Latest / Radio 831: A Romance Podcast / Let Mary Bennet Be a Freak, Nikki Payne on Austen's Imprint on Romance, and Sense and Sensibility Double Homework

Transcript

Let Mary Bennet Be a Freak, Nikki Payne on Austen's Imprint on Romance, and Sense and Sensibility Double Homework · Radio 831: A Romance Podcast

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to the Radio 831 Podcast. We're your hosts,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Sanjana Bhaskar and Tyler McCall, and we're so excited to
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: talk everything romance, from the novels and the tropes to
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: the book-to-screen adaptations and, of course, the drama of it all.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: You know, unpacking what the genre says about who we
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: are and how we love. Big stuff. Important stuff. Sanj, hello.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: I'm so excited to talk to you today as I
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: am every day, but a little bit more excited because...
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: I would really like to give you the floor today.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: To really pitch me on something that you have been
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: mentioning to me. This is not an exaggeration.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: All summer. Correct. Once a week minimum.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. And it is now the notably end of summer
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: and I am deeply behind on my television, but fall
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: is the season in which I get back into TV.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: And so I would really like to hear your.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Pitch on the show. The Other Bennett Sister. Tyler, I
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: thought you'd never ask. I know you did. Oh my gosh.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Pull up the PowerPoint, get your slides ready. I'm so excited. Okay,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: a little bit of background. The Other Bennett Sister is
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: an adaptation of a novel written by Janice Hadlow called
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: The Other Bennett Sister, which follows Mary Bennett, who is
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: one of the Bennett sisters of the acclaimed Bennett family
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Mary Bennett is
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: the sister who is quite overlooked for the duration of
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Pride and Prejudice. There is a little bit of an
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: iconic scene where she plays the piano at a family
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: gathering and totally embarrasses herself. Her father has to kindly
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: be like, girl, please stop. You're embarrassing yourself. And it's mortifying.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: It all happens in the background. She's such a background
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: peripheral figure in the actual novel Pride and Prejudice. The
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: other Bennett sister is her story, her fictionalized story. The
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: TV show is an adaptation done by BBC that was
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: a miniseries that came out in spring of this year, summer,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: for us Americans on BritBox. And it follows Ella Brugleri
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: as Mary Bennett, Donald Finn, who I have discussed at
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: length on the pod. Internet boyfriend. As the fictional Mr.
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: Hayward.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: And the actress who plays that one person in Sex Education,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: she plays Caroline Bingley in this. It is Tanya Reynolds.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: This is not, strictly speaking, exclusively a romance. There is
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: a huge romance component between Mary Bennett and Mr. Hayward,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: and there's a love triangle. The other romantic lead is
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: William Ryder, played by Laurie Davidson, who is this, like,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: wealthy young cad who is very taken by Mary Bennett
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: because of her charm. But the other piece of this
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: is that this is a TV show... that is not
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: concerned about making Mary Bennett likable. Mary spends the bulk
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: of the first half of this show being an insufferable nerd.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Hell yeah. She is difficult, not because she's rude. She's
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: infinitely polite, but she's so awkward that it is hard
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: to look at her for a huge chunk of the show.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: She spends so much time trying to prove herself and
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: assert herself as different From her witty, charming, radiantly beautiful
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: sisters and being told over and over that she will
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: never be them. She wants to talk about theology and
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: geology at the dinner table when other people are talking
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: about gossip and other things. And the show is in
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: huge part her own journey to self-acceptance. And it's a
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: beautiful love story about people who like really come to
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: try to understand her and see her clearly. as she
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: comes into her own as an adult. So it follows
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: her over several years and through processing the grief over
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: the loss of her father. And also as all of
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: her sisters get married and leave the house and fulfill
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: their womanly duty. There are a few reasons why I
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: would like for you to watch this. One, the piece
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: about her being unforgivably awkward.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: I love that because I'll tell you, I get really
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: scared when people do these. I'm going to do a
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: story about this forgotten character or this background character because
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: I feel like the tendency is to sort of yassify them.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, correct. And I don't want that. Why are we
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: yassifying them? It's not the exact same, but very similar.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: We've gotten a slate of... Greek myth retellings focused on
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: women in these stories who are underappreciated or background figures.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: My overall critique of these retellings is that they are often,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: not all, but many of them, are scared to make
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: these women disagreeable in any way. The secret, the retelling is,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: don't you know they were good all along? Yeah. And
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Mary is good. Mary Bennett is good. Mary is good,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: but let her be a little freak.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: She's a freak.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Let her be a little weirdo.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: So I think it's bold where it needs to be bold.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: And it is so soft and tender where it needs
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: to be tender. And also, I've talked about Donald Finn
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: so much. He's such a good romantic lead. He's such
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: a good romantic lead. Yeah. He's such a good romantic lead.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: He's such a good romantic lead. He does this delivery
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: of a couple of lines where I'm just like, please
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: do it again.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: And actually the most surefire way to get me to
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: watch anything is telling me that a hot Irish man delivers.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: A fabulous love confession. Delicious love confessions to me.
