jane austen found rolling in her grave - bonus chapter: eligible by curtis sittenfeld

it is a truth universally acknowledged that there is no such thing as too many Jane Austen adaptations. it seems truly impossible to ever fully know the scope of how many literary adaptations of Pride and Prejudice have been made. there are the ever-predictable steamy retellings that ask the ever-present question “but what if they f*cked???”, retellings exploring the key themes but set in different cultures or countries and of course, novels that amplify the voices of Pride and Prejudices’ many rich but silent characters.

this month on the show, we’re reading eligible by curtis sittenfeld to find out where her adaptation of one of the world’s most famous classics lands on the sliding scale of literary retellings and reimaginings.

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Transcript

Laura 0:00

I put the sing in single. Don't worry about Marine. Hello and welcome to a Talk Lit Get Hit bonus chapter. The little book chats in between the big ones. We'll talk about reading, authors, and have discussions with people who, like us, can't shut up about books. We might get sidetracked and talk about literally anything else. But this is a bonus chapter we wrote just for you. For this bonus chapter, the pull of dipping into Curtis Sittenfeld's inexhaustibly bad pool of writing was too great. Although our last episode was on retellings and reworkings when Eligible lost the vote. We said no. I object. It must be done. And so, with great solemnness and with great excitement, we announced that our bonus chapter for this month is Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld. Boo. I love that we have enough integrity not to sway the vote, but we were like, you don't want to read this book, too bad. We're gonna read it. Straight off the bat, all intrigue is gone. Yeah, sorry. Sorry about that. I think that's fine. So the theme this month is retellings and reworkings. So we did just do a whole episode, it's already out, you've already heard it, on Cersei by Madeline Miller. This, I imagine, will be the length of a full-length episode. I mean, I have so much to say. I have so much to say. So Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld is apparently a retelling of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. And we have actually covered a few Pride and Prejudice retellings as well as Pride and Prejudice herself on the podcast. So we have covered Twilight, Bridget Jones's Diary, Book and Movie. Book and movie, oh my gosh, yes. I remember a question us having at the time is how many adaptations have there actually been? Apparently you didn't look very far because when I was on the Wikipedia page for Eligible, I found this great table that tells you just exactly how many there are. And there are lots. To be honest, I didn't count them. I took a screenshot and inserted it into the document, but there's lots and lots and lots. There's films, there's television shows, there's novels, there's theatre adaptations, and also something called other. I sort of feel like we looked at this and we put it in the too hard basket at the time because the list is just too long to grapple with. Even in the process of reading this book, I opened up Borrow Box and I had a book recommended to me called After Darcy, which is touted as a year of chaos, sobriety, and sisterhood. A warm, witty, and wonderfully modern Bennett family fairy tale. So that was, I think, released quite recently. They're still coming, just rolling them out. I remember I read a book a few years ago that my sister gave me for Christmas. It was like one of those blind date with the book things. The front cover said, like, for fans of Pride and Prejudice, and it was called Unleashing Mr. Darcy by Terry Wilson, and it is a person who is caring for a pack of show dogs in England. And what she doesn't count on in her quest for glory is an unstoppable attraction to billionaire dog breeder Donovan Darcy. People are oh man, the connection is so loose. Yeah. If you want to see that, go to Wikipedia. Just scroll right down to the bottom. You're welcome. Enjoy. But let's quickly move on to talking about eligible. So I have learned in my research that in late 2011, HarperCollins UK approached author Curtis Sittenfeld, among others, about penning a modern update of Jane Austen's beloved classic Pride and Prejudice. Curtis said in response, I thought, how could I resist? This could be so much fun. So this was actually the fourth update published as part of the Austen project, launched by HarperCollins UK. So now we know they are to blame. And they were aiming to pair best-selling contemporary authors with Jane Austen's six complete works. Apparently, she was given free reign by the publishers when adapting it. That is something they can believe. Huge. According to Sittenfeld herself, she keeps the spirit plot and characters close to the original. And she said that she decided to age up the characters by more than a decade, putting them in their late 30s for Jane and Liz. She said today it would be ludicrous even for a marriage-obsessed mother to try and marry off her daughters in their early 20s. One last thing before we get into it, I would just like to state for the record that this book was released in 2016, and that is important for reasons you will come to see. So, Laura, tell me about your initial thoughts, feelings, hopes, and dreams while getting ready for this episode. I love the seriousness of this episode, the way that we're like, you know what? Stuff it. Screw you all. It's a full episode. I would love to share my initial thoughts. So I have to go on the record and say that I would not have known about this book if not for my dear friend Georgia Bros, who tragically had the misfortune of reading this book in August of 2020. I think that paints a scene. Like it's peak code. Already bad enough. Shit's rough. And Georgia simply could not recover from what she was reading. I don't think I've ever received so many screenshots and voice messages and like live reenactments from her in my life. I was not holding out a shred of hope that this was going to be good based on Georgia's recommendation and also based on my personal hatred of Curtis Sittenfeld's books from the two that I've read so far. But I will say that I was looking forward to cracking up. How about you? My thoughts on romantic comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld are well documented in our February 2024 episode. I hated it with a burning passion. And when I was preparing for this episode, I realized that I had actually read another Curtis Sittenfeld book that I obviously just forgot about. And looking at it on Goodreads, I don't have a single recollection of reading this. It's only 25 pages. Oh. Either that's why, or maybe it was just shit. What's it called? It's called The Tomorrow Box. I've never heard of that. I read the description, doesn't