Jane Austen | Feat. Marlon James | It's Jane Austen's World And We're Living In It | 3

Summary

Legacy Podcast: Jane Austen | Feat. Marlon James

Episode 3: "It's Jane Austen's World And We're Living In It"
Date: December 16, 2025
Host(s): Afua Hirsch, Peter Frankopan
Guest: Marlon James

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Episode Overview

This episode of Legacy marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, and is the final installment in the series' Austen trilogy. Host Afua Hirsch and historian Peter Frankopan are joined by acclaimed Jamaican novelist Marlon James for a rich, multifaceted conversation about Austen's enduring genius, the shadows of empire and slavery in her novels, and why her stories resonate across vastly different backgrounds—including James’s own. The trio explore the subtleties of Austen's social commentary, her innovation as a writer, and her deep humanity, while also reflecting on personal experiences of reading Austen and the wider legacy her work has left on world literature.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Austen’s World: The Invisible Forces

• Unseen Geopolitics and Colonialism:
  • Afua reflects on how, as a young reader, she saw Austen’s world as detached from the intense geopolitics of her time—wars, revolutions, and the height of colonialism and slavery. Reading Austen now, she recognizes that the realities of empire and enslavement are faintly, but purposefully, referenced.
    • “These references to bondage. I don't know whether she was deliberately referencing that world or whether just the overwhelming fact of it inevitably popped up...” (Afua, 00:56)
• Coded Language:
  • Austen's use of coded references—West India merchants, income from overseas—offers a spectral presence of empire within the seemingly insulated domestic dramas.

Marlon James on Austen: Genius & Realness

• Wisdom and Insight:
  • Marlon places Austen among the wisest of novelists, able to capture the complexity of the human condition with subtlety and restraint.
    • “Her insight into human condition, to me, is up there with Dostoevsky... she doesn’t need a Raskolnikov to talk about how crappy people are.” (Marlon James, 04:12)
• Complex Characters:
  • He is particularly drawn to Austen's "unsavory" characters, lauding their realism and anti-hero quality.
    • “Mrs. Bennet is the only person in that book who knows what time it is... if those four girls don’t get married, they're going to be out on the street.” (Marlon James, 06:47)
• Restraint and Humor:
  • Austen uses humor and a kind of narrative distance both as a writer and for her characters, allowing the reader to interpret and discover meaning ('showing, not telling').
  • Afua wonders: “How does she reconcile seeing everything so clearly as a woman, yet managing to suffuse her novels with so much wisdom and comedy?” (07:22)
  • Marlon responds:
    • "I think writers at some point have to get to the point where they can laugh at their circumstances in a way, or at least create a sort of distance." (07:58)

Austen’s Handling of Empire & Slavery

• Shadow Histories in the Novels:
  • The conversation touches repeatedly on Mansfield Park and Austen's nuanced, sometimes silent, engagements with slavery.
    • "There's this silence. And for me, that silence is a metaphor for what she's doing in all her novels..." (Afua, 16:28)
• Marlon’s Post-Colonial Perspective:
  • James discusses how postcolonial readers grapple both with being educated in the canon of empire and learning to see its hidden histories.
    • "I think a lot of the stuff we learned in our colonial education was to make us subjects and not to give us a sort of deeper wisdom... it backfired with somebody like Austen..." (Marlon James, 19:11)
  • He describes the irony that exposure to Austen via colonial education led him to question empire rather than simply accept it.

The Universal Resonance and Adaptations

• Beyond English Parochialism:
  • Austen’s themes—especially the politics of marriage and family—reverberate globally, from Africa and India to Caribbean readers like Marlon.
    • “Africans love Austen. It speaks very much to the kind of like, marriage and family politics in Africa, in India. There’s a Bollywood Austen vibe.” (Afua, 14:24)
• On Adaptations:
  • Marlon expresses particular fondness for Bollywood and playful reinterpretations like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, while criticizing certain film versions for missing the core of Austen’s characters.
    • “The Pride and Prejudice TV series with Colin will always be the goat... I am no fan of the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice... when Darcy's approaching her in the moors... that's Heathcliff. That is not Darcy.” (22:09)
  • He and Afua agree that Clueless is the best adaptation of Emma.
    • "The best version of Emma is Clueless. I think Austen would have approved." (23:19)