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Like, say no more. I will also say it's like
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: a very short, quick watch. And there's a Christmas special
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: coming out this year. Oh, okay. Which, who even gets
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: a Christmas special anymore?
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: And didn't I do the right thing by waiting until
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: the end of summer to watch it in the end?
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I do think it's a beautiful fall watch.
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: It's very pastoral England, flowing dresses. It's all of that.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: It's all of that stuff.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: There are certain things that God did not intend for
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: us to watch in the summer. And a British historical
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: drama is one of them.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: And you know what? I can accept and allow that.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Tyler, has my pitch sold you? Are you thinking of
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: watching it? I'm buying in heavily.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: I'm sold. I'm really delighted.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: I don't know about you. My watching habits all like
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: fall off during the summer. Like I'm behind on so
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: much stuff. And then fall happens and I get depressed.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, what if I did just stay on
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: my couch for six hours straight and binge the series?
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: And that's exactly what I need to do.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I don't want you to be depressed, but I am
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: excited for you to watch it. This is not an
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: endorsement of you being on your depression couch, but this
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: is me being really excited for you to be in
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: a spiritual state ready to accept the love of the
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: other Bennett sister into your heart. Since I'm proselytizing today.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I will say this is really wonderful, too, because I
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: leave TV town in the fall.
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: And together we make a full portrait of media. That's beautiful.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Speaking of beautiful things. I had the total pleasure of
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: getting to speak with Nikki Payne about all things Austin.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: We have a very Austin-themed episode today.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Truly, like beginning, middle, end.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: All Austin, all the time. I do like that the
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: calendar switched to September and we were like, Jane Austen time.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: The calendar switched to September and we were like, what
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: if we thought about pastoral England, perhaps? What if we
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: thought about foliage?
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: And you know what? I love that about us.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: I do too.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Nikki Payne is... such a brilliant, thoughtful, sparkling person. She
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: is the author of several books that you might know,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: like Pride and Protest, Sex, Lies, and Sensibility, The Princess
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: and the P.I., and most recently, the one that she's
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: got coming up is The Pro and the Con. She
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: is a devout fan of Austen and And she's also
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: a cultural anthropologist. She is such a cool person and
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: she's such a pro at exploring the cross-section of love, culture, desirability.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: And that's why she makes kind of the perfect guest
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: to talk about Austen's enduring impact on the way we
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: think about and talk about love in romance novels and
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: outside of them.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: So Nikki, welcome to the pod.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: I'm so delighted to have you on today. How are
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: you doing?
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: I am fantastic. I'm getting ready for a Jane Austen fall.
