makes up for in an engaging plot line.  However, don’t bother to read it if you not a patient person.  Getting through all of Catherine and Heathcliff’s crap, then their children’s crap, can be exhausting.  If you’re at all like me and hate drama, the fact that you can’t reach into the pages and smack a few characters upside the head to knock some sense into them might not make for an enjoyable read.  But, regardless of all that, Wuthering Heights is a major part of the western literary tradition and zeitgeist, and is worth a read.  

Death Comes to Pemberley, by P.D. James



I love living in Ottawa, the national capital of Canada.  It’s a big city, but it’s not so big that you wander around downtown feeling lost all the time; it’s small enough that you can run into people you know regularly in the hotspots (like the Market and Elgin Street); and it has all the amenities you could want (theater, shopping, sky diving – okay, so I don’t use the last one, but I know you can do it hereabouts).  The one thing I don’t like about living in Ottawa is Canada Day.  The heat, the crowds, and the progressively ridiculous stage-shows on the Hill make the day a hassle to me.  About five years ago, I figured out how to avoid the whole affair: hunker-down in my apartment with the six-hour British version of Pride and Prejudice, staring Collin Firth as Mr. Darcy.  Suddenly, Canada Day has become something I enjoy every year again…. So, needless to say, July puts me in the mood for some more P&P, which meant that Death Comes to Pemberley, by P.D. James, was a no-brainer reading choice.

Death Comes to Pemberley falls into that category of ‘fan-fiction,’ but without all the homo-eroticism that is so popular on-line.  Rather, it picks up the story of Elizabeth and Darcy six years after their marriage.  While preparing for the annual ball at Pemberley, they get a shocking visitor: Lydia Bennett, who is in hysterics and claiming that her husband, Wickham, and long-time friend, Denny have been murdered.  Out into the night goes Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam to find the gentlemen in question.  The rest of the tale reads like the murder-mysteries that we all know and love.  The plot is interesting and true to the spirit of the original Austen work.

Of course, with a cast of characters that everyone who picks up this book is already going to know, James doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room in changing them up.  I think she holds true to the characters that Austen originally wrote; you can hear Jane’s goodness, Lydia’s selfishness, and Georgiana’s quiet strength in this work.  However, Colonel Fitzwilliam has become something of a sour puss.  Moreover, the reader spends very little time with Elizabeth in this book.  The trade-off to this is getting to hear Darcy’s voice more.  If you go back and re-read the original Pride and Prejudice, you realize the Darcy’s role is very minor (he and Elizabeth can’t be together for more than two or three weeks out of the entire work) – but James has written quite a lot on his personality and actions.  Luckily, it’s believable and (I think) true to Austen’s character development.

However… this book drags on and on and on… I’m of the opinion that if you’re going to use a well-loved piece of the literary zeitgeist as your backdrop, you sure as shit better tap into the original author’s style and voice.  Oddly enough, James seems to do this – you can hear Austen in the prose; where James falls short is in the exposition – it takes forever to get anywhere with the story, something Austen avoided.  Some judicious editing could have brought this book in under 200 pages.  I’m of the firm opinion that the last 50 pages or so could be dropped completely, the information imparted elsewhere, and the reader allowed to explore other books had James ended her own in a timely manner.

So, final verdict?  I would say read this book if you’re a big Austen fan.  If your not, take a pass.  If you consider this a sequel to Pride and Prejudice, it’s satisfying to see what has become of the characters.  If, however, you’re looking for a murder-mystery, Death Comes to Pemberley is not going to be my first choice for a recommendation.  While the characters are solid and the basis for the plot is intriguing, it’s far too full of chaff to make it an exciting read.  While death might have come to Pemberley, this reader wishes the editor’s pen had come to James.