ring any bells, but I was not looking forward to this at all. I did not enjoy romantic comedy in the slightest. And I thought that this was just gonna be a bad time, basically. If you haven't read Eligible and want to save yourself for the book, pause the episode, subscribe to the show, and come back when you're finished reading. Content warnings for Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld include transphobia, racism, homophobia, fatophobia, eating disorders, and anti-Semitism. I think at this point in time we're all fairly familiar with how Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen goes. And so I think to really illustrate the insanity of this book and so that none of the finer details are missed, we might just run through kind of like a loose synopsis of this book beat by beat to fill in the blanks so that you don't have to read it. We're doing you a service here. This is a summary straight from Wikipedia. Eligible tells the story of the five Bennett sisters. Jane is 39, Liz is 38, Mary is 30, Kitty is 26, and Lydia is 23. Jane is a yoga instructor and Liz is a writer for fashion magazine Mascara. They both live in New York City, but return to their sprawling childhood tutor home in Cincinnati after their father has a health scare. The tutor house they grew up in is falling apart just like their family. Mary is pursuing her third master's degree in psychology and still lives at home. Meanwhile, Kitty and Lydia are more focused on their crossfit classes and playing with their cell phones than moving out and finding jobs. Jane and Liz take over as the family caretakers, doing everything from cleaning to running errands to cooking healthy, doctor-approved meals for their father and the rest of their family. While all of this is going on, Mrs. Bennett, the family matriarch, really wants her daughters to get married. She is thrilled when she learns that a contestant on the dating reality TV show Eligible title drop is coming to live and work as a doctor in Cincinnati. The doctor is named Chip Bingley, so in order to initiate a meeting with her daughters, Mrs. Bennett contacts a family friend and physician who works at Christ Hospital with Chip. The group has a barbecue on the 4th of July, and Chip and Jane immediately become smitten with one another. Meanwhile, Liz feels disparaged and disrespected by Chip's judgmental sister Caroline and by Chip's fellow physician and friend Fitzwilliam Darcy. The rest of the novel follows a general structure of Pride and Prejudice as Liz navigates her love life and the ever-evolving changes in her family. From Lydia dating a new CrossFit trainer named Hamilton Ham Ryan to their aunt Margot and her wealthy entrepreneur stepson, cousin Willie, coming to visit the tutor. She falls into a hate sex relationship with Darcy, helps her parents sell their house, and supports Jane through a breakup and later reconciliation with Chip. The novel ends happily with Chip and Jane getting married as part of an eligible special wedding episode where Liz and Darcy finally admit their love for each other. Wild. And that's not all. No. It's really not. We've gotten so far ahead of ourselves, but before we get even further, let's have a quick discussion of Curtis Sittenfeld herself. The lady, the myth, the maverick. She was born in 1975, and she is the author of two collections of short stories, as well as seven novels. Her first was released in 2005. It was called Prep: The Story of Students at a Massachusetts Prep School. The Man of My Dreams came in 2006, which was a coming-of-age novel and an examination of romantic love. American Wife in 2008, which was a story loosely based on Laura Bush. Sisterland from 2013. Rodham came along in 2020, which was an old Senate history about Hillary Clinton. And obviously the talklet get hit alumnus romantic comedy came in 2023. One of those collections of short stories was released in 2025. I think at this stage I'm not afraid to say that I feel completely insane seeing some of the praise thrown at Curtis Sittenfeld. Like I completely get personal taste as a factor and like different strokes for different folks. But it's just so hard and confusing to see praise that's so effusive and points to things that I don't see whatsoever. For example, we have this one quote from the New York Times book review: three cheers for Curtis Sittenfeld and her astute, sharp, and a bullion anthropological interest in the human condition. Huh? Huh? People said blissful. Sittenfeld modernizes the classic in such a stylish, witty way you'd even guess Jane Austen would be pleased. I'm not so sure. And then the New Yorker says the fun lies in Sittenfeld's acute sensitivity to social negotiations and conventions. At the front of my copy of the book, there are four pages of reviews. Dazzling, a feast for a book, not since clueless, have we seen anything so great, effortlessly entertaining? The most insane one for me was Sittenfeld pulls off the modernization splendidly, brimming with feminist life lessons. That's from Porter. And again, like remember this was published in 2016. Yes. But we were seeing praise like that with romantic comedy and with Rodham, both of which I've suffered through. And like I think it's one thing to see people saying, such a fun ramp, such a dazzling feast for the senses for stuff that's like no thoughts, just vibes. But I think when it's something like Curtis Sittenfeld's works, where it's meant to be sharp, smart social commentary, and you're just not seeing that, it's so confusing. I know I live in an echo chamber, but to look at what's being laid out on the page and feel like I'm not picking up on even a crumb, I just feel so confused. It's marketed as being smart, intelligent, like witty, cutting, funny. It's not any of those things, in my opinion. I just don't know who it's for. Okay, so there's no rhyme to our reason, no method to our madness, but I think while we're already foaming at the mouth, we may as well just run through the characters and say how we feel. Let's start with our leading lady, Liz Bennett, writer for Mascara magazine. How did you feel about this characterization of our angel? Liz Bennett in this story was mean and she was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. I think we should hear it straight from Mr. Darcy's mouth because it was an absolute read of her. So the the famous proposal scene was something that didn't hit at all. This is what he says. You're not beautiful, and you aren't nearly as funny as you think you are. You're a gossip fiend who tries to pass off your nosiness as anthropological interest in the human condition. And your family obviously is a disgrace. Yet, in spite of all common sense, I can't stop thinking about you. The time has come for us to abandon this ridiculous pretense of hate sex and admit that we're a couple. I think he hit the nail perfectly on the head. She's a gossip. That's all she wants to do. She wants to brag about her