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: I love it.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Good.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Well, see, okay, here's the thing. I really wanted to
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: have this conversation with you because I'm fascinated by romance
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: as a genre's interest in repetition, like the reason why
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: we keep coming back to familiar stories, tropes, frames, plots,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: whatever it is. And like, It's hard to imagine a
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: romance genre that exists without Austen. I'm curious about your
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: relationship to Austen's work, because I know that your first
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: two adult romances were heavily inspired by Pride and Prejudice
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: and Sense and Sensibility. But when did you start reading Austen?
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: When did you fall in love with her work? What
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: does it mean to you?
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: So let me set the scene for you. Okay. Here
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: it is, Year of Our Lord, 1996. Okay. And I'm
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: coming of age. People are saying totally, you know, things
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: are just very 90. Okay. And I watched this movie
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: and this movie was clueless. And I became with Cher.
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: And I said, as if, and I wanted a little
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: plaid tennis skirts and Dion. And it was just diverse.
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: It was LA. And I'm like, this is my new personality.
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: Then I found out. that it was a Jane Austen
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: retelling of Emma. And I said, I know you fucking lying. Okay.
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: I've been weird ever since. And if you can, think
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: about that year of 1996, about like what was happening
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: in people's brain, in the elder millennial brain, like that
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: crazy ass Romeo and Juliet came out. Right. That O
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: with Othello thing. That sense of sensibility with like Emma
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: Thompson having that nervous breakdown and shades.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: So good.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: Okay. So good.
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: This is all within like a six month period. Like
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: congratulations for all of these girlies who came out normal
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: after that. For some reason, I became a classic scholar,
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: but like in the retail, 10 things I hate about you.
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: She's the man, like literally all within a very tight
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: window of time. So, like, they were feeding us the
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: classics in the 90s and having us reimagine them in
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: fun teenage ways. So I was really primed for the
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: pump of becoming obsessed with some old white person. Yeah.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Well, my other question is about this point about it
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: sort of being white folks business, because I've always been
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: curious about why. Like, my mom loves period pieces. She
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: loves the 2005 Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice. I grew
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: up watching Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson. You know,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: these movies were so influential on my family as well.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: And I'm always like, why were we so interested in
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: stories about a bunch of white people? Like, what was
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: the enduring appeal of that?
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: I think there are, like, three reasons for this. One,
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: I think we inhabit and I'm just going to be
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: like an anthropologist for a second. We are in the
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: water of the colonizer. So like we're in these spaces
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: where our values, our rituals, our understanding of what is ideal,
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: what is even classical, right? Is wrapped up in our
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: colonizer's mentality, right? And so sometimes the media that hits
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: you first when you are 13, 14, 15 becomes the,
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: architecture in your brain. And it becomes scaffolding, for better
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: or worse, about how you understand storytelling, how you understand value,
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: how you understand how people are supposed to act and
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: be together. But I also want to give a short
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: shrift to the story that Jane Austen particularly was telling
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: for a woman.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: In our contemporary world, I know many South Asian women
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: who have to deal with similar politics around marriage and
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: power and the similar dilemma of being unqualified for something,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: but qualified for a very specific something. Like, the experience of,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: I don't want to, like, be beyond my position in life,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: and yet the position I'm in has trapped me. Like,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: in the way that Jane is herself, and many of
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: her characters are, where they, like, are not becoming governesses
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: overnight and not becoming working women overnight. Like, they were
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: raised and bred to be in someone else's home. And
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: when that doesn't come to pass, like, the, like, utter
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: stagnation of that, I think, is an experience that lots
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: of people from outside of a white American context have
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: much more intimate experience with.
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: Deeply intimate experience. Some of the best Jane Austen retellings,
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: I would argue one of the two best are Ayesha
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: at Last, right? It was my holiday. And unmarriageable, right?
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: Which is unmarriageable as a Pakistani family. And I see
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: those as actually some of the best contemporary retellings today.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm also curious, do you see Austen's novels
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: as romances? Like, do you consider them to be romance novels?
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: In our contemporary sense, no. I think they were social
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: commentary novels with a marriage plot. I'm going to even
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: go out on a limb. I feel like Sense and
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: Sensibility was a philosophy argument, right?
