Longbourn -- Jo BakerVolume One, Chapter One

As mentioned in my 2014 Reading Goals post, I'm trying to add more adult fiction into my diet. And, as I like to chronicle this stuff, here I am, chronicling it.

Right now, I'm (obviously) reading Jo Baker's Longbourn, which is Pride and Prejudice from the servants' perspective. 

Feel free to read along! (If you end up posting about it, let me know in the comments and I'll link up.)

Basic rundown:

The life of a housemaid in Regency England—especially a housemaid in a somewhat impoverished household—is not an easy one. We've got Sarah (older) and Polly (younger); Sarah tends to take on extra work because she feels bad for Polly, who really is still a child (it's easy to see parallels between Polly and Lydia, actually); there is some amount of affection between Sarah and Mrs. Hill, though Mr. Hill seems (so far) to be rather useless.

It's laundry day at Longbourn. In a word, laundry day is AWFUL, and there is no romanticizing it. Baker organically integrates loads of interesting details about the process, while also creating a three-dimensional portrait of the personalities at play. I'm rather in love with this book already.

Other thoughts:

• First line: There could be no wearing of clothes without their laundering, just as surely as there could be no going without clothes, not in Hertfordshire anyway, and not in September. 
• Less than two pages in, and I'm completely hooked: Baker does a fabulous job of contrasting Sarah's early morning ritual—already outside and pumping water for the laundry at 4:30 in the morning, in weather so cold she can see her breath—while her employers, the Bennets, are still snug in their beds. She dreams of living in a warm place populated with half-clothed men—like Jamaica or Antigua—because there would be "consequently very little in the way of laundry". Heh.
• In opening with a scene dealing with laundry, Baker is immediately reminding the reader that the Bennets—Lizzy and Jane included—are actual, real people, with actual, real bodily functions. Which sets a very different tone from the original. It's the first Austen fanfiction I've ever read that I'd describe as 'earthy'. Also! While I'd still call this fanfiction, it's already very clear that the focus really is going to be on Baker's own characters, not on Austen's.
• If Elizabeth had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them. Heh. Makes Lizzy's rambles slightly less romantic, eh?
• And speaking of the actual, real people thing: It had been that unfortunate time of the month, when all the women in the house had been more than usually short-tempered, clumsy and prone to tears, and then had bled. The napkins now soaked in a separate tub that smelt uneasily of the butcher's shop; they'd be boiled last, in the dregs of the copper, before it was emptied. There's an aspect of Bennet family life that hadn't occurred to me: all of the girls—and the maids—would probably be on the same cycle. Criminy.
  
• Souse = pickled brawn = head cheese. Groooooooooss. From Wikipedia: "The parts of the head used varies, but the brain, eyes, and ears are usually removed". USUALLY. There are brains in this one.
• Although the Bennets aren't portrayed particularly sympathetically—not nasty, just self-absorbed, entitled, clueless, and useless—in this chapter, there is a bit about Mr. Bennet loaning books to Sarah for evening reading. So that's something.
• While hanging laundry, Sarah spots a Mysterious Stranger from afar. As something disturbs the horses in the barn later on, I have No Doubt that said stranger will come into play very soon.
• Up and working by 4:30am, only headed to bed by 11pm. Ag. 

Index.

Comments

[Melissa @Book Nut]

So, I finished this one a month back and I had two thoughts: 1) it's very dirty (as in physical dirt, not smut), something which is highly lacking in Austen's work and 2) she spent too much time on characters I didn't care all that much about.

I'm quite curious to see what you think of the rest!

[Becky Gorek]

I just finished this last week and returned it to the library for the next person to read, but now I wish I still had it so I could follow along as you read! I really enjoyed it, personally.

[Leila]

@Melissa: 1. Yes! That's what I meant by 'earthy'! I feel like the only "dirty" bit in P&P is Lizzy's six-inches-deep-in-mud petticoat. (There are some parts in the BBC miniseries to add realism, like Mrs. Bennet telling the girls to watch their step on the way into a ball because the horses had been there, but in Austen's work, not so much.) 2. I'm not far in, so I'm curious to see how I'll feel, ultimately. It's very definitely more about her own characters so far, which I like a lot -- makes it feel like more of an original creation, rather than a rehash.

@Becky: Glad to hear that you liked it! I'm enjoying it SO MUCH so far. :)

[Becky Gorek]

It took me a bit to get into it, because I love Lizzie and Jane Bennet so much that I felt like Longbourn was almost sacrilegious with its harsh (maybe "realistic"?) portrayal of them. But once I got past that, I couldn't put it down!

[Jenn]

I read this one about a month ago as well, and I agree that it's highly realistic and descriptive (or as you described it, earthy), but I found that there was only so many descriptions of chilblains and other nasty things before I didn't want to read it any longer. Books like these just remind me exactly why I would never want to travel back in time . . .

[Leila]

@Becky: For some reason, I'm loving this alternate look at the Bennets -- I think specifically BECAUSE suddenly we're seeing Jane and Lizzie with actual faults. :)

@Jenn: I hear that. It drives me bananas, though, when historical fiction glosses over the rough parts of the era, or overly romanticizes it: I'm always all, YEAH, THAT DUDE MIGHT BE EASY ON THE EYES IN HIS TOPHAT, BUT HOW DOES HE SMELL, EXACTLY?? :P

So agreed about the time travel thing, though. As much as I'd like to see it all in person, I'm pretty sure that I'm way too much of a weenie to experience it.