work, she wants to tell everybody what to do in her life, she wants to judge everybody, she thinks she's better than everybody. I think this was an insult to the character of Elizabeth Bennett. Awful. How did you feel about her? Yeah, I mean, I thought it was utter character assassination. At the same time, like, how would I write a modern Elizabeth Bennett? I don't know. It certainly wouldn't be like this. It's a really unflattering and unkind assessment of what this character would look like in the modern day. Yeah. I think for context, maybe we should like rewind a little bit and just describe who she is and what like how she treats the people around her. She works, as we said before, she works in a magazine called Mascara. And I think she started off as like an editor or something before she realized that she actually really wanted to be a writer. And now she's like one of the senior writers, I think. Did you know that she went to the Middle East to report on gender relations? She's so brave and different. She is so brave and different. She wore a headscarf in public. Yeah. Yeah. And did you know that she went on TV like six times? Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Um, that's about all we know about her professional life. Um, she actually interviews celebrities as well. She knows them. Oh my god, she knows them? Yeah. She has many thoughts about celebrities. She is actually like a real simp for a celebrity because every time they're brought up, she's like, um, actually, they're just real people. It's actually their um managers who are terrible people, but the celebrities, they're cool. Celebrities themselves, sick. Curtis Sittenfeld is a real simp for a celebrity. Like we saw it in romantic comedy, the pandering, like, please, celebrity like me. We see it again here. It's funny you say that because the very next thing I was about to say is the character of Sally in romantic comedy is the character of Liz ineligible. There were so many parts of this story that I felt were directly copied and pasted into romantic comedy. There were so many similarities in the way that the two love interests spoke to each other. So many comments about like the Democrats and politics and like I'm better than the other white people. That was a very, very similar vibe for both books, in my opinion. I think like a big characteristic of this version of Elizabeth Bennett is her own like obsession with congratulating herself. And while I think that Elizabeth Bennett took some pleasure in not being like her family, I think she also fiercely and like loyally loves her family. I didn't really enjoy the way that this version is like constantly trying to set herself apart and like doing that thing that you just said where she's like, I'm not like them, like a wink to the audience, like as they rip through their like racist, homophobic, transphobic, all of the phobics. Yeah. Commentary. She's there being like, Oh, I know better though, but I'll just tell you word for word what they said. Yeah. I think a really good example of her just being a mean girl is on page 41. Lydia and Kitty are like big into CrossFit, which could it get any more like 2016? Um, but they're big into CrossFit and they're having one of many conversations about food and people being big fatties. And so Liz is eating bread or something, and Lydia says, Don't carbs make you feel sluggish? And Liz replies, everything in moderation. There were many reasons she found her sister's enthusiasm for CrossFit and the paleo diet irritating, including that Liz herself had been familiar with both long before they had, having written an article about CrossFit back in 2007. Another source of irritation was that her sisters looked fantastic. They had always been attractive, but since taking up CrossFit, they were practically glooming with energy and strength. This is a 38-year-old woman who is jealous and trying to beat her 23-year-old sisters. Elizabeth Bennett, that would not be what she did. I really struggle to marry the two together. I think this version of Elizabeth Bennett was all too concerned with the opinions of other people. And I think she just didn't have enough sort of like agency or independence to really embody the things that I think are so enjoyable about her character. Hopefully, not to digress too much, but ineligible, the character of Liz Bennett is involved in a relationship with a married man, which is a complicated topic, explained and justified in a variety of different ways in this book, but she has been in love with him, pining after him off and on for 15 years. I kind of refuse to believe that Elizabeth Bennett has nothing else to offer the world, has nothing else to offer someone, and has that level of self-respect. I think she knows her worth. The character of Mr. Wickham in Pride and Prejudice is half of the character that Liz is obsessed with. So the character that she is obsessed with is called Jasper Wick. And as you said, longtime friend, on again, off again romance for most of her adulthood. And eventually, you know, she figures out who she is. If we think about Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth realized Mr. Wickham's true character pretty quickly, and from that point on, she was done with him. She did not give him a second chance. She did not go, uh, but I love him and he's kind of hot. And if his wife's grandmother dies, then we can be together. Elizabeth Bennett would not do that. And they're just not the same character at all. Another example of her being really mean to her family is when she's talking about the character of Mary. Now, Mary in the book is probably the one who everyone is the meanest to. And when I say meanest, basically what they do is they accuse her of being a lesbian with every waking breath. Yeah, I think there's almost not a single conversation around Mary that doesn't involve someone calling her a lesbian. Yeah. It is an incredible thing to read in the year 2026. Once again, not the worst thing. No. They are saying it in a derogatory way. Uh, she has time and time again said that she is not a lesbian, yet her sisters continue and her parents continue to accuse her of being a lesbian, as though that's the worst thing she could be. But Liz said this of Mary. Liz was reminded of her theory that because Mary wasn't very pretty, she received credit for being intelligent or virtuous in ways that, as far as Liz could discern, her sister was not. In fact, Liz disliked Mary more than she disliked Lydia, and certainly more than Kitty, all of whom, of course, out of obligation and habit, she loved. But if you assumed that accompanying Mary's supposedly scholarly interests was an open-minded acceptance of others, or that accompanying her homeliness was compassion, you'd be wrong. Mary was proof, Liz had concluded, of how easy it was to be unattractive and unpleasant. That is so mean. That is such a mean thing to say about your sister. I kept going back and forth about