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: It was.
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: About our stance. What was happening at that time was
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: this tension between this rational enlightenment and the romantics, right?
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: So we think, therefore we are. We feel, therefore we are, right?
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: So this arc is happening at this time. And she
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: makes these two sisters, right? The original title of this
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: was Rational Creatures, right?
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, I didn't know that.
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: Yes, the tension between being human, right? And being this
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: kind of loving thing, this animal. And the sense of like,
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: whether we follow the whim or we run to love
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: or whether we are stoic and follow our heads and
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: do the right thing, the smart thing.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I was rewatching the 1995 Sense and Sensibility, but now
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: we have two more Austens coming up. We've got Dolly
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Alderton's Pride and Prejudice by the end of the year.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: And we have Sense and Sensibility with Daisy Edgar Jones
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: coming out. I find myself going in with some skepticism where,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, the interpretations that I fell in love with
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: as a kid were predominantly white casts, like the 2005
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: and the 1995. And I have great fondness for Emma
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Thompson's voice. And I think often about that speech, the
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: acceptance speech she gave, where she wrote like a fictional
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: letter from Jane Austen, like what Jane Austen would think
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: if she'd seen the 95. Sense and Sensibility. And I
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: think about that, like, wit and that humor. And I
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: do think they were formative for me. And I'm sort
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: of like, 20 years later, why are you trying to
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: replicate that or remake that instead of taking, like, a
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: bigger swing? Or is it even a bigger swing? Like,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I think these are more logical ways of interpreting this
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: work that has lived on in so many different contexts.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: I find myself a little bit disappointed by that I mean,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: I'll be there, but it does feel a little bit
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: like a lost opportunity sometimes. No, you're right. You're right.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: Especially for Jane Austen, which, you know, retellings and reimaginings
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: and adaptations of Jane Austen are at this point a
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: cottage industry. And it's one of the perfect examples when
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: I'm telling people when they're interested in becoming writers. And
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: they get like seduced by the idea of making something original.
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: It's like, like I have to create this original thing or,
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: you know, it won't be, you know, the same or interesting.
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: And I said, my first novel was literally a Jane
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: Austen retelling. And at the same time that year, a
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: book came out and it was Pausing Prejudice. And it
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: was about a dog. And I said, listen, give that
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: out of your head that that's the only novel. Interesting
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: thing has to be something that Noah's ever seen before.
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: And I think when these adaptations think about retelling, they
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: think about retelling the movie they saw. They don't really
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: retell the themes or the stories or the ideas. A
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: perfect example of that is the Romeo and Juliet. Romeo
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: and Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio, it was word for word,
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: but it was a retelling in the world and where
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: the themes came alive for 14-year-olds. They were in lowriders.
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean? Like, still think about that.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: You know? It's interesting that it seems like people are
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: willing to take bigger swings with reworking Shakespeare than they
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: do with Austen. I don't know if that says something
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: about the sort of conservative bent of our culture right
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: now as well, but like many of the more inventive,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: creative Austen reinterpretations that we've seen in recent years were
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: in the 90s and 2000s. And I'm even thinking about
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: all the discourse around Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, where there
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: are all these allegiances to a very specific fictionalized form
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: of what the true story is. And I wonder if
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: that also informs the fact that our forthcoming Austen adaptations
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: seem to want to replicate a very specific traditional Austen look.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: The reality is in romance, where you have such a
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: familiar frame, regardless of whether or not there's an Austen
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: influence in your work, The thing that really stands out
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: is always going to be voice. Like the thing that
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: stands out about your work is that like within the
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: familiar conventions of an Austen novel, like it is a
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: story that is so decidedly your authorial voice. Like I
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: don't think anyone who's read your work could say otherwise.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: And I think that that distinction of voice is so
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: special and something that I wish other media would make
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: use of that like film and TV would make use
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: of as well. Right.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: The lens becomes an incredibly powerful superpower. You're able to say,
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: here's the story and here's how it looks, different body,
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: different perspective. And you give credence to that story, but
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: you also add depth and power and imagination to an
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: engine already have working, that scaffolding that's already there. And
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: you're just pushing people further up the ladder than they
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: had realized the scaffolding could go.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: I really love that framing. I'm also curious, on a
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: different note, who is your favorite Darcy? Are you partial
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: to Firth, McFadyen?
