The Sense & Sensibilities of Audible’s 'Pride & Prejudice' Adaptation

So much of the most well-known adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice work because of the visuals: the hand flex, the wet white shirt, the general brooding. But Audible’s recently released audio-only adaptation exhilarates the sounds; a Dove chocolate bar commercial of stillness and escapism crammed into noise-cancelling earbuds.

The story remains the same (and stop me if you’ve heard it before): Elizabeth Bennett is the opinionated second sibling of a middle-income family with five girls all of marriageable age. Her older sister, Jane, is the beauty, and the younger three just basically get in the way and make life difficult. Lizzy has no real interest in romantic pursuits until she finds a verbal sparring partner in the extremely wealthy and new-to-town Mr. Darcy. Literature’s favorite black cat boyfriend, Darcy, is interesting not so much because he plays hard-to-get as his and Lizzy’s whole relationship is a one-upmanship of wits to see who blinks first.

But this rendition has a modern, slyness to it that makes it feel fresh.