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The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch by Melinda Taub
98 Plays2 months ago
What if Pride & Prejudice's Lydia Bennet wasn't just the selfish and shameless youngest Bennet daughter? What if she was a powerful witch who made a deal with a demon to save her beloved Kitty? And what if she was now on a mission to save another pod fave character from a cursed fate? Stefanie and Melinda discuss the redemption of the youngest Bennet, how well that arc works within a supernatural context, and just what could have been if Mr and Mrs Bennet had cared about Lydia at any point in her childhood, in The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch by Melinda Taub.
Links & Mentions
A week before this episode was due to air Stefanie and Melinda went to a talk by the iconic Austen scholar, Devony Looser, who is name checked in this episode. Looser's newest work Wild for Austen is incredible and she revealed in it that she has uncovered new evidence that Austen's family was heavily anti-slavery and that three of her brothers were publically pro-abolition and, indeed one of them was a delegate at an anti-slavery conference. It's an incredible discovery, though Looser is at pains to point out that "anti-slavery" does not mean "anti-racist". We highly reccomend you get a copy of the book and jump on any chance you get to hear Devoney speak.
If you are a fan of pithily scathing takedowns, you can find Melinda Taub’s letter on behalf of Baroness Von Schrader here.
Melinda Taub’s new book, The Shocking Experiments of Miss Mary Bennet, can be found on the publisher’s website here. A note from the hosts: we personally would have called it The Shocking Experiments of Mary Bennet, Scientist but that is because our hobby is being weird about books on the internet… and we love symmetry.
Stefanie used two excerpts as references for the mythology of Seventh Children, the first is from an Occult World article about the seventh child of a seventh child and the second is the Seventh Son, Daughter entry from the Dictionary of English Folklore.
Discover the Shell Grotto for yourself here.
You can find Lona Manning’s research into Lydia as feminist icon here, and you can read Heidi S. Bond’s research into Wickham as a serial sexual offender in the her aptly named article, Pride and Predators, here - do yourself a favour and read Footnote 2, for one of the best mini plot synopses of Pride & Prejudice we have ever seen.
If you need subtitles or a transcript, these are available through Apple Podcasts. Please note, they are auto generated so we apologise in advance for it not correctly understanding our accents on certain words.
As always you can find us (and our memes) on Instagram @janeaustenremixed and you can contact us via janeaustenremixed@gmail.com.
Join us every second Monday to hear all about a new adaptation of our favourite classic novel. Next episode we will be reading The Darcy Governess by April Karber. If you're reading along, we encourage you to buy second hand or support your local independent bookshop, where possible.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Content Warning
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey all! Before we start this episode of Jane Austen Remixed, a content warning for this week's text, The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch, by Melinda Taub. Our discussion of this adaptation contains references to infant mortality, the grooming and assault of minors, animal sacrifice, and the scourge of colonialism.
00:00:19
Speaker
These mentions are very brief and they will only be referenced as they relate to the book's plot and themes. If any of these topics might be uncomfortable for you, please feel free to give this episode a skip. We'll be back again in two weeks.
00:00:31
Speaker
Otherwise, let's begin.
Lydia Bennet's Magical Reimagining
00:00:34
Speaker
Hey Melinda. Hey Stephanie. What if I told you that some of the events of Pride and Prejudice were actually a carefully orchestrated cover story for a tale about witchcraft and magic, and that Lydia made a deal with an ancient demon to save her favourite sister?
00:00:52
Speaker
Well, I think as Elf Bathrop sings in Wicked, no good deed goes unpunished. Music
00:01:12
Speaker
Welcome to Jane Austen Remixed, the podcast where we examine the enchanted and cursed world of Pride and Prejudice adaptations. I'm Stephanie. And I'm Melinda.
00:01:23
Speaker
And today we are examining The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennett, Witch, by Melinda Taub. This is a quite recent addition to my collection and it was given to me by you, Melinda.
00:01:35
Speaker
Yes, and this all has an excellent name, by the way. The book is from 2023 and it attempts the monumental task of rehabilitating Lydia Bennet.
00:01:46
Speaker
Thankfully, Taub has the comedic chops to have a crack at this. She is also a comedy writer with credits from late night TV to her name, and in the words of her author bio, she, and I quote, wrote that thing about the Baroness from The Sound of Music that your aunt likes.
00:02:01
Speaker
This is an imagined and deeply funny letter from Baroness Elsa von Schrader explaining why her wedding to Captain Von Trapp has been cancelled. Wow.
00:02:12
Speaker
Okay, I can't wait to see this. I'll link it in the show notes. While I was writing this episode, I also discovered that Taub has a new adaptation coming out. It's called The Shocking Experiments of Miss Mary Bennett, and it's billed as a mashup of Frankenstein and Pride and Prejudice.
00:02:28
Speaker
I'll also link it below because while it is on pre-order at the time of recording, it should be available for purchase by the time you, dear listener, are hearing this episode, and we will absolutely be covering it.
00:02:40
Speaker
Ooh, okay. Let's go. Melinda, can you please share the blurb as a spoiler-free intro for our listeners who are possibly interested in pre-reading the novel?
The Challenges of Rehabilitating Lydia Bennet
00:02:50
Speaker
Miss Lydia Bennet may be the youngest, but what she lacks in maturity and responsibility, she more than makes up for in energy, fun, and magic.
00:03:01
Speaker
In this exuberant reimagining of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Lydia Bennet puts pen to paper to relate the real events and aftermath of the classic story from her own perspective.
00:03:13
Speaker
Some facts are well known. Mrs. Bennet suffers from her nerves. Mr. Bennet suffers from Mrs. Bennet. And all her five daughters suffer from an estate that is entailed only to male heirs.
00:03:25
Speaker
But Lydia also suffers from entirely different concerns. Her best beloved sister Kitty is really... a barn cat. And Wickham is every bit as wicked as the world believes him to be.
00:03:40
Speaker
But what else do you expect from a demon? And if you think Mr Darcy was uptight about dancing etiquette, wait till you see how he reacts to witchcraft. Most of all, Lydia has yet to learn that when you're a witch, promises have power.
00:03:55
Speaker
Oh, okay. That's a kitty as a cat. Yep, yep. It's one of the more fun aspects of the book. Let me start by saying that I am sceptical of most attempts to launder villains from classic literature and film.
00:04:12
Speaker
I am on record many, many times already in this podcast disparaging the character of Lydia and lamenting that she doesn't need to be redeemed. Well, prepare for me to eat my hat.
00:04:25
Speaker
This is going to be fascinating because, yes, I bought Steph this book. I just happened to see it and i was like, oh, we're thinking of starting a podcast about Pride and Prejudice adaptations.
00:04:35
Speaker
I should get this for Steph as a present. And then I read the back of it and was like, oh, you don't like Redemptions of Fear. So the fact that I bought you this is a wild choice, really.
00:04:49
Speaker
So this book is actually delightful and I want you, Melinda, and all of the Lydia skeptics to give it a try. At least download an ebook sample or borrow it from the library and dip your toe into this world.
00:05:03
Speaker
Okay, with that said, if you decided to pre-read, get off here. Otherwise, let's crack on. The book is told in a first-person letter format that jumps between present-day Newcastle not long after the canonical story has wrapped, Lydia's pre-book childhood, and also the events of Pride and Prejudice.