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: Listen, it's McFadyen. It's McFadyen. He's so good. Not even
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: the flex. Like, the flex is great, right? The flex
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: is great. Listen, nail the flex. But it is the stuttering, like,
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: at that meadow with the fog.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: And he's like, ah, ah.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: And it's.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Also like he comes by that nervousness honestly. Like you
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: really believe him. I was thinking also about that really
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: famous Goodreads review of Pride and Prejudice where that person
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: was just like, just fuck off. I think was the
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: review or the one that's like this is just a
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: bunch of people going to each other's houses and talking
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: but I think about the one that's like just fuck
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: already because like I think I part part of one
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: of my theories of like fan fiction is that something
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: about the original piece of media needs to be in
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: need of correction. Like, so much of fan fiction is, like,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: a response to a failure of writing, a gap in writing. And, like,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: the supposed sort of sexlessness of Austen, I'm curious also
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: how you see that as, like, an opportunity in, like,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: a contemporary romance setting.
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: I think all the time in, when I'm reading the classics,
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: about when characters would have boned canonically. You know what
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: I mean? I'm like reading something and I'm just like,
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: they're boning. Like in their head, like there's no way
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: that like when she's dancing with him in the second
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: and she said yes without realizing it. And she's dancing
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: with him and like the world kind of like drops away.
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: And she's saying like, this is how you have a conversation,
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: by the way, you know? And he was like, oh,
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: you know, is it? You know, and they're just looking
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: at each other. I'm just like, they boned after this.
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: They boned, you know, like in my mind.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, yes. I think some of my favorite parts of
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: your books are the sex scenes where like, I really
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: feel like They take advantage of those opportunities in such
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: a fun, pleasurable, beautiful way. It feels very much like, oh,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: this is filling the, like, potential gap or at least, like,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the thing that is so concealed in Austen I see, like,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: filled with, like, more richness and fullness in your work.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: So I find it to be, like, such a fun
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: opportunity in a contemporary reworking.
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: One of my favorite sex scenes is Sex, Lies, and Sensibility.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: And it's Bear and Nora in the wigwam. And one
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: of the things about sense and sensibility, particularly with Edmund
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: and Eleanor, is restraint. And it is about this person's valor,
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: this person's promise to another individual and what they would
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: not do, even though everything in them wants to. And
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: when I thought about their first sex scene, it wasn't
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: actually about like, How can I let them go crazy now?
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: It was like, what can they do with the utmost restraint?
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: How can they express their desire for each other within
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: the tightest constraints of desire? And that little mutual masturbation
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: scene was born, you know, in a wiggle room.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Thank God it was. So you're working on Persuasion in Space,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: but is there another Austin that you would like to
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: rework if given the opportunity?
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: The pro and the con that's coming out. It's a
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: novel about a, you know, a girl socialite who is
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: coming out of jail and she's wronged by her best friend.
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: And her first order of revenge is her best friend's husband.
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: If you're one of the girls, and when I say
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: the girls, I mean a Jaina Knight, you're going to say,
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: wait a minute, spoiled princess, longtime family friend, age gap.
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: And you'd be like, I know this bitch didn't.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: Emma!
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: I'm so delighted.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: It's like, her name is Emeka Woods. If you just,
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: you know, get into it a little bit.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: I'm so delighted.
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: It's just like, what would happen if these stories took
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: a different frame? So it's a romantic thriller, but it's
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: also honestly like the bones, you will see that you're like,
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: Is this fucking playing about us?
