Longbourn by Jo Baker

There is a big world out there of what I think can best be termed Pride and Prejudice fan literature. It's not quite fan fiction, in that plenty of it seems to be quality writing by talented authors marketed at a general audience; but it's inspired by that same desire to keep exploring a world of which Jane Austen gave us only a brief glimpse (if it's not too much of a stretch to term 400+ pages brief).

Thus far, it's not a world I have delved into, although I've been all over the on-screen remakes - Lost in Austen, Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and the inescapable Bridget Jones all get a thumbs up from me. But I've shied away from the book versions. (Especially Death comes to Pemberley. All respect to P.D. James and her writing, but I don't want to witness Lizzie and Jane's happy endings being marred by a murder, no matter how flawlessly written. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, on the other hand, sounds like an intriguing read.)

Enter Longbourn, described as 'a reimagining of Pride and Prejudice from the point of view of the servants'. Recommended by a friend, largely on the strength of a single sentence extract that the publishers - showing great insight into my personal psyche - chose to print on the back. 'If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats,' Sarah thought, 'she would be more careful not to tramp through muddy fields.' My imagination was caught by the brief glimpse of how differently the events described in Pride and Prejudice would impact life below stairs, so I pocketed the copy (with permission) and went home to curl up on the couch with it.

Baker has done her research (or at least, paints a very realistic picture) and the descriptions of the mundane activities of daily life for a servant are disturbingly real. She does not shy away from dirty realities, like the nauseous task of collecting chamber pots, yet manages to frame them in tasteful terms. My favourite paragraph is a prime example, as she conjures a grisly picture of what periods meant before the advent of washing machines or disposable sanitary products:

It had been that unfortunate time of the month, when all the women in the house had been more than unusually 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.

One of the most surprising things for me was discovering how much the servants do not know of the story that is unfolding upstairs, and more importantly, how little interest they have in it. Sarah, the housemaid, seems to have a genuine admiration for her employers.

[Elizabeth and Jane] wafted out of the room and clipped softly down the stairs. [...] The room was dull now, and meaningless, with the young ladies gone from it. They were both lovely, almost luminous. And Sarah was, she knew [...] just one of the many shadows that ebbed and tugged at the edges of the light.

However, she doesn't seem to feel much attachment to them, although she has been part of the household since a young age. She is the one who lets Mr Darcy in on the occasion when he first proposes to Lizzie, but aside from noting that Lizzie is upset afterwards, the occasion is only incidental to her. Conversely, events which are incidental to the story of Pride and Prejudice become major players in impacting Sarah's life: the footman who is mentioned only once by Austen, the costume detail for Bingley's ball which must be 'got by proxy' because the weather is so bad (Sarah being the proxy in question, who is no better fitted to trips out in stormy weather than the young ladies upstairs), the private who receives a flogging.

There is no Downton-style jumping back and forth between the upstairs and downstairs worlds of Longbourn - after all, the Bennet perspective on the story was well documented in the original. Nonetheless, Baker does not minimise the difficulties of the family upstairs. I particularly appreciated the compassion in her depiction of Mrs Bennet, who is traditionally interpreted as a bit of a laughable character, with her self-centered nervous fits and her obsession with the need to get her girls married. My view of her has changed somewhat as I've learnt more about anxiety disorders and how the silliest things can be the cause of genuine distress, which would only be added to by the lack of understanding shown by an inconsiderate husband. Baker paints Mrs Bennet primarily from the perspective of the kind-hearted housekeeper Mrs Hill, who has watched her employer live through years of torturous, compulsory pregnancies in an ultimately fruitless bid for the required male heir. Once again, Baker displays her skill of using mild language to create a stomach-turning scene of Mrs Bennet's first confinement:

The afterbirth lay in a washbasin by the bed, dark and thick as liver; Mrs Bennet was white; she whimpered as the midwife cleaned and wadded her. Mrs Hill had never seen a woman so shocked. It was as though she could not accept what her body had just done to her, its callous betrayal of her best interests. [...] 'Never again. He can beg, and I won't do it, not again. Not for diamonds.'

For me, the novel lost a lot of its impact as the focus turned from the practicalities of life in a Regency country seat, and became more involved with Sarah's story. In a moment of soul-searching I did consider whether perhaps I am a closet classist and don't feel that servants should have storylines of their own. However I think the issue was more with the departure from realism, as Sarah's story takes some turns that, although possible, seem far from likely, and the novel loses some of its distinctiveness to a more sentimental plot.

All in all, I enjoyed my first foray into Pride and Prejudice fan lit, but I suspect that I picked a strong candidate and that much of the genre is more obviously grounded in sentimentality. I could do some further research, but I think I'll leave it there. Except for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, of course.