00:05:22
Speaker
That might sound like a lot, but it works really well to create tension and intrigue. Taub has managed to create a really strong voice for the character. This Lydia is self-aware, knowledgeable and incredibly naive in a way that makes sense for the by-turns indulged and neglected daughter of a gentleman.
00:05:39
Speaker
At times this characterisation is grating, but it makes the book all the more effective. Lydia is incredibly charming, frustratingly obtuse, and very true to form.
00:05:50
Speaker
So while the book does seek to rehabilitate her, it is also keenly aware of the character flaws that Austen wove into her in the original, and it doesn't shy away from them. So with that said...
00:06:02
Speaker
On to the recap. While I was initially disappointed that the first sentence is not THE first sentence, within a few paragraphs we are gifted with this incredible twist on the original phrase.
Lydia's Magical Abilities and Family Background
00:06:12
Speaker
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter must be a witch.
00:06:19
Speaker
Oh, seven daughters. Okay. And I know what you're thinking here. Hang on. There's only five Bennet sisters. Well, in the first chapter, we get the full origin story of the Bennet siblings.
00:06:33
Speaker
Mr. and Mrs. Bennet lost three daughters in infancy before they had Jane, Charlotte, Anne and Sophia. What's that I hear you say? That means there's eight daughters, not seven.
00:06:47
Speaker
I invite you to cast your mind back to the blurb. Young Lydia was so desperate for a companion, so jealous of the connection between Jane and Elizabeth, and so bereft after being roundly and viciously rejected by Mary, that she, barely out of toddlerhood, wills Mrs Bennet's neglected pet cat into human form.
00:07:08
Speaker
okay Kitty was, in fact, Lydia's first spell. ah How? I've bookmarked a passage for Melinda to read. So far, ordinary enough, many a lonely girl makes a companion of a pet.
00:07:24
Speaker
What happened next though was far from ordinary. I made believe that my cat was my sister and my family indulged me, as one does with an imaginative and spoiled child,
00:07:34
Speaker
Do you know the difference between pretending to believe a witch and truly believing her? There isn't one. Kitty this, kitty that was the refrain in our house. Until one day they were not humoring me.
00:07:45
Speaker
They saw her too. From that day forward, my parents had not four daughters, but five. Yep. She just wills her imaginary pet slash friend into existence. That's hilarious. Yep.
00:07:58
Speaker
It's so good. But let's back up a bit. For those of you not quite so well acquainted with fantasy novels and English folklore, I'll quote here from the Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft, and Wicca, written by Rosemary Ellen Guiley.
00:08:11
Speaker
I've linked it as well in the show notes. Seven is the most mystical and magical of numbers. Since the Middle Ages, the seventh son of a seventh son is supposed to have formidable magical and healing powers.
00:08:23
Speaker
The seventh daughter of a seventh daughter is supposed to be born with the powers of a witch, but no connection to the devil. Huh, there you go. Where this novel strays from mythology is that Mrs Bennet, as a seventh daughter in her own right, should also have had some magical ability.
00:08:39
Speaker
Instead, it is Aunt Phillips who has the gift, and deduces that the youngest Bennet girl is responsible for the whole town suddenly believing that a mostly feral cat is instead the quiet and most often forgotten Bennet daughter.
00:08:53
Speaker
So on brand, it's hilarious. That's great. It's a great way to adapt it. That's so good. The tweaks in this are so good. I loved them. And so Aunt Phillips trains Lydia and her new human companion in the craft.
00:09:07
Speaker
But already in Chapter 2, we can see the clouds of future disasters gathering. Aunt Phillips' character as the town gossip is augmented here. Though she doesn't possess much power, not nearly as much as Lydia, what she does have she uses spitefully, and so Lydia, neglected by her parents and by her human sisters, wiles away her childhood under the wing of a woman with only a tenuous grasp on morality.
00:09:32
Speaker
We meet the first big bad of the story in Chapter 3. Lydia and Kitty are traipsing into Meryton, aged seven and eight respectively, when Lydia is accosted and nearly consumed by an entity that calls itself Lord Worminhart, and in order to save them both from its clutches, Lydia offers a boon, or a bargain, to the entity, something Aunt Phillips had explicitly told her never to do.
00:09:53
Speaker
It accepts... and Lydia and Kitty's memories of the events mysteriously fade.
The Bennet Family Dynamics and Social Commentary
00:09:59
Speaker
Throughout this section, we get a lot of insight into the Bennet family and how the girls were raised. It's very clear that Taub does not care a jot for the Bennet parents, and they are both painted as lazy, self-centered, and incredibly neglectful.
00:10:12
Speaker
We're at the chronological point that Jane and Lizzie are starting to go out in society and realizing that their education is not up to scratch. They are neither accomplished nor well-read enough to make an impression over and above their counterparts on the marriage market.
00:10:26
Speaker
Ooh, okay. Yeah. Well, we're both on record saying that the Bennet parents have severe deficiencies. m In this retelling, their parents could not be less interested in providing tutors for their daughters, but Lizzie, with Jane's support, prevails.
00:10:46
Speaker
It's very funny to me, considering how Darcy finds Lizzie to be so accomplished by the time he meets her. After a time jump, we find the Bennets at the Lucas' assembly, and we are introduced to Mary King.
00:10:58
Speaker
Now, you might remember her as a very minor character who earned the attention of Wickham briefly due to her large inheritance. She and Lydia size each other up, and there are hints that there is more to Miss King than meets the eye.
00:11:09
Speaker
After the party, Aunt Philip sneaks Lydia and Kitty off to their first coven meeting, and you guessed it, they're out in the countryside in their birthday suits. It turns out that the witches have gathered to help one of their number work a complex piece of magic.
00:11:24
Speaker
They dance, there's a fire, they're still nude, and then Miss King appears. Yep, she's a witch. After summarily executing a lamb, her spell is cast.
00:11:36
Speaker
Days later, Lydia learns what she was actually a part of. Mary King's grandfather has suddenly taken fatally ill, and she is expected to finally receive the inheritance she had been moaning about waiting for at the Lucas' gathering.
00:11:51
Speaker
Lydia is horrified that she took part in what was essentially a murder, and it certainly taints her view of her fellow witches.
Georgiana Darcy and Deeper Magical Conflicts
00:12:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's basically a hit.
00:12:03
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting because Lydia's trying to like weigh up how she feels about being involved in killing someone. While at the same time, all she hears around town is how good it is that this man finally passed on so that the daughter and granddaughter that had been living in semi-poverty could finally step into the life they were meant to have. So it's this real cognitive dissonance for her.
00:12:27
Speaker
We snap back to Lydia in her present grim reality in Newcastle. She heads out to find food and to fill her cup by partaking in her favourite hobby of trying on ugly bonnets.
00:12:39
Speaker
Yes. Lydia notices a young girl simply sagging under the weight of scores of protection spells, including one warding against shark attacks. Okay, that's a choice for Regency England.
00:12:53
Speaker
Intrigued, Lydia observes for a while before she catches her name, Miss Darcy. Ooh. What is our favourite wingwoman doing in Newcastle with a group of posh schoolgirls and most strangely, utterly zombified by magic?
