Listen up

No one knows how long we’ll have to wait to see the newest screen adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, the buzzy Netflix version now filming in the UK. But the latest audio version of the novel, a four-and-a-half-hour adaptation with a full cast, dropped last month, and Audible celebrated by co-hosting a New York City bash—or, rather, a “Luxe Pride and Prejudice Party.”

The party—naturally, it was “an immersive experience”—was held at a bar/restaurant with Victorian decor, so that’s not a good sign. On the other hand, there were Austen-themed cocktails, a calligraphy station where attendees could pick up a monogrammed P&P journal, and a special space for listening to the new adaptation. So I would have gone had I been invited. (Unaccountably, I was not.)

I haven’t listened to the adaptation yet, but the online reviews are raves--no surprise, given the starriness of the cast (Glenn Close! Bill Nighy! Marianne Jean-Baptiste!). Promisingly, Audible’s delightful twenty-minute promo—lots of behind-the-scenes shots of actors in jeans and T-shirts recording their lines--suggests that much of Austen’s original dialogue has been preserved, despite Audible's insistence that its adaptation is "Revolutionizing Jane Austen’s Most Beloved Novel."

The revolution, it seems, lies elsewhere, including in sound effects recorded with maximum attention to period accuracy: Audible's sound designers even dressed in Regency costume in order to capture the acoustics of swishing ballgowns in an English country house.

Which is not to say that no liberties were taken. Notably, Audible is teasingly advertising that the story ends with Elizabeth and Darcy in bed. No word on how they captured those sound effects with accuracy.