the context of this novel, like when it was published, and the characters that Curtis Sittenfeld is trying to write here. Like we said, published in 2016, the jokes do feel pretty 2016. And to add to that, Curtis Sittenfeld has kind of characterized the Bennett family as upper middle class like Republicans. So yeah, they are racist, they are homophobic, they are transphobic, they have not a lot of class, not a lot of taste, not a lot of decorum. And there was a part of me where I was like, Yeah, I mean, I guess if we're translating that family to 2016 America, 2016 Cincinnati. Maybe that's where we land. But I just kept thinking like there's gotta be a way of conveying who these people are and how they act, what they say and do, without the kind of like cheap shock value of putting it on the page and trying but failing to have a narrator that's like, I know better. It just felt like queer people in general and fat people were the butt of every joke in this story. And not only are they the butt of the joke, they're not included anywhere else in the story as anything other than the butt of the joke. We keep referring to transphobia in this book, and I think maybe we should just quickly segue into talking about the trans character in this book. We have also mentioned that the character of Mr. Wickham has been split into two people. So the first person is Jasper Wick, who was Liz's on-again, off-again situationship. And the second person is Hamilton Ham Ryan. And I am ashamed to say how long it took me to realise that Wick, Ham come together to make Wickham. I did not realize that until now. I was like, I don't know where we got Ham. And I was like, why is he called Hamilton? And so Ham owns a gym where Kitty and Lydia do CrossFit and he starts dating Lydia. And at some point in the book, for some reason, the Bennett parents find out that Ham is actually a transgender man and they run away to elope. I actually had this plot point spoiled for me, but even with it spoiled, I like I I cannot even describe like how gobsmacked I was when I read this on the page. Speechless. You had told me, don't look at the reviews, there is a big bad thing that will be spoiled for you. I had it spoiled for me. And I mean, I was chugging along and I got to many shocking things. And I, you know, every time I was like, oh, oh, this could be the big bad thing. But when I got to the big bad thing, I was like, oh. Because the first mention, the reveal of it, comes in the form of a text message. It says, Ham and Lydia elope to Chicago, Mary's text read. Turns out Ham transgender slash born female. Seven exclamation marks. M and D freaking out. Can you come home? I have like 27 pages of notes, and the majority of them are screenshots on this topic. Yes. And the like vast insensitivity that it's handled with. Like just the various slurs that are thrown about, once again, as punchlines to jokes. Um, and look, I know that I don't know if this is the right word, but like trans acceptance or maybe trans visibility has come a long way in the last 10 years, but I still think in 2016 a lot of these things should not have been said, should not have been written down on the page, immortalized forever. I think what confused me the most about firstly splitting the character of Wickham and then having this half of Wickham be trans is that if you've picked up the clues, like, okay, Ham's the one that's gonna run away with Lydia, then your expectation throughout reading this is that Ham is the villain. And so when the reveal comes that Ham is trans, I was kind of uncertain how we were meant to be feeling about that, despite, you know, all the many, many words Curtis Sittenfeld put on the page, because George Wickham is a villain. Yes. I was also confused because you don't actually have to modernize the Wickham storyline by making the characters trans or making them like an adulteress frat boy because abuse of power, assault, coercive control are all things that exist, you know, possibly now more than ever in a modern context. Yeah. And are executed by cis men. Yeah. And also, I would like to say that Ham, crazy name as it is, was the most sensible person in the whole book. He was the one that had his shit together. He was a successful business owner, he was kind, he was organized, he's the best of them all. And again, I feel like Curtis Sittenfeld thought that she was really smart for having it be that way. It has a big air of self-congratulation about it. And yeah, like maybe it is just me being so dumb. I just don't understand how to read and interpret this book, but it just doesn't come off like that. Maybe it's because you're not from Cincinnati. Maybe you don't get it. There are many, many slurs thrown around in regards to Ham. He is accused of roofing Lydia to get her to elope with him. They are scrutinizing his features, they are wondering what genitals he has. When he apologizes for any inconvenience, Liz says, Ah, I don't care that you're trans, but I would be bummed if Lydia became estranged from her parents because of your decision. Uh, he was called a deviant, and possibly the most shocking thing to me was Mr. Darcy involving himself and taking Mrs. Bennett out for dinner and telling her that transgender people, it's kind of the same as if someone is born with a birth defect. And that was brought up at least seven times. Yeah. It shocked me too. It's meant to be his hero's arc and like his redemption. And it's not how he re-establishes himself in the family. He's meant to be doing something that's good enough to redeem himself in Elizabeth Bennett's eyes. And so what we are seeing is that explaining that being trans is the same as having a birth defect is good enough for Liz Bennett. It gets the job done. The main thing for her is that her family, who she doesn't even seem to like, are back together. Yeah. And it's also funny because Lydia is pissed at Mr. Darcy because she says something like, He's the one that told mum that stupid shit about being trans being a birth defect. And we're positioned to think Lydia is the villain. I think Lydia is the best character in the story. Yeah. She's accepting of people, she's funny as. Like the way she reads Liz constantly is perfect. She hates Liz, and I do too. Maybe that was Curtis Sittenfeld being like, Lydia is just a girl that goes out and gets what she wants, unapologetic in the year of 2000 2016. Iconic then, iconic now. The year of the woman. I think this might be a good way to segue into talking about Mr. Darcy. I found Mr. Darcy to be one of the most unappealing male leads in a romance ever. And we've read some romances. He was flat, he was boring, he had no redeeming qualities from where I'm standing. I was also thinking about the romances we've read previously, and I would be interested, but also not bothered, to do a tally of how many times Liz and Darcy actually spoke throughout this book, because I reckon it's like five times. Yes. And you know what? They