00:13:12
Speaker
Lydia is not a fan of Darcy, despite acknowledging to herself that he saved her from a fate much worse than her current one. So out of curiosity, she plucks a thread from Georgiana's coat. Safe at home, Lydia spells a gateway to Georgiana's lodgings through a mirror, and out of concern that the weight of the spells might actually kill the girl, she sets about pulling them all off.
00:13:32
Speaker
Lydia tells herself that it's because she simply wants to ruin something that Darcy must have paid good money for, but then she tells on herself a little by carefully reapplying the only useful protection spell back onto Georgiana.
00:13:45
Speaker
Miss Darcy immediately snaps out of Zombieland and looks straight through the mirror back at Lydia. o who With a yelp, the latter breaks the spell and tries to convince herself that there is no possible way that even the keen-eyed Miss Darcy could have spotted her.
00:14:03
Speaker
This is short-lived, however, as a note soon arrives from said Miss Darcy, asking Lydia to call on her. Uh-oh. Lydia steals herself and heads to Miss Carr's school in St James Square.
00:14:15
Speaker
This Georgiana is sharply intelligent and obsessed with complex mathematics, hence she is now at school. But part of the bargain that Darcy struck seems to be that the titular Miss Carr adds more protection spells to Georgiana every Sunday.
00:14:32
Speaker
And unknowingly, because this woman is not a witch, she is coming very, very close to killing her lucrative charge by burdening her with too much magical weight. Georgiana wants to pay Lydia to scrape the spells off every week so that she can keep her wits and her brother doesn't know what is happening.
00:14:50
Speaker
Lydia demurs, but as she leaves, Georgiana receives a letter that turns out to be a hex. Fortunately, during the mirror scrying session, Lydia had actually put the last protection spell back on inside out.
00:15:03
Speaker
So instead of protecting Georgiana from the world, it was protecting the world from Georgiana. Now why is that handy? Well, Lydia has just enough time to deduce that the hex was intended to make Georgiana do grievous harm to another person, so the inside out protection spell saved the day.
00:15:21
Speaker
But of course, unfortunately, the spell fades before Lydia can work out who cast it. And we hit our first mystery. The story now heads back into the familiar past, so I'll skip over quite a bit, but essentially the regiment arrives and so does Mr. Collins.
00:15:35
Speaker
Familiar plot points occur. Speaking of familiar plot points, Kitty has a cough, which I'm sure you also remember from the 1995 adaptation. She does not cough for her own amusement, you know?
00:15:47
Speaker
no she does not. And while Kitty is coughing herself into a stupor, Lydia has been artfully avoiding our friend Wickham because she feels odd every time she looks at him.
00:15:58
Speaker
Is she in love? No. It turns out that is not George Wickham, because a demon won that pretty face in a card game and consumed the original owner. That also feels incredibly on brand. It does.
00:16:14
Speaker
And this demon has started to eat away at Lydia's soul, starting with her familiar, her sister Kitty, demon whose father is Lord Wormenheart.
00:16:29
Speaker
And it turns out Kitty's cough is not a cough. It's a death rattle. She's dying. Aww. So the girls go to Aunt Phillips, who informs them that Lord Wormenheart is a great power, basically the aristocracy of the magical world.
00:16:45
Speaker
powerful and powerfully dangerous.
Magical Alliances and Political Complexities
00:16:47
Speaker
Their aunt summons a fresh covered meat, naked of course, in the countryside to cast off the demon that is nibbling away at Kitty, though the other witches categorically do not believe that Lydia has awakened a great power.
00:17:00
Speaker
Until Mary King turns up with Wickham in tow and tells them that she serves old mate Lord Worminhart. Oh, okay. That explains her engagement to Mr. Wickham.
00:17:15
Speaker
Speaking through Wickham, the demon lord tempts the coven with their deepest desires and they abandon Kitty and Lydia one by one. But Kitty is still a cat and she can see through the demon's glamour.
00:17:26
Speaker
And I've got your next quote for you. Kitty dug her fingernails into my hand, sharp as claws. I may not look like a cat, she croaked between coughs. but I still am one.
00:17:37
Speaker
And we cats can see through glamours, you know. Listen to me, Lydia. He's not as strong as he seems. That's why he's bargaining instead of commanding. He's dead, remember?
00:17:48
Speaker
All these promises, he can't keep them. If he could, why is he so still slumbering beneath the church and not flying about eating sheep and whatnot? Eating sheep.
00:17:58
Speaker
Has that come up previously or is that a random throwaway line in that quote? His favourite form is a dragon. okay. Right. He's deeply implied to be the dragon that is slain by St George.
00:18:13
Speaker
Oh. All right. So Lydia believes her sister and she tells Daddy Demon to, and I quote, get rogered. Okay. As the demon closes in on our erstwhile witch, a voice calls from the darkness,
00:18:26
Speaker
It's none other than Harriet Forster. Yes, Colonel Forster's wife. She is there to save the day. and I've got another quick quote for you as well. Gracious Lydia, you have made a mess of things, she said cheerfully.
00:18:40
Speaker
You really ought to have come to me from the beginning, you know. How foolish to try and fight him off with nothing but your little country coven. Don't you know that magic requires sacrifice? And there are so many nice men willing to make their little sacrifice for us.
00:18:54
Speaker
Wow! that could do Don't worry, none of them die. She's not sacrificing them like they sacrifice an animal. Still. Several plot points hit us all at once here.
00:19:06
Speaker
Harriet is an incredibly powerful witch. Mary King gets slapped back in place and Lord Wormenheart's hold over Wickham is released by Harriet. Turns out the demon inside Wickham just loves being a handsome wastrel and is bored of his father's plotting.
00:19:21
Speaker
As for who seduced Georgiana, can you read the next quote, please, Melinda? What are you? Lydia said in a shaking voice, "'Where is the real George Wickham?' "'Gone.
00:19:35
Speaker
Extremely permanently,' he who was not Wickham said. "'Don't grieve, Miss Lydia. You never knew him. He was no great loss, anyway. The last thing he did before losing his soul to me was to try to seduce a fifteen-year-old heiress.
00:19:50
Speaker
I'm not at all sure the world is worse off with a demon walking around in his body instead.' huh okay okay so it's still Wickham but not the he who must not be Wickham Wickham the body formerly known as Wickham that's a good way to put it and here we come to the crux of the story Harriet bargains with Lord Worminhart to release Lydia and she will go to Brighton with the regiment to be Harriet's apprentice and seek out something called a jewel of propriety to pay off the boon that she owes to the demon while Kitty stays behind as a hostage.
00:20:29
Speaker
o We're back to the present now, and Lydia is having trouble locating her new charge. And oddly, Miss Carr's school has been closed down and boarded up. But she has no time to ponder the implications because Wickham has received a letter from Darcy.
00:20:46
Speaker
Wickham. We're at the Bingley's estate, Bailey Hall. Come at once. I forget nothing that has passed between us, but much can be forgiven if you and your wife can put this right.
00:20:57
Speaker
And yes, I'll pay. For pity's sake, man, it's Georgiana. In haste, Fitzwilliam Darcy. So we've got a mysterious closed school and...
00:21:10
Speaker
Okay, let's see how this plays out.
Current Challenges with Darcy and Bingley
00:21:14
Speaker
After that fabulous cliffhanger, we find Lydia at the Bingley's house, which is mostly shut up and all the servants have been sent away.