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you'll see it. I love that. Like
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: the hypochondriac dad, like every, the obsession with cake, like
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: it's all there, you know?
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: I'm so delighted to have this insider knowledge about Pro
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: and the Con. Thank you for coming on. This was
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: so lovely. And I learned so much from you every
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: time we have a conversation. I'm delighted.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: This was great.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Tyler, I had a chance to talk to Nikki Payne today,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: and it's got me thinking all things Austin. It's Austin
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: week on the pod. And I thought we could talk
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit about Sense and Sensibility, which is an
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Austin that neither of us had read prior to today.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Which feels bananas. Today is mutual homework. We're both doing homework.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Mutual homework for once. Yeah, for once, which I'm really
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: pleased about because I've read all of the other Austens,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I think, besides Sense and Sensibility until now. But I've
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: watched the movie a million times and I'm quite excited
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: for the Daisy Edgar Jones version that is coming out
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: very soon. How did you feel about Sense and Sensibility?
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: I'm not a big Austin head. Nobody come for me.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: That's just, like, my personal preference. I have not seen
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: the movie, even though I know it's classic. So the
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: reading experience, I was going in fully blind, fully fresh.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, I should also say, I know it's well over
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: 100 years old, but in service of offering a synopsis,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Sense and Sensibility follows two sisters, Eleanor and Marianne Dashwood, who,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: because of financial circumstances... end up moving from their beautiful
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: home into a small shabby cottage because of inheritance games
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: that happen. Because of that, marriage is a little bit
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: of a priority for both of them because that is
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: the only way that women of that class position can
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: acquire wealth or position or status of any kind. This
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: is really a book about sisters more than it is
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: a love story, I will say. And yet it is
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: deeply influential on how we think about I think, sister
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: relationships in love stories and romance novels of our present day,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: I would argue. That's not me definitively saying that's like
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: an argument I'm making. Eleanor is the reserved, responsible, considered
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: older sister. Marianne is the passionate, artistic, creative, effervescent younger sister.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: There's also a third sister, Margaret, who is not really
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: discussed very often.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Who's the Jan Brady of the Dashwood family.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: She just kind of shows up sometimes. There's always one
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: of those in an Austin. It follows their trials and
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: tribulations with falling in love and finding community in their
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: new position under the new financial circumstances. I actually really
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: loved it. I really loved it. And I loved it
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: because it's about sisters, I think.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Where I had thought about this when I watched the
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: 1995 with Emma Thompson, but I've talked online in the
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: past about my interest in how eldest daughters are portrayed
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: in both fiction and in contemporary discourse. There is this
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: particular archetype of the martyred elder daughter who is parentified
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: and responsible and holding the family together because her parents
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: can't do it. It is this very tried and true,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: well-worn trope in not just public discourse, but in romance.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: I'm even thinking of books like Book Lovers by Emily Henry.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: And it's interesting to read Sense and Sensibility and be like,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: how much of this came from this book? Yeah, that's true.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: And so I think I love Sense and Sensibility because
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: I love Eleanor Dashwood. I love her as the archetypal
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: eldest daughter. And I also love that Austen, as in,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: I think, the most successful interpretations of the eldest daughter,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: probes the question of, do you have to buy into
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: your own press? Do you have to be the responsible, mild-mannered,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: peacekeeping person all the time? And are you willing to
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: change or assert yourself for love? That, I think, is
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: an interesting question. My question for you is this. So
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: I don't have a sister. I just have a brother.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: And so I generally have found myself in my life
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: sort of immune to like most sister relationships on screen,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: in books, whatever. Not immune totally, but it doesn't connect
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: with me in that same way because I haven't had
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: that experience. I think it took me a while to
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: realize that it was more about the sisters. I'm telling you,
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: I went in totally blind. Do you think that I've
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: never encountered Jane Austen in my life?
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: The parts that really delighted me were Lucy, who is
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: sort of Eleanor's romantic rival, shows up and they're just
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: like constantly talking to each other in code. But like,
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: you know that they're being huge bitches to each other. Like,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: that was really fun for me.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: So good.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: As you're saying this, I listened to Sense and Sensibility.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I didn't read the text version.