had sex four times. I think the dullness and the unappealing nature is probably best displayed in the famous part where Liz overhears Darcy talking to Bingley about the lack of appropriate women at the party. This is like, and I feel like if I was writing a Pride and Prejudice retelling, there's a few major plot points that I would be determined to get right and like determined to make them hit the same. And this is definitely one of them. This is the start of their enemies to lovers arc, and it's so lackluster, it's so boring. He's replying to Chip saying something about how moving to Cincinnati is not that bad. Said like a man who's just spent an hour talking to the only good-looking woman at the party, Darcy replied, not counting your sister, of course. I'm sure they do their best, but Cincinnatians are painfully provincial. And then he goes on to say a bit later on, here's what I've learned about the people in this city. They grade their women on a curve. If someone is described as sophisticated, it means once during college she visited Paris. And if someone is described as beautiful, it means she's 15 pounds overweight instead of 40. And they're obsessed with matchmaking. They act like they're doing you a favour by conscripting you to have coffee with the elementary school teacher from their church during the two free hours you might have in an entire week. I've lost count of how many of my colleagues' wives have tried to set me up. With your having been on TV, they must be licking their chops. Sorry, for me, there's no coming back from that. No. He's a doctor and he's talking about women like this. Yeah, he's a neurosurgeon. I do not want him digging around in my brain. Uh-uh. He's awful. I don't think he ever makes up for this. I don't think he ever says something that was interesting. Nothing is like sticking in my brain. He's not at all like yearning or longing or pining for her. Boring. I get that Curtis Sittenfeld has looked at these characters and been like, okay, Darcy's like a rich guy with an inheritance. What does that look like in this setting? It probably looks like a guy who wears high quality flip-flops with khaki pants and a white Oxford cloth shirt rolled up to their elbows, save for a plain monogram on the left breast pocket. F C D V. But there can be rich people that have inheritances that have charm and kindness, a little bit of restraint. Yes. I know it's satire, but it still sucks. Yeah. And like the main point of Mr. Darcy is like he's shy. He's not used to talking to people. He's just rude. He she's forgotten to make him likable. Like that is the major turning point of the story. Like wow, all along he's been lackable. I just didn't understand him. Yeah. No, we understand him. He's awful. And everything he does or everything she, Curtis Sittenfeld, does to bolster your understanding of him makes him worse. Yeah, digs deeper into the hole. Actually, speaking of digging deeper into a hole, there was one crazy conversation where they were having, because neither of them want kids because they're so special and unique. Um and he's like, No, I wouldn't want children because I wouldn't want my partner to do more than her fair share of the work. And he says, in regards to not having children, if you really want to do something unselfish, adopt a seven-year-old black boy from foster care. Excuse me? Yeah. Should we jump to that? I think we should. I think there's a lot to say about this. Not only was there a lot of potent and on the nose transphobia in this book, but there was also quite a bit of casual racism. The first instance that I picked up was in chapter 10, where Liz says, The thing I'm confused about, Liz said to Mary, is what day does Mervetta come? Because the house is getting gross. A twice-monthly fixture at the Tudor since Liz's childhood, Mervetta cleaned the Bennett's toilets, vacuumed their rugs, and changed their sheets. Once, when Liz was 10, Mervetta had told her that the Bennets were the only white people she'd ever known who ate grits. They're so special and unique and nut like other white people. Bashio. And then Mary says to her, Mevetta died. Liz says, No one told me. And then Mary says, Well, that's because mum fired her. And when Liz asks, Did anyone go to Mervetta's funeral? Mary shrugs and says, I didn't. Yeah. It's later revealed that the father and Kitty went to the funeral, but that's like an afterthought as well. And again, it could be Curtis Sittenfeller being like, They're actually the cool, they're the real ones. Yeah. We have a character named Shane who's introduced. Um, I have no idea who Shane's meant to be, but he's a realtor. Liz says, however, in spite of Shane's professional credentials and personal charm, Liz wasn't certain she should contact him. The reason she wasn't certain was that Shane was black and her mother was racist. And then this is kind of a great example of what I mean, where it's like, you can just say they're racist and we know what that means, but she's insistent on kind of like driving home the point, which is something that I don't think Pride and Prejudice really does. I guess it could, and it just goes over my head because I'm not really familiar with the like faux pas of the time, but it says she would never be so ignorant as to announce that black people were less intelligent or moral than their white counterparts, but without compunction, she'd tell Liz not to shop at the Kroger in Walnut Hills because it was dirty. And once at Christmas, when Liz had suggested giving Mervetta a Cashmere sweater, Mrs. Bennett had said, for heaven's sake, Lizzie, Mervetta wouldn't appreciate cashmere. Liz was pretty sure a black adult had never visited her parents' house in a social capacity. Over the years, black men had fixed the Bennett's balking dishwasher and overburdened air conditioning pumps, had removed their garbage and repaved their driveway, and for more than a decade Mevetta had arrived at the Tudor every other Friday at 8 a.m. to vacuum their carpets and scrub their toilets. One more example of this, where a black character is introduced, described needlessly, and given no purpose except to illustrate maybe I don't know. I think illustrate a stereotype and illustrate that Liz is cool with black people, guys. Mm-hmm is an example when she's all cut up over like what to do about Darcy and how to win him back. She's kind of crashing out, she's running, she's crying, she's got a cramp. Then she is hunched over on her elbows, cupping her face, crying, boogers, all that jazz. Honey, a tentative voice said. It was a slim, middle-aged black woman who also appeared to be exercising. She wore sturdy white walking shoes, shorts, and a t-shirt featuring the University of Cincinnati Bear Cut. Are you okay, honey? Liz ran her palm upward over her nostrils. I'm heartbroken, she said, because it seemed the most succinct way of conveying the facts. Oh, honey, the woman shook her head. Aren't we all? What was