00:21:22
Speaker
Jane is now at Pemberley with a pregnant Lizzie, and the only people in the manor are Lydia, Wickham, Darcy, and Bingley. Georgiana is nowhere to be found, but something, or is it someone, is howling from the attic.
00:21:39
Speaker
Oh. And I was getting very strong Eyre vibes here. Have we got two Jane Eyre adaptations on our hands? Have we ever got two? Spoiler alert for a future issue.
00:21:51
Speaker
And then we're back in the past in Brighton and a new character enters the fray by the name of Maria Lam. She is a wealthy heiress who has recently come to town to take the cure, i.e.
00:22:02
Speaker
take to the sea, after the climate in Sanditon didn't agree with her. Yes. Okay. That's an Easter egg for the fans of Austen's unfinished manuscript.
00:22:13
Speaker
Now, I haven't read it myself. I know, i know. So I'm not sure what she's like in that story, but in this one, she is blisteringly harsh and frightfully rude. And she is a young woman who hates both heavy air quotes, unnecessary frivolity, and also Lydia. I've sent you, Melinda, one of her delightful quotes to read out for us.
00:22:34
Speaker
I do not know how things are done there either, for I never attended balls back home, but I am quite certain that that is how things are done here. i have not been here above ten minutes and I have already overheard multiple conversations about who has what fortune simply by standing near the petit fours.
00:22:54
Speaker
Her stuffed-up, clipped voice continued as she nodded to me. For example, Miss Bennet here has only a thousand pounds and an entailed family estate, which I am informed is a fortune so paltry that even a much prettier face than hers could scarcely attract any suitors worth having. She sounds like Lady Catherine.
00:23:14
Speaker
She is... who There's an explanation for why She's discussing the marriage market here because obviously she turns up single with a massive fortune and every wastrel in Brighton is chasing her fortune.
00:23:28
Speaker
Suffice to say, Miss Lamb is the child of a white father and a black freed woman born in the Caribbean at a time where the indigenous populations were being decimated by colonial plantations.
00:23:39
Speaker
and the slave trade. As a woman of colour, albeit one with a giant fortune care of her slave and plantation-owning white grandfather, in a society such as Regency England, it must have been such a trial and I have every sympathy for her and I can fully understand why she is so prickly.
00:23:56
Speaker
And Tal readily admits this too via Lydia's internal monologue. Lydia talks about hearing her referred to as quote-unquote hothouse flower and Lydia's very sympathetic.
00:24:07
Speaker
It would make you think the worst of people if people are always thinking the worst of you. Yes. Now, unfortunately for Lydia, Miss Lam appears to be the key to finding this jewel of what's-it that she has to find.
00:24:20
Speaker
Its signature purple glow is all over Maria, and she's also a very powerful witch. Ooh. We briefly flash into the present to join Lydia in some eavesdropping, and we learn that Georgiana is in the Bingley Manor, but she has been cursed, and that Darcy is currently trying to ascertain if Lydia is the source of the curse.
00:24:41
Speaker
It's pertinent to mention here that Darcy is well aware that Lydia is a witch, Elizabeth has no idea. Wow. And Bingley also is completely across this. Why?
00:24:52
Speaker
How? Well, at this point, we have no idea. ah I'm sure we'll find out soon enough. Not one to beat around the bush is our Lydia, so she accosts Darcy over dinner, and he relents, showing Lydia upstairs to Georgiana's luxurious prison.
00:25:08
Speaker
She is wild-eyed and scrawling mathematical conjectures onto the walls until the moon comes up and she promptly transforms into an owl and flies out the window.
Lydia's Relationships and Moral Struggles
00:25:18
Speaker
Of course she does.
00:25:20
Speaker
hilarious side note here the reason why she's writing on the walls is because Darcy is so distraught at his sister's condition he hasn't thought to give her any paper well so like Lydia finds her a bunch of notebooks so it's interesting to me because this Lydia's internal monologue is I'm selfish I'm awful I'm a wicked person and you see her doing these incredibly kind things for everyone With that in mind, we plunge back into the past.
00:25:46
Speaker
Determined to befriend Maria, Lydia sets about being as charming as possible, and much to her own disgust, she becomes a mourning person and joins Maria in taking to the sea.
00:25:57
Speaker
It works. Maria and Lydia strike up a tentative but charming friendship. Sad to see her new friend is still avoiding all forms of fun, Lydia goads Maria into dancing at the next ball.
00:26:08
Speaker
She has until this point only ever dressed in grey and she turns up in a glorious blue dress looking stunning. But something is off at the ball.
00:26:19
Speaker
Now, this Lydia is lonely. Her only friend is Kitty and she's sort of friends with Harriet, but she's been forced to leave Kitty behind. And we get this heartbreaking series of quotes throughout the novel where you can see how lonely Lydia is.
00:26:37
Speaker
And I've got one here. My two dearest friends, now friends with each other. It brought a glad lump to my throat. We three were enough, sitting there entwined in perfect friendship.
00:26:48
Speaker
For the first time since Kitty was torn from me, I felt complete. o It's awful. This book is really heartbreaking in so many ways, as well as being deeply funny and very entertaining.
00:26:59
Speaker
Alright, now, the party starts getting pretty wild and Lydia discovers that the something amiss is that the punch is spiked with sea water, which makes all of the witches in the room, and there's quite a few of them, go crazy.
00:27:14
Speaker
I do not have time to explain why. You're going to need to read the book. That's going to be a little hook for you guys. All you need to know is that because of this spiked punch, Lydia and Wickham nearly shag on the balcony in full view of the hostess and Miss Lamb's powers start to leak out and she is charming, almost quite literally, the pants off every man in the room.
00:27:34
Speaker
Whoa, that talker turn. Okay. Now, because of a wild amount of ragency racism, she starts catching some strays, even though the white women in the room are also acting like feral banshees. And Lydia has to act quickly.
00:27:52
Speaker
a snatch of conversation came to me. Such a beauty, isn't she? Yes, and so exotic. Quite the talk of Brighton. That chaperone of hers will have a great deal of trouble keeping the men away.
00:28:04
Speaker
Mmm, a hot-blooded tropical creature like that, she draws in the fellows before they even know what's hit them. Eeeh. Okay. Lydia springs into action, gets her friend out, and gets her home.
00:28:17
Speaker
This is where we get... a vividly written interlude where Maria, still tipsy from the seawater, tells her tragic backstory to Lydia. Spoiler alert, it's horrendous and the full effects of colonial oppression come to bear.
00:28:32
Speaker
The important thing to know here is that her wealthy white grandfather died very suddenly and the will is being viciously contested by her fully white relatives and Maria is in England to marry a white man of influence because that is the only way she will win her court case.
00:28:48
Speaker
and keep her fortune. Oof. Yeah, that's really rough, isn't it? It's appalling. And thanks to an author's note at the back of the book, I discovered that this is historically accurate.
00:29:03
Speaker
Sadly, that doesn't actually surprise me, which awful. But there is no time to dwell on this awful story, because Lydia makes the fatal error of spelling Maria to sleep while she investigates her jewellery box looking for that pesky jewel thingy.
00:29:20
Speaker
She doesn't find anything, and of course Miss Lam wakes up and throws her out of the house in disgust. Lydia is inconsolable with shame for weeks. It actually shows a lot of character growth has occurred for our very selfish heroine at this point, care of one single friendship with one single sensible woman who doesn't want to extract something from Lydia.
