The ultimate romantic novel, now read by Indira Varma. I don’t think I really need to write a summary for this, we all know the story, be it from reading the book or watching one of the gazillion adaptations. (Or, you know, trying to read the novel all ambitiously as a teen, but failing spectacularly because English no good yet, watching the 1995 BBC production at 20 and being obsessed with Colin Firth for 2 years, then reading the novel again to somewhat greater success).
What can I say that hasn’t been said about this already? I bought this because I had audible tokens left and I love Indira Varma, and it was an excellent choice. The best audiobook I’ve listened to so far, she’s so smooth and easy to understand, she reads what needs to be read and acts what needs to acted, not overdoing voices but making them clearly distinct from each other (seriously, her Mr Bennet is SO GOOD) it’s just a joy to listen to her.
At the same time, it was kind of a bad idea to get this, since I’ve only recently decided to give dating apps another try and I KNOW, fictional characters written by women must never be compared to real life, but good lord did the glaring difference hit home again!! On one hand Mr Darcy, intelligent, infatuated Mr Darcy who steps over societal expectations and his own pride, who learns and grows, who helps out without ever asking for gratitude and just simply adores this woman, who dares to challenge him in his worldviews. On the other hand… dudes in the Austrian countryside who think “wanna fuck?” sent at 11:30pm is peak seduction. So yeah, this definitely did not help the current dissatisfaction with my life choices.
Alas it is gorgeous, even to people who generally don’t like romance or romantic literature (read: myself), it’s that good and as debated as the idea of what “a classic” constitutes, this truly deserves the title.