the purpose of having that character be black? I don't know. I guess it's also like the cliche of the like black spiritual guide. I mean, it is very 2016 to have that. Yes. But just outrageous. Another thing that was staggering about this book was that it was introducing me to slurs that I'd never even heard as well. Yeah. And so if it's an outdated slur, why are we bringing it back and putting it in a book? Yeah. I mean, and I guess, you know, we are white women. Yes. So it's our good fortune to have not heard this word before. And I think it's an American slur. So like there there would be ones in Australia for the indigenous people that are like equivalent. But don't put it in your book. Yeah. What is the need? It's when Mrs. Bennett is talking about Kitty and Shane, the black realtor. She says, I don't know if Kitty and Shane are serious, but life can be very hard for beep children. It's a word that means mixed race, but she could have just said children with mixed parents. People to grow up like that. We get what she's trying to say without the inclusion of a slur. This book had me feeling real sensitive, but I think it really is that outrageous. It made me feel real woke. Yeah. But I don't think that's a bad thing. I think one of the most upsetting things in the book to happen. So Jasper Wick, when he was about to graduate from Stanford, he was in a creative writing class and he wrote this disgusting story about frat boys and how they speak about women and like how they speak about sex and whatever else with their friends. And he was kind of justifying this by saying that's just how college people talk, like locker room talk kind of vibes. Meta. Yeah. Yeah. And so the professor of this class was a young black woman. And he tried to diminish her by saying she had never published anything and she hasn't since. And everybody was just too sensitive. Everybody loved my work and she was butthurt because she didn't love the work. And then I got hauled in front of the integrity council or whatever. And stupid Mr. Darcy was a member of the council and he was instrumental in having me kicked out. We later find out the reason why he was expelled, along with all of that, is because he broke into this woman's apartment and urinated on her desk. And he was like, Well, that wasn't racially motivated. Liz says to him, Did you pee on your writing professor's desk? And he says, I assume Darcy has been putting poison in your ear again. And Liz says, I have a right to know what happened. He says, I could go back and do things differently if I could, without question. And she says, What made you think that was okay? And he says, It was stupid and juvenile. There's no denying that. But I swear it wasn't racist. Trisha Randolph could have been blue, green, or polka dotted, and I would have disliked her just the same. And isn't that the thing that we hear time and time again? He could be blue, green. I don't care what skin colour he is, blah, blah, blah. If it was a white man, would you have done it, Jasper? I have to say the characterization of Jasper, perfect. Yeah, it was one of the strengths. The only strength, in my opinion. Yeah. And then what we have in response to that is Elizabeth sort of like, okay, yeah, not cool. Yeah. Um, but he says he's not a racist, so I guess he's just gross. Yeah, and also like the thing with Jasper is she doesn't even like give up on him or or like break up with him because of that. What she says is she says that she's realized that he had transgressed, but he hadn't done so entirely callously. His affection for her was not fake. It was just partial. Or perhaps it was fake. He was faking emotion now and he had a personality disorder. But between these possibilities, she preferred to see him as inadequate rather than clinically diagnosable. So she's not worried about the fact that he broke into a young woman's apartment and urinated on her desk. A black woman can't separate that from that. She's worried that his attraction or affection for her is partial. She's a bad person. She is. Actually, when she learns about the urination as well and she's talking to Jane about it, she says, No, I trust Darcy, but if Jasper peed on his professor's desk, was he standing? Or did he go in a jar, then pour it out? Once again, it's a joke. Yeah. They're the butt of the joke. While we're in the midst of the phobias, I think we could throw in a little bit of chat about the fat phobia as well. I mean, you already hinted at this, and by hinted I mean you were like blasting it in our faces with some of Darcy's commentary. But there was like 101 sections. My first one was, oh, casual fat phobia. And then it was like, oh, okay, now we're into the straight up actual fat phobia. And then it just kept coming from there. So the first thing I picked up on was Liz saying it occurred to Liz one day as she waited on hold for an estimate from a yard service that her parents' home was like an extremely obese person who could no longer see, touch, or maintain jurisdiction all over his body. There was simply too much of it, and he, they, had grown weary and inflexible. Like, is there really nothing else that she could think of that could potentially incapacitate her? It's a house. She's talking about a house. Yeah. Three pages later was the next mention. And it's when we're introduced to Charlotte. Yep, I have that too. And Charlotte is like her best friend for 15 years. And like, granted, Liz isn't the narrator, like, it's not in first person. But this is the description of Charlotte. Like, she has graduated from college. She is successful. It says she's a bright and poised human resources manager at Procter and Gamble. But this is the main thing. Since graduating from college had been about 75 pounds overweight. To Mrs. Bennett's mind, this fact placed Mrs. Lucas's misfortune in a separate, albeit equally frustrating category from the one in which her own daughters fell. Obviously, Charlotte wasn't married because she was heavy. Therefore, she simply needed to go on a diet. Mere sentences later, Mrs. Bennett was described as being not a stranger to rotundity. There was a really egregious term thrown around by Lydia. Yeah. Yeah. When it's revealed that Charlotte is engaged to Thingo. Yes. Thingo being cousin Willie. Yes. So this quote says, Ham clicked his key and the SUV made a pinging noise. He opened the passenger side door. Ah, chivalry, Liz thought. And as Lydia climbed in, she said to Liz, I guess if Willie's a chubby chaser, you really aren't anorexic. Yeah, and the reason why she's calling her anorexic is because one day Liz goes for a run twice in a day. She's like, What are you, anorexic? And I mean, as if the fat phobia wasn't enough, we do have some pretty like insensitive or like randomly thrown in commentary on anorexia. Mr. Darcy's sister, Georgie, is diagnosed by Liz as being anorexia. Dr. Liz. Dr. Liz. It was immediately obvious to Liz that Georgie was anorexic. More than a decade