00:29:41
Speaker
She's the only person in Lydia's life that isn't trying to take something from her. This reverie is only broken by Harriet dragging her supposed bestie to a garden party, which turns out to be a coven meeting of incredibly powerful witches called the Order of the Rose.
00:29:58
Speaker
Lydia is to seek admission and ask help for her quest from the Witch Regent. It turns out the Brits aren't the only ones under a regency at this time. Mary King is also in the Order.
00:30:10
Speaker
Remember the old man Lydia helped kill? Guess who else was his granddaughter? Are we talking about Harriet? Nope. The revoltingly racist relatives dragging Maria through the courts to disinherit her simply because she's half black are, yep, you guessed it, Maria's murderous cousin, Miss King, and her equally awful mother.
00:30:37
Speaker
Wow. Okay. Horrendous, awful situation, but that is a really fun way to adapt and bring Mary and her family into the story more.
00:30:48
Speaker
With rage surging through her veins, Lydia learns that she needs to perform an incredibly complex piece of magic to gain entrance to the coven. She's got to wow them.
00:30:59
Speaker
Easy, right? She's super powerful. Seventh daughter of seventh daughter. No, this is going to have to be blood magic level big. and Lydia is not happy. In her displeasure, she turns the tables and uses this borrowed blood power to save the life of Mary King's servant, who has been stuck with a knife for a spell earlier on by the awful woman and then left to bleed to death unnoticed.
00:31:26
Speaker
It's an incredible success, and Lydia is invited to add a drop of her blood to the coven's collective well to seal her entry. She rages at herself about this, and tries to convince herself that the ends justify the means.
00:31:42
Speaker
I suppose you were quite disgusted with me for not refusing their invitation. I assure you, I am quite disgusted with myself. To join a group that let two servant girls nearly bleed to death in the corner while they chatted and ate lemon cakes is beyond excuse.
00:31:57
Speaker
Savage. In the end, she relents. Or does she? It was a very good illusion. None of the witches standing around watching caught it. Instead, they all cheered and applauded and welcomed me as their newest member.
00:32:13
Speaker
That's right. Lydia had a small amount of magic left and she cast a glamour. The drop of blood is fake.
00:32:22
Speaker
Lydia heads home from the ceremony to find Miss Lamb waiting for her. Maria has been to Longbourn and spoken to Kitty, who explained the entire story.
00:32:33
Speaker
Satisfied that Lydia is not in fact a traitorous thief, Maria is resolved to help her find the jewel, if only so Lydia can avoid the help of the Order, who Maria is entirely distrustful of.
00:32:45
Speaker
Only, Maria has no idea what it is or even how it has imprinted on her in the first place. She's never seen
Dramatic Showdown in the Magical World
00:32:52
Speaker
it. So what is a serious and studious witch to do? But dig out the research books and find out exactly what this jewel is supposed to be.
00:33:00
Speaker
Well, that's what Maria does. Lydia being Lydia avoids all hard work and bops off to some parties. But she's not herself. Harriet is in sparkly, delightful form, described again and again by Lydia as being truly stunningly beautiful, but Lydia feels like she's been run over by a carriage.
00:33:17
Speaker
Is this foreshadowing? You bet it is. Now, Maria and Lydia reconvene to call forth the Longman, a local minor deity who, according to their research, can help them find the jewel.
00:33:28
Speaker
He prances into the house from an adjacent field of sheep that was absolutely not there before the spell was cast and tells them to meet him in a few weeks at the Shell Grotto, at which point he will tell them exactly where the jewel is.
00:33:41
Speaker
Fantastic, right? Hmm. Side note, the grotto is real. I will link it in the show notes. It is incredible. No one knows where it came from or who made it or why it was carved out of the Chalk Hills.
00:33:54
Speaker
It's near Margate and nobody knows why it is lined with 4.6 million shells in intricate mosaic patterns. And you better believe I am absolutely going there the next time I go to the UK.
00:34:07
Speaker
This sounds incredible. That's so cool. So the weeks passed and Lydia is still feeling terribly run down, but the big day arrives and the women pack off with Wickham and Harriet in tow.
00:34:19
Speaker
After a day's carriage ride, they traipse into the cavern and call the long man. Shockingly, he possesses Lydia, speaking through her mouth while she is still conscious inside her own body, and he calls forth the other great powers.
00:34:34
Speaker
Turns out, he's not a minor deity, after all. Harriet then becomes possessed by the sea goddess, and Wickham is possessed by his father, Wormenheart, another great power.
00:34:45
Speaker
And they all turn to Maria, who is not possessed at all, but suddenly glowing vivid purple. Okay. I'm not sure if you've guessed it.
00:34:56
Speaker
I had my suspicions as the book went on, and I was right. Maria is the jewel. Oh, I did wonder before when you said she was purple. Yep. Which makes her the much fabled and long missing Witch Queen of England.
00:35:11
Speaker
Excellent. Good for her, honestly. We love this for her. i mean, it sounds like there might be some bad stuff that happens first, but fingers crossed she comes out unscathed.
00:35:25
Speaker
The three great powers then argue over what to do with her, with Worminhart asserting that he has the right to her as a possession thanks to his bargain with Lydia and Harriet, and if he can't have her, he wants her killed.
00:35:39
Speaker
Lydia bargains again successfully to take her friend home and let the witches decide what happens to her. Lydia actually has no intention of doing this, but she needs to get them all out alive before the now immobile, levitating and glowing purple Miss Lamb finishes whatever transformation the long man kicked off by having her brought to the grotto.
00:36:00
Speaker
Worm and Heart vows to kill them all if the bargain isn't kept and our Scooby gang books it out of the cabin and off into the night. right well Now they're back in the carriages and they're thundering back towards Brighton and they're arguing about the best course of action, which turns out to be entirely futile because the carriages magically wind up in the gardens of the Order of the Rose.
00:36:23
Speaker
where they are greeted by Mary King, who has schemed and presumably murdered her way into taking the position of the witch regent. She promptly collects the power of the coven to herself and turns the still-not-yet-fully-transitioned Maria into a giant lump of amethyst.
00:36:43
Speaker
Lydia gathers her powers to do battle. She is still a very powerful witch after all. And she turns to her quote-unquote bestie Harriet for support to find that Harriet has sided with Mary King.
00:36:56
Speaker
And because Lydia joined the coven, Harriet was her sponsor and now she can drain her powers. Which Lydia realises is why she's been feeling revolting and Harriet has been so extra sparkly of late. Her supposed bestie has been drinking her life force like it's a Red Bull.
00:37:14
Speaker
I did wonder when you said that I was trying to figure out Mike has a demon possessed her, nothing happened before, or, yeah, backstabbing power drinking instead. Still, our intrepid heroine fights on to save Maria, but it's no good.
00:37:29
Speaker
All is lost. Or is it? hope not, for the sake of the story. So this is Lydia's interior monologue. The Order was using my magic via contract that had never actually been sealed.
00:37:42
Speaker
Already they had taken so much, where to even begin? I whispered a quick how-now divining... fed with a bit of strength borrowed from Miss Lamb. The whole structure of the Order's magic spread out before me like a complex embroidery. My contract with the Order, their contracts with one another, the whole beautiful interwoven mess.