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Which is the first time I've ever done an audiobook
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: for an Austin. I'm also not a huge... audiobook listener,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: the narrator was Nicola Coughlin, who plays Penelope Bridgerton. I
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: should have done that. She's fabulous as an audiobook narrator.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: She does every voice. She imbues it with so much personality.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: The humor, like, really came out in Nicola's narration. And
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: I'm very particular about audiobook narrators.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: She was incredible.
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: She was so good.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: And she did different voices for the mom. She did
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: different voices for Fanny, who is, like, The horrid, like, sister-in-law.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Horrible sister-in-law. Nightmare sister-in-law. She did different voices for Eleanor
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: and Marianne and Margaret. Like, I think that might fill.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: The gap for you of feeling... Yeah, I should go
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: back and do that. I should also say, and this
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: is just like... Someone's going to come after me with
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: a pitchfork. I was reading this by the pool, and
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: I also don't think Sense and Sensibility is a pool read.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: It's not like.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Like, I don't think Sense
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: and Sensibility... I don't think Jane Austen intended me to
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: be reading it on a Kindle by the pool. You
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: know what I mean?
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Sure, sure, sure, sure, I get that. I will say
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: some other things that I was thinking about. Romance has
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: been interested in the relationship between money, power, and love forever.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: And Sense and Sensibility reminds me of that all the time. Like,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: rereading that, thinking about There's so much conversation about money.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: The whole book is, yeah. I really was struck by
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: how love and money have rarely have ever been inextricable
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: qualities in the fiction that I have ever consumed. We've
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: talked about it in the context of sex work. We've
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: talked about it in the context of games by Anna
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Maria Volkova. We've talked about it when we have brought
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: up billionaires in the past. Romance will always care about sex, love, money,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: and power.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Even in its most, like, almost prudish context. classic form
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: of sense and sensibility. Did you have a favorite character?
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I did really love Lucy.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: I loved Fanny too, because I feel like the writing,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: like obviously in a loathsome kind of way, but the like,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: I love a diva manipulating her way into what she wants.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: And both of them were just so like, here's what
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: I have available to me to get what I want
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: and I'm going to use it.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: And I respect that. These women are often so deeply powerless,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: like they cannot take up a trade. They cannot be
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: financially independent. And so they ruthlessly manipulate circumstances in order
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: to achieve some modicum of power. And I have to
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: respect that.
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Their trade is manipulating people.
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: And I love to see a woman winning. You know,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: words to live by. Words to live by.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: But in conclusion, Jaron Austin is great, so no one
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: should yell at me.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Would you recommend it? I would but not under the
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: circumstances in which I read it. I think that's the show.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: That's the show. Call us and leave us a voicemail
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: with your thoughts at 833-831-LOVE. That's 833-831-5683.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: If you fell hard for what you heard here, get
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: episode notes delivered straight to your inbox by signing.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Up at 831stories. substack. com. and share your recommendations and topic ideas
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: in the post comments. Head to 831stories. com to keep up
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: with 831's monthly read-in-one-sitting romance novellas and sign up for
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: a membership to The Ones to get your hands on
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: them before anyone else. The Ones also get a 20%
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: discount on everything on the site, including 831's beloved trope
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: hats and pleasure reading merch.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: The Radio 831 Podcast is a production of iHeart Podcasts,
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: hosted by Sanjana Bhaskar and Tyler McCall. The show is
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: produced by Liz Smith, and for iHeart, our supervising producer
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: is Emily Marinoff. Special thanks to the whole iHeart team,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: and especially Allie Perry and Allison Cantor-Graber. Our executive producers
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: are Claire Mazur and Erica Cerullo. Our music is Domino
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: by James Ryan Carr, and Love Is What You Do
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: by Alibi. We'll be sharing the love here again next week.