in the employee of a women's magazine had given her an abundance of experience, discerning eating disorders, and made her both sympathetic to their challenges and wary of focusing an inordinate attention on them. Indeed, before the end of her first year at Muscara, she'd privately vowed to cease all conversation about food or exercise with her co-workers lest she become as obsessive as some of them. Mission failed. Sorry, babe. Yeah, and once again, she's better than everybody else in the whole world. You would think that seeing a young woman struggle with anorexia would be uh like quite a shocking thing or quite a sad thing to see. No, not for Liz. She is willing to just keep bringing it up. Um, about seven pages after she's first clocked, she's first diagnosed her with anorexia, she's noticed that Georgie is taking a hazelnut tort outside, and she says, Liz doubted the young woman would be eating any. Yeah. Not needed, babe. Helpful, thank you. Yeah. We all know how anorexia works. It's just so telling, isn't it? Like, obviously, we're in a day and age where I think the majority of people, well, the echo chamber we exist in. Yeah. Say there's no reason that's good enough to comment on a woman's body unless you're commenting out of concern. But that's a private conversation. And every time that a woman's body is brought up in this book, it's in a critical way. It's never in a place of like she was really thin. I wonder what could have been wrong with her. It could have been 101 things. It goes straight to anorexia, which is such an outdated conversation that was just really jarring to read. It is jarring. And it just kept being brought up. Like Georgie seemed drunk later on that night, and she was like, I seriously doubted that she was drunk given the caloric content of alcohol. Let it go. I think also the only reason that Jane was pregnant, because like, spoiler alert, Jane became pregnant by like artificial insemination. We haven't even got to that yet, but like I think that it was so we could get a scene or like we could get a mention of someone being a big fatty going to a bakery and enjoying some baked goods, uh feeling unconstrained by weight gain, I think was the term used, um, without us worrying for their health. Thank you. Not only was the plot and characterization of this book like abhorrent, the writing itself was like baffling, bafflingly bad to me. Yeah. I initially was quite freaked because when I opened up this book, it was 492 pages and 180 chapters long. Yeah. Which on its own is crazy because I think on a good day, Pride and Prejudice falls somewhere in the realm of like 300 to 400 pages. And also crazy when you compare this to romantic comedy. I know I keep bringing it up, but that's the only, you know, point of reference. That book was split into two or three parts. Yes. And that was it for chapters. Yeah, that's so true. It's just a very baffling choice for me. Well, I think bringing up romantic comedy is fair because across these pointless chapters with weak endings, I think it became clear to me that in her head, every chapter ending for Curtis Sittenfeld was an opportunity for like a crossfade to a new scene and like a little ding ding ding ding ding ding ding kind of sting. Some of the chapters are so short they're like just a quote long. Chapter 16 says we both got it. The whole chapter, mind you. At 5 30 in the morning, Liz awoke to the rustling of Jane slipping into the twin bed across from hers. Yikes, Liz mumbled. I guess it was a successful date. Oh Lizzie, Jane said. Chip's amazing. Ding ding ding ding ding. There is another one, chapter 157. It says The text from Kitty arrived while Liz was pulling laundry from the dryer in the basement of her building. M and D took L and H out for dinner at country club last night. Thought you wanna know. Liz called her sister immediately. This is huge, Liz said. Don't you think? I guess. Kitty's voice sounded flat, possibly bored. Are you painting your nails right now? Liz asked. If I was, Kitty said, how would I have just texted you? Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. There's just so much shit being brought up. Like so much shit. What is the like we had to hear about the nails being painted 17 times. And also, who cares if she was just painting her nails? She's on the phone, she's not at work, she's not driving a bus, she's not flying a plane, she's in her room at her house. It's okay if she paints her nails. I just don't know where she's getting all this extra content from because I don't really think there was a lot of fluff and pride and prejudice. I don't think there was a lot of like these sort of frivolous scenes that's just like maybe I missed it. Like I, you know, it's been a couple years since I read it, but I don't reckon there's scenes of like Kitty walking the lamb and being like, better put my boots on, ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. Or Jane being like, I just really want to dance with them again. Fingers crossed, ding ding ding ding ding ding. I think a crazy line. This is like I was deep in the throes of hatred at this point, and this line was one that really set me over the edge. Both women were quiet as three SUVs in varying hues of silver drove by. Who cares about the SUVs? Who cares? There were so many things in this book that was who cares. Like when they went through Kitty and Lydia's normal like routines of a day, like, oh, they go to CrossFit. Oh, they go out for lunch. Don't care, doesn't matter, we get it, they're bimbos, it's fine. When they describe the cocktail hour of Scotch and Cheetos followed by steak dinner, we get it. They are trash. Another thing that happened that was so incomprehensible to me was Liz was talking to Georgie and she said, Your brother mentioned that you guys might sell or donate this property at some point. I hope this isn't too forward, but I wanted to tell you about something my older sister did. My parents are selling the house they've lived in for a long time. So my sister, who's a yoga instructor, held like a ritual farewell where she talked about some of the things we'd done at the house and what she'd miss. And even though I was skeptical, I think it's helped me. Oh, and it only took five minutes. Of course that's not too forward. It's such a pointless thing to say. It wouldn't even register. In and you made fun of uh Jane the whole time she was doing it. What a strange thing to include in your book. Was that a thing at the time? I don't know. It's the correlation between this and Pride and Prejudice. Yeah. I mean, there is probably like 95% more stuff in this book that didn't need to be included. Another character that we haven't really spoken about is cousin Willie, who is Mr. Collins, and he's sort of positioned to be a bit of a Silicon Valley tech neckbeard type guy. A few scenes that flawed me with him. There was one where he describes to Liz uh a chance encounter with a prostitute that he had. There