00:38:01
Speaker
There. A dropped stitch. A loose thread. Where my contract was meant to be, there was a tiny fault in the design. I ought to be able to. I reached out, making my nails as sharp as a seam picker, and tugged loose one stitch, then the one before, back and back and back, faster than I could ever do in real life, the thread of my magic eagerly undoing one stitch after another in its haste to return to me.
00:38:27
Speaker
And she's back. Woohoo! Let's just say the result is spectacular. he And the normies in Brighton don't know why suddenly all these society women were taken with an attack of the vapors and unable to get out of bed for days.
00:38:45
Speaker
Wickham actually, he got knocked unconscious at some point and he comes back to and he thinks she's killed them all because Lydia is standing like in a field of bodies. Oh,
00:38:57
Speaker
That's a look. Yeah. Turns out they've simply been knocked out.
Conclusion of Lydia's Story and Personal Growth
00:39:00
Speaker
And so Lydia and Wickham gather the rock formerly known as Miss Lamb, chuck her in a carriage and make a bolt for London. Now, I'm sure you can see which part of the OG storyline we're barrelling into here. Yeah. and we're almost at the end of the page count, which means a lot of things happen in very quick succession.
00:39:20
Speaker
I'm just going to list them out as like quick little beats because it happens Very quickly. Harriet starts the rumour that Lydia and Wickham have a lot. Of course she does.
00:39:31
Speaker
Wickham actually seduces Lydia. Note this is very chaste description. She doesn't describe any acts. She wakes up to find him and Maria gone. In a panic, she turns herself invisible and hitches a ride on the coach to Grace Church Street.
00:39:46
Speaker
Lydia lives unnoticed in her aunt and uncle's house for days, while her father and uncle faff about in the house, unable to find her, and also saying awful things about her that she can hear.
00:39:58
Speaker
Darcy turns up and Lydia follows him around all of the gambling dens and knocking shops of London while he looks for Wickham. can sense her there, even though he can't see her, and he starts unconsciously talking to her, and it's very, very funny.
00:40:09
Speaker
They go to see Miss Young. The awful woman is not a witch, but she can see Lydia, which breaks a spell, and Darcy can now see her too. Hilarious. but Two of them go to find Wickham, who is actually possessed by his father, who is very keen to marry Lydia and chain her to him forever.
00:40:27
Speaker
ah At the church, the vows are said, but too late. Worminhart realizes that what he has repeated after the priest is something else entirely.
00:40:39
Speaker
The priest is bespelled. The vows he has repeated are a powerful charm that makes him Lydia's familiar. Huh. Turning the tables, this allows Lydia to siphon off his power and channel it into the rock formerly known as Maria Lam, and she's free.
00:40:56
Speaker
awesome. Now a great power in her own right, she summons the other great powers, and old mate Wormenheart is banished to slumber for another 200 years, and everything is hunky-dory. Woohoo!
00:41:07
Speaker
But wait, what happened to Georgiana, you ask? Yes. Well, we have 30 pages left and we are racing through. In these last pages, we race through a bundle of letters from other people to finish off the book.
00:41:22
Speaker
The book, it turns out, has been Lydia writing to Maria as a lengthy apology this whole time. So Maria also receives a letter from Darcy because Lydia has run off again with his still-cursed sister.
00:41:34
Speaker
He asked her to fix Georgiana in a way that meant she was permanently zombified, but she wouldn't turn into an owl ever again. He thinks it's what's best for her because she can get married. Lydia knows that G would absolutely hate that, so she whisks her off to Brighton.
00:41:49
Speaker
Maria writes to let Darcy know that she has both girls with her. He bolts down there to discover that Lydia has done what Georgiana actually asked instead. She will always turn into an owl.
00:42:00
Speaker
because of the very botched curse she's under, but she will keep her wits about her and she'll be able to work on her beloved mathematics. But who cursed her? Maria summons the witch and it's Harriet.
00:42:15
Speaker
Oh, it was Harriet all along. Sorry, I had to throw that Marvel reference in there. was It was too good. It's too perfect.
00:42:26
Speaker
but Remember way back when I said that the first curse failed because the reverse protection spells saved others from Georgiana? That's right. Harriet was hexing her to attack and kill Lydia because she is now destitute and divorced and blames Lydia.
Reflection on Lydia's Character Arc
00:42:42
Speaker
Lydia immediately forgives her, much to Maria's chagrin. She tries to, until Harriet tries to kill Lydia again. The two of them battle on Brighton Beach.
00:42:54
Speaker
Harriet burns away all of her own magic permanently. Wow. And in extreme distress, she turns to the sea goddess, the one who possessed her before. Right. She was turned up on the seashore, and the goddess grants her wish to run away and turns her into a selkie.
00:43:10
Speaker
Okay. Harriet swims off and Lydia falls into a coma. Oh. I know. It's like, at this point, there was like three or four pages left. i'm like, I don't understand. I don't know what's going to happen. but Like it's clipping along at a page.
00:43:24
Speaker
And this is where we get to my least favorite part of the book. Wickham's letter to Lydia. The end of the story is partially explained by Wickham telling Lydia that he has fallen in love with her, and when he nicked off with Maria, it wasn't as Lydia suspected to sacrifice her to his father to save his own skin, but a weird and twisted attempt to save them all. He was trying to keep Maria away from Wormenheart.
00:43:49
Speaker
Unfortunately, Wormenhart still had a connection to his son and managed to wrench it open and possess him after learning of his betrayal, and so the plan failed. Wickham has then spent all of their time in Newcastle in rotten distress, trying to find a way to make it up to Lydia and confess his love when he was interrupted by the arrival of Darcy's letter.
00:44:07
Speaker
We then switch to a letter from Lydia explaining how she realized she actually loved him too. They kissed and they made up. This is all happening in Lydia's head because he's her familiar. He found her like on the brink of death somewhere in the ether. Right.
00:44:23
Speaker
He pulls her back from the edge, they kiss and make up, and the coda is Lydia relating how they will set off for the Caribbean as Maria's new faux plantation managers, but in reality they are there to free all of the slaves that they can possibly get their hands on and have a few adventures while they are at it. And that is where it ends.
00:44:41
Speaker
There is a lot to unpack there, hey? There's so much to unpack. Let's look at the text as a whole. It's such an interesting adaptation and treads a very different path to all of the other supernatural versions that I have read because they still focus on the main couple in the storyline, Darcy and Lizzie.
00:44:58
Speaker
The first person narration gives the reader a front row seat to a truly unique and original take on Pride and Prejudice. Taub masterfully captures Lydia in all of her glorious shades of grey.
00:45:09
Speaker
It's fascinating to see the whole thing from Lydia's point of view. She's a little older, a lot more jaded, and certainly world-weary. And she begins recounting the familiar beats of the story with cynicism and a decidedly self-exculpatory goal in mind.
00:45:24
Speaker
But she grows throughout the retelling and starts to take responsibility for the chaos she caused with her selfishness and naivety. This Lydia spends much of the start of the story passing the buck.
00:45:36
Speaker
Quote, it's no wonder I wound up the way I am, is her constant refrain as she recounts her childhood. And though it makes me want to shake her, it's so in line with her character from the original novel that I simply have to take my hat off to the author.
