I have no doubt that Pride and Prejudice would win the award for “favourite Jane Austen novel” if there is such a thing (and there probably is!). It’s the quintessential antagonists-to-lovers romance and has no doubt served as the model for many an enemies-to-lovers story, as well as having spawned a multitude of spin-offs and retellings. Yes, the romance between the spirited, vivacious Elizabeth Bennet and the handsome, taciturn and arrogant Mr Darcy is delicious and brilliantly written, but the book is also incredibly rich in its cast of secondary characters and in the author’s sly side-swipes at the vagaries and inconsistencies at work in the society of the day.
There are something like twenty different audiobook versions of P&P available from Audible, some using well-established and recognisable narrators, some using less familiar names. I listened to two different versions – so I just scratched the surface – one from 2015 narrated by Alison Larkin and the other from 2003 narrated by Kate Reading, both of them well-known and accomplished audiobook performers. Ultimately, as with any narration, making a choice is going to come down to a matter of personal preference; the difference between literary classics and new titles is that there is usually more than one version of the former. This obviously affords the listener more choice but it also means it can be difficult to decide which version to go for if you’re not familiar with any of the performers.
I should imagine that the storyline of the novel is familiar to most. It opens when a wealthy and eligible young man leases a house on the outskirts of the Hertfordshire village of Meryton. Mr Bingley and his friend, the handsome, even wealthier Mr Darcy, are, naturally, going to be in the sights of all the marriageable young ladies in the vicinity, but while Bingley is courteous and open, Darcy is quiet and reserved, and is very soon believed to be looking down his nose at the local populace, despising them for their lack of sophistication.
This view is very quickly communicated to Elizabeth Bennet, who overhears Darcy telling his friend that she is “not handsome enough to tempt me” – and she very quickly turns it into a joke, being not at all shy about using a disparagement of herself to make others laugh.
Hence the beginning of the Pride – Darcy’s – and the Prejudice – Elizabeth’s – of the title. The more Darcy sees of Elizabeth, the more he begins to appreciate her; her “fine eyes”, her quick wit and sense of humour, her kindness and compassion; but unfortunately, while he is falling in love, Elizabeth’s initial bad impression is being furthered by Mr Wickham, a former associate of Darcy’s who spins her a tale of his own woe at the hands of Darcy’s cruelty and selfishness.
Elizabeth is, at this point, blinded by both her own prejudices and then by the fact that Darcy has clearly influenced Bingley against her beloved older sister, Jane, and is the driving force behind Bingley’s decision to leave Netherfield and return to London.
It’s not until much later, when circumstances throw Elizabeth into Darcy’s path once more, that she starts to see a different side of him, and to realise how badly she has misjudged him. But their burgeoning relationship is hit hard by the terrible news of the elopement of her younger sister, something which must forever put Elizabeth – and her whole family – beyond the pale, and will certainly mark her as a completely unsuitable match for someone of Darcy’s social standing.
There is so much more to the story than a romance, of course – there’s plenty of humour and social comment and a truly memorable cast of supporting characters, but it’s the romance that has caught the imagination and which keeps so many of us reading and re-reading this wonderful book. The fact that Darcy and Elizabeth are two intelligent, rational people and yet they jump to such immediate (and wrong!) conclusions about each other is such a brilliant way of showing the immediate attraction between them. I simply love the many ways we are shown just how compatible these two people are; how Darcy is the one person around her who can truly appreciate Elizabeth’s wit and intelligence, and the way in which Elizabeth is able to appreciate Darcy’s better qualities even when she thinks she doesn’t like him. Needless to say, this is a book I’ve read numerous times, but something I’d forgotten, and which struck me particularly while listening, is how early Darcy’s bewitchment by Elizabeth shows itself. It’s not only that he speaks to Miss Bingley about Lizzie’s “fine eyes”, it’s there in their back-and-forth and in his comments about watching the ladies on their “turn about the room”. We all know he’s not going to be looking at Miss Bingley! Something like this is one of the many reasons I love listening to audiobooks of books I’ve already read – in the best cases, I find the narrator bringing things to my attention that I may have missed while reading.
It was while listening to Kate Reading’s 2003 performance that I took particular notice of that scene. Ms Reading is a favourite narrator of mine (and of many of us here at AG) and she gives exactly the sort of highly polished and engaging performance I have come to expect. The downsides to this audiobook are that the sound quality is less than perfect and that the version I listened to was not divided into single chapters. Alison Larkin’s 2015 version is has a much clearer, crisper sound overall, and is easier to navigate because it’s properly divided up. It also includes short musical excerpts (performed on the piano) between chapters, which might be a turn-off for some.
In terms of the performances, both narrators bring their own, unique qualities to the story. While I’ve made some criticism of Ms Larkin’s work in historical romances, (mostly to do with the way she voices the heroes), I’ve always said that she’s a talented performer and a gifted comedienne, and that she really excels when performing “character roles”. This latter ability really shines through in this performance; the characters we always think of as the more comedic ones – Mrs Bennet, Lady Catherine, Mr Collins – are all very well delineated and characterised. It would be easy to slip into caricature, but Ms Larkin manages to bring out the more ridiculous sides of those particular characters without going over the top. She performs the narrative at a good pace and with an appropriate amount of expression, and gives a lively and engaging performance overall.
When I say that Kate Reading’s performance is perhaps more… subdued than Ms Larkin’s that isn’t meant as a criticism. Her pacing is good and all the characters are well differentiated, but the differences are subtle, so that Mrs Bennet, for example, is not so outwardly brash and Mr Collins is not quite so pompous. Some of her male voices – Mr Bennet and Mr Bingley, for example, are not performed using any great difference in pitch – but are nonetheless easy to identify in scenes in which they appear with one or two other characters. But in spite of the less-than-perfect sound quality, Ms Reading’s performance scores over Ms Larkin’s in one important factor – her portrayal of Darcy. Anyone who has listened to some of Kate Reading’s more recent recordings in the historical romance genre will recognise in this interpretation the beginnings of the way she vocalises romantic heroes – and given that I adore her hero voices, the fact that Darcy sounds like one of them is what gives this recording a slight edge for me.
But quite honestly, both performances have much to recommend them, and anyone listening to either isn’t going to be disappointed.
Caz
Pride and Prejudice narrated by Alison Larkin was provided to AudioGals by Alison Larkin for a review. The following is an excerpt of her performance. Below it is an excerpt of Kate Reading’s performance.
Perhaps because it was one of my first audiobooks, my favorite narrator is Flo Gibson.