was no penetration, Willie said. Just a BJ. I hope that doesn't make you think less of me, Lizzy. He called her a lady of the night as well. Yes. He says, Liz, he touched her elbow, paying for sex. I had never done anything like that, but I just I'm not very experienced. I am not still a virgin, but but I was till I was twenty-three. You don't owe me an explanation. Seriously. Please don't mention this to Margot. Of course not, Liz said. Let's never speak of it again. That was the end of the chapter. Ding ding ding ding ding. Another one, um I honestly, I think this was the best part of the book. Uh and almost like the truest passage in the whole novel, where Liz is saying, I guess I'm a Cincinnati opportunist. In New York I play the wholesome Midwesterner card, but when I'm back here I consider myself to be a chic outsider. Even before Willie replied, Liz felt the loneliness of having confided something true in a person who didn't care. Still, when he spoke, it was more disappointing than she'd expected. He said, That chili we had, I liked it okay, but I kept burping up the taste of it. That happens to everyone, Liz said. It's called repeating on you. Ding ding ding ding ding ding. Are we reading romantic comedy? Because that burps burps farts. There was a mention of girl farts at the start of the book. Yeah. Why? Someone at the hospital had a lime up their balm. Why? Why? Another section totally unrelated to anything else. Charlotte looked carefully at Liz. Are you sure there's no ST between you and Darcy? I'm totally sure. ST, an abbreviation the two friends had been using since their high school days, stood for sexual tension. I don't think you need to bring in an inside joke that's only brought up two times. Yeah. I think that's unnecessary. Sorry, sorry, call me crazy. Call me a tyrant. I don't think that's necessary. And then possibly the most baffling and like random inclusion of all is the final chapter of the novel. Yeah. One of the major mysteries in the book is about Mary. And the first question on everybody's lips for some unknown reason is Is Mary a lesbian? And the second is, where does she go on Tuesday nights? She goes somewhere, she refuses to tell people where she goes. When Mary is asked about where she goes on Tuesday nights, she says, It's none of your business. Fair enough, she's a 30-year-old woman. She does not need to tell her four sisters and two parents where she's going. No, it's fine. Um, however, Lydia comes back with, where are you going? AA meeting, lesbian book club, lesbian AA meeting. Okay. Anyway, so it's Is that the joke that I'm a lesbian? Because that'd be a good day for me. It's revealed at some point because I think Kitty follows her. After they move out into a flat together, which neglected to say even though they hate each other. Yeah. They've moved it. They're roommates. They were roommates. They were roommates. Kitty's followed her, brought Liz along for the ride. Liz is like, I don't give a shit about this because she doesn't give a shit about anyone but herself. Turns out Mary's in a bowling league. Why? Why? Why? Why? Crazy. I don't get the joke. I don't get the joke either. And I don't get that like I don't see how that's where Mary Bennett ends up. Like she's blown off steam in a bowling league. Yeah. And you know, it's talking about where Mary Bennett ends up because the last chapter is for some reason about Mary Bennett. I don't know why. The whole book has been like detached, sort of, you know, looking at it from the outside. And now all of a sudden we've zoomed in on Mary and her life bowling. And also her life with her vibrator. Oh my god, I blacked that out. So Lydia has a nine-inch dildo that she uses with ham. And apparently to Mary, it sounded garish. But after experimenting over the years, Mary had settled upon a sleek and ergonomic vibrator with five modes of stimulation powered by an almost silent motor. She used it nightly before bed, and sometimes in the morning as well, after her alarm went off for her job as a sales account manager at Proctor and Gamble. This is the last chapter of the book. This is on the third last page. Why are we suddenly having an expose on Mary's masturbation habits? I don't know. I don't know. Did she need three more pages to fill the book? I was just sort of crashing out while you were speaking because I was thinking about how the reason we end up in this situation with the reveal of the bowling league that Kitty is only able to sniff out because they finally live together. Yeah. Just the two of them. And that's her only opportunity to possibly follow Mary. And then like the catalyst for that is because the Bennett's are broke and they have to move out of their house, hire a black realtor, and there's a spider infestation as well. Form about that. That went on for so long. There's the pineapple pillows. Oh man, it goes on and on and on. But the thing about Pride and Prejudice is that it is enduringly modern and relevant. Yes. And actually, like inheritance law, it's just as interesting and juicy in a 2016 setting as it was back then. And so again, I don't know why we're having to do things like bring in the realtor and the spider infestation to perk things up a bit because would have been better without it. Yeah, there's a wall that has water damage that that's mentioned roughly 14 times throughout the book. Why? Why? And dun dun dun dun why. I think we're done. Yeah. Any final thoughts? Yeah, I have something, I have an announcement to make. Yeah. This, Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld, is my least favorite book we have ever read on the podcast. Really? Yeah. It's worse than Credence. It's worse than Fifty Shades of Grey. At least they knew what they were. This doesn't even know what it is. No. Take a long hard look at yourself. It's an abomination. I cannot tell you the rage I have felt. Like the last three podcast books, spoiler alert, if you haven't listened to the other episodes, haven't been the biggest fan of them. This pushed me over the edge. Yeah. I was mad. I read this, I listened to it. The audiobook was 13 hours long. I just I need to, I don't know what I need to do. I need to read something. If if this sends me into a reading slump, I'm gonna be really mad. It was exhausting. Those paragraph long chapters were a saving grace. Um as much of a blessing as they were an annoyance. Uh I wouldn't say it was my least favorite, but it sure did suck. Yeah. It's really bad. You don't get a free pass just because you like to call yourself a Democrat. Doesn't match up. Sorry. No. Sorry, that's right. Sorry, Curtis. It's a no from me. The month of June is Time Trouble Month. To celebrate, we are reading Outlander by Diana Gebalden. Have your say on what we read next by keeping an eye on the link in our show notes and on our socials. Make sure you subscribe to the show, and if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklit.gethit on Instagram and TikTok.