00:45:50
Speaker
Taube has nailed the essence of the OG Lydia, while adding enough flourishes to make the character truly unique. She is both a sympathetic figure who you want to forgive because of her neglectful upbringing and terrible role models, and they've caused so much damage to her, but she's also a deeply flawed and frustratingly irresponsible person who is simply incapable of taking responsibility for her own choices. She does grow and she does start to take responsibility, but she is a delightfully human character.
00:46:21
Speaker
And who am I to say that I would have been any better if I had been dealt the hand of a neglectful family in tandem with access to almost infinite cosmic power? And itty-bitty living space.
00:46:33
Speaker
I mean, their apartment in Newcastle was very tiny, so, I mean, she's basically a genie. I must confess that I can't help but really like this Lydia. She is so delightfully herself. It's not all fun and games.
00:46:45
Speaker
There is something Lydia does early-ish in the book that is truly awful and unforgivable, but it's also too detailed to add here, so you need to read the book. Oof, okay. I know that we bang on about the Cicely bonds in Pride and Prejudice being integral to the story, but hear me out.
00:47:02
Speaker
This book so brilliantly depicts the psychic damage that can be inflicted on a neglected child who learns all of the wrong ways to get the attention that she craves from the people that she loves and the people that she idolises.
00:47:15
Speaker
It made me think again and again about that quote that it floats around on the internet, simply attributed to awfully African proverb, but it's really good.
00:47:26
Speaker
The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth. Which, you should know this as well, Melinda, is used in the Black Panther film in relation to the fabulous antagonist Killmonger played by Michael B. Jordan.
00:47:40
Speaker
That's right. It's coming back to me now. But back to my point, Lydia is so starved for familial bonds, she turns a cat into a person to fill the gaping hole in her heart.
00:47:51
Speaker
And the toxic codependency that develops between her and Kitty is masterfully played out throughout the book. Kitty is Lydia's creation, not her equal, and feeding into her worst impulses and desires results in Lydia being pulled down a rabbit hole towards her story's tragically unavoidable conclusion. Well, in the eyes of the Regency normies, at least.
00:48:12
Speaker
This adaptation is a step further along than any of the other ones I have ever read. It takes Austen's focus on women's relationships to the next level in an extreme but also amazing way.
00:48:25
Speaker
She takes these minor side characters that are mentioned in passing, gives them a backstory and fully fleshes them out. The addition of Maria Lamb from Sanditon is another rich layer that shows how much Taub really loves Pride and Prejudice and seems to understand and connect with Austen's masterful representation of female relationships.
00:48:44
Speaker
And seeing all of that through the lens of Lydia, who genuinely struggles with doing what is right, what is needed, and what is best for other people, is riveting. This book is about someone who is desperately, desperately trying to make connections with the women around her to create a support network.
00:49:02
Speaker
And she tries and she fails again and again. in terms of the other relationships and characters in this adaptation, as noted, there is absolutely no love lost between the author and the Bennett parents and indeed the gardeners and Aunt Phillips.
00:49:17
Speaker
It's a fascinating example of what I've been increasingly seeing on Janeite social media and in internet discourse. It's not exactly Lydia Apologia, but it's a reexamination of how the neglect of the parents led to Lydia's seduction and the insanity of a society that abandons a child to the whims of a serial sexual predator because as long as she is married, the quote-unquote reputational damage is mitigated.
00:49:44
Speaker
I used two articles as sources for this section by Lona Manning and Heidi S. Bond, both excellent, and I've linked them in the show notes. What sparked my interest in this topic originally was a tweet that I now cannot find anywhere and my obsessive archive of screenshots has failed me, but basically it posited that Mrs Bennet's fixation on getting her girls married, while admirable in a certain light given their precarious financial position should Mr Bennet die before any of them get hitched, also caused her to abandon her youngest daughter to a sexual predator.
00:50:17
Speaker
It is unforgivable. There is some discourse that maybe Austen could have done better and given Lydia a more emancipated ending, but I fear that this is us as readers putting too modern a lens on this 19th century tale.
Comparing Lydia and Georgiana's Fates
00:50:32
Speaker
Instead, I find myself agreeing more with Devony Luce's reading of Lydia's story. She is not shunned and remains essentially unpunished for her transgressions. Lydia is welcomed back into society as soon as she is married. And this, as Lusa points out, is a revolutionary act on behalf of Austen that we as modern readers often miss. I can see you nodding, Melinda. Yes.
00:50:54
Speaker
A more realistic ending to this story would have simply seen her abandoned to a life of poverty or institutionalized. Taub's Lydia also finds herself free from the harshest of punishments.
00:51:05
Speaker
tricking her would-be conqueror into trapping himself, earning their respect of Darcy, and setting off on a grand adventure over the oceans far from the society that tried to abandon her to a predator. Yeah, it gives Lydia a lot more agency and a lot more direction and a purpose, which, you know, she doesn't have in the original Pride and Prejudice, but I love Devonelous's...
00:51:27
Speaker
take on that it's something that I've thought about a lot and how the Bennetts welcoming the two of them the Wickhams back into Longbourn is a radical act of forgiveness don't see because we just say oh but you know she's stuck with this awful guy but that radical act of allowing her to be part of the family would have been huge yeah Massive.
00:51:53
Speaker
I would have loved to have known how readers back then would have read that. Yes. In opposition to how we see it. It must have been shocking.
00:52:03
Speaker
I think we get a bit of a hint about it from Lady Catherine's reaction. Exactly. 100%. She's the one that reacts the way that general society would have. Or Mr Collins even, you know, pretend she's dead.
00:52:16
Speaker
There's that whole section in that letter that sends to Mr Bennet. All right. Now, as my final point on the topic of Austin's parent figures having a less than stellar track record,
00:52:26
Speaker
Let us examine the entwined fates of Lydia Bennet and Pod Fave's side character Georgiana Darcy. They both teeter on the edge of the same narrative cliff, the same situation with the same man in very similar dreary seaside towns.
00:52:40
Speaker
While researching this episode, I was struck by the thought that these girls are two sides of the same coin. Georgiana Darcy's fate is wrested from the brink by a loving and socially influential parent figure in the form of her adoring older brother.
00:52:53
Speaker
Lydia's fate is to plunge off, said Cliff, and she is given a hearty shove by the vapidity of her mother and the neglect of her father, whose only concern is returning to his books undisturbed.
00:53:04
Speaker
Neither of them care where she is or with whom, and certainly neither of them rode through the night to rescue her before she could fall. Again, it falls to a sibling to be the voice of reason, but Elizabeth's bond with her own baby sister is almost non-existent.
00:53:18
Speaker
And being a young woman of no consequence herself, she cannot save Lydia alone. Now, I freely acknowledge that I am absolutely not this first person to have had this thought. I haven't read it anywhere else, but I know I'm not that original in my thinking. But it really did stop me in my tracks for a moment.
00:53:35
Speaker
Listening to you then, i don't think I've ever made those connections before about how it's actually the familial love that is what is the difference between, and I suppose also the Darcy's means given their fortunes, but it's that situational awareness and their context, right? That makes the difference. Yeah.
00:53:56
Speaker
Yeah, and maybe if Lizzie hadn't been so sanctimonious when it came to her little sister because she was an airhead and she didn't like books, maybe they would have had a stronger connection and maybe her counsel could have saved Lydia.
00:54:11
Speaker
Absolutely. And Jane is always saying to be nicer to her and things. Yeah. Speaking of the other Bennet girls, Jane is depicted as beautiful and pleasant but exceedingly dull, and it's almost fun to see Elizabeth portrayed as sniffily sanctimonious despite having, and I quote, set her cap for Wickham in the most shockingly forward fashion. That's a quote from the book and I love it. Mary portrayed as cruel and unlovable with all of her worst tendencies on display in full force.
00:54:40
Speaker
There is an interesting moment where Lydia discusses that every girl of 15 can cause havoc and make mistakes. In this story, 15-year-old Lizzie read Wollstonecraft and became a raging feminist who refused to learn womanly pursuits, while at the same age, Jane's social anxiety caused screaming meltdowns that shattered the household before every public social occasion.
00:55:02
Speaker
And I'll quote here from the text. My point is that every girl of 15 is trying. I was not some remarkable example of wickedness. Jane and Lizzie grew up and grew calmer. Lizzie discovered that the algebra and geometry she'd insisted on learning were even duller than the piano, and Jane found that the world did not end if she missed a dance step.
00:55:21
Speaker
My mistakes just happened to be of the sort that time cannot remedy. Yes, you are 100% correct. This author has completely understood Lydia. And while we bang on about the fact that she does the wrong thing because of her upbringing and because of her personality,
00:55:39
Speaker
She is still a teenager. and She's a child and she's still making mistakes. And unfortunately, they have massive consequences.
Exploration of Gender Norms and Community
00:55:48
Speaker
I found this section, which happens very early on in the book, as just a striking damnation of the pressure that is placed on young girls in every era and every society.
00:55:59
Speaker
So, this novel is interesting to me because, while there is plenty of hand-wringing about deficient guardians and ruminations on the topics of girls not being allowed to make mistakes, Lydia is not excused from her bad behaviour.
00:56:12
Speaker
She is continually presented with opportunities to choose between what she thinks is best for the quote-unquote greater good and what is best for someone she is supposed to care about. And to start, She chooses to betray and emotionally injure those closest to her in order to achieve her ends.
00:56:28
Speaker
She's not a good person. That does change. We see her develop and choose to die rather than abandon Maria. But she remains driven and ambitious. We as readers lured Lizzie for the same thing because her pushing stays within the bounds of propriety and she's presented as smart and well-read rather than having Lydia's loud and brash love of frills and fripperies, which is presented as just the worst thing ever.
00:56:52
Speaker
Lest we forget, Lizzie was also groomed into obedience by Wickham. Why does she only get labelled as a bit cringe for not seeing through him, whereas Lydia, a child who was groomed and abducted, is loathed by the fandom at large?
00:57:06
Speaker
Myself included. So yes, I have done the thing that I had sworn not to do. I have re-examined Lydia and found her worthy of said examination.
00:57:19
Speaker
And that is down to Taub. In the hands of a lesser writer, the ambition of this book would simply never work. The author captures and presents us with the very thing that we have been craving in so many adaptations.
00:57:30
Speaker
It is about... The women. The men in this book could essentially be footnotes. In fact, many of them are actually a pod-favourite trope turned on its head, so I shall name it afresh.
00:57:42
Speaker
The sexy man lamp. Yes! Talb has centered the women of the Pride and Prejudice universe in an extreme way. Minor characters get full story arcs and fleshed out characterizations. Think Mary King and Harriet Forster.
00:57:56
Speaker
Even Aunt Phillips gets a pretty insane backstory. As Lydia rockets from one crisis to another, as only she can do, there is one constant, her desperate search for community.
00:58:08
Speaker
Amongst women, from her sisters to the covens to the glittering world of Regency Brighton, she tries and she fails, often through her own childish determination to see only the best in everyone and the worst in herself.
00:58:19
Speaker
She tries to nurture those first, sensitive bonds of sisterhood into meaningful relationships. Badly. And that is the real story.
Critique of Lydia and Wickham's Relationship
00:58:27
Speaker
Beneath the spells and the sexy demons and the cats becoming girls, it's a story about female relationships one girl's relentless search for a person to call home.
00:58:38
Speaker
And sadly, in the end of this book, that person… is Wickham. o For me, it was really hard to stomach that Wickham is also redeemed at the end.
00:58:48
Speaker
I know it's not actually the OG Wickham but a sexy demon blah blah blah. I was so bitterly disappointed. i wanted her to be free. i desperately wanted Lydia to ride off into the sunset on an adventure with Maria and Georgiana.
00:59:00
Speaker
Free from the shackles of the men who constantly disappointed and failed them at every turn of this story. Lydia had spent the preceding 379 pages desperately craving sisterhood and belonging with her fellow women, she even tried to forgive Harriet, goddammit, and in the end she leaves them all behind to travel abroad with Wickham!
00:59:20
Speaker
I can't. I just can't. Yeah, that does make it tricky, hey? It's like a shoehorned in love story and it happens so quickly at the end. i don't know. But it's my only complaint. The rest of it is a fabulous romp.
00:59:33
Speaker
And before I rate it, I want you, Melinda, and all of our dear listeners to know...
Final Thoughts and Book Rating
00:59:38
Speaker
that even though I have jammed an awful lot of plot into this, I have left out so many fun plot twists and turns. I want you to have some surprises as you read the book.
00:59:49
Speaker
I want you to go back and read it even though you've just listened to all of this because there is so many great things built into it, including just how Mr Collins wound up engaged to Charlotte so suspiciously quickly.
01:00:02
Speaker
Oh, okay. There's one teaser to go back and read it. For me, this book is fine eyes. The author's joyous love of the original drips off every page and it infuses every moment of the book.
01:00:14
Speaker
The focus on the interior lives of the women that live on the periphery of Pride and Prejudice taps into what made the original so revolutionary and keeps it so beloved today. Taub's edition of The Supernatural enhances the story rather than distracts from it, blowing the doors of Regency England wide open and placing the full power of the realm into the hands of the very women society was so desperately trying to keep in line.
01:00:36
Speaker
It is the men who are the sexy lamps here, and honestly, I think Austen would love it. We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Jane Austen Remixed. We love exploring this wonderful corner of the literary world with you.
01:00:49
Speaker
please share the podcast with your friends, family, literary fans, and other J-knights. And we would love if you would leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. This helps us to reach other fans of Pride and Prejudice and build our community.
01:01:02
Speaker
You can follow us on Instagram at jaynaustenremixed. And if you have a question or a suggestion for a book, a movie, or something you'd like us to review, drop us a line. You can email us at jaynaustenremixed at gmail.com.
01:01:15
Speaker
And join us in two weeks when we discuss The Darcy Governess. by April Carber. And now, Stephanie, the most important question that we answer on this podcast, them does this Darcy dive into a lake?
01:01:32
Speaker
No. I mean, he's barely in it, so that does make sense. But instead, I'm going to leave you with a fun and hilarious aside that arrives at the end of the novel.
01:01:45
Speaker
Lydia points out that her accidental mention of Darcy saving her was absolutely on purpose, and she's quite pleased that Lizzie owes her marriage and her entire happiness to her least favourite sister.
01:02:00
Speaker
And on that note, see you next time.
01:02:14
Speaker
Thank you.