Austen’s Technique and Literary Innovation

• Dialogue and Agency:
  • Marlon praises Austen’s mastery of dialogue and her shift toward letting characters drive the story—moving away from authorial didacticism common at the time.
    • "Her real skill is showing. I think that was a turning point in literature... let them ruin their lives, basically.” (Marlon James, 12:53)
• Empathy and Humaneness:
  • Austen’s ability to “love each character into existence” is seen as her enduring lesson for other writers.
    • “She reminds me to always be human, humane, rather, to my characters... to remember that, you know, another writer said once, you have to love each character into existence. And I think she does.” (Marlon James, 34:07)

Outsider Experience—A Postcolonial Reading

• The Outsider Perspective:
  • Marlon discusses reading Austen as someone from the Caribbean—a world he wouldn’t have belonged in, had he lived in hers.
    • "My whole experience growing up is reading worlds I was not part of and reading worlds I would not be led into." (Marlon, 27:05)
  • He reflects on the radical possibility that Austen, particularly in unfinished works like Sanditon, was moving toward greater inclusivity.

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Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• On Austen’s Unsavory Characters:

  • “The unsavory characters in the novel know what time it is... Mrs. Bennet is the only person who seems to know this.” — Marlon James (06:47)

• On Mansfield Park and Slavery:

  • “I’m like, girl, Mansfield Park, that’s a slavery novel. You don’t even realize.” — Marlon James (15:33)
  • “For me, that silence is a metaphor for what she’s doing in all her novels, where she's showing that that world exists behind what you can see, but there's a silence around it.” — Afua Hirsch (16:28)

• On Reading Austen as a Black Man from Jamaica:

  • “People who misunderstand her haven’t read her... because we still want to know what to do with love. We still talk about marriages of the heart versus marriages of the pocketbook. We’re still doing it.” — Marlon James (14:58)

• On Austen’s Enduring Influence:

  • “When I read a writer presently, a writer like, say, Claire Masood, I see that Austen is alive.... We all just want happiness, yeah actually, it still holds true. We kind of want to love and be loved. We still do.” — Marlon James (33:27)

• On Austen’s Genius:

  • “We’re trying to find a regular explanation for a not regular person.... I think she was just—just straight up genius. There’s a part of it that can’t be explained.” — Marlon James (30:52)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:56 — Afua on revisiting Austen, noticing coded references to slavery/empire.
• 04:12 — Marlon James on why Austen endures: wisdom, insight, "realness."
• 06:47 — Marlon on unsavory characters, Mrs. Bennet's pragmatism.
• 14:24 — Afua: Austen’s resonance across cultures; Marlon: how colonial readers receive her.
• 16:28 — Afua and Marlon discuss Mansfield Park’s “silence” as metaphor of unspoken empire.
• 20:11 — Marlon’s personal story: boys waiting for D.H. Lawrence, but finding themselves captivated by Austen.
• 22:09 — Adaptations: TV, Bollywood, Clueless, frustrations with some modern film versions.
• 27:05 — Marlon on the outsider perspective and the possibilities of inclusion in Austen’s unfinished works.
• 30:52 — Marlon on genius and the futility of trying to “explain” it.
• 34:07 — Marlon on the lasting lesson for writers: Austen’s humaneness and empathy.

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Tone and Style

The conversation is lively, sharp, and personal, blending humor, reverence, and academic insight. Marlon’s witty, vivid takes and Afua’s self-aware, questioning curiosity complement Peter’s historian’s rigor. The episode both celebrates Austen’s greatness and challenges listeners to reckon with the silences and shadows beneath her prose, ensuring her world is understood both for its brilliance and its limitations.

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For Further Listening

• References to previously discussed episodes on Austen’s biography (see Episode 1 & 2).
• Comparisons with the Brontës and Little Women’s adaptations.
• Mention of Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea as a postcolonial response to canonical English literature.

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In summary:
This episode offers a deeply original, often unexpected perspective on Jane Austen—presenting her as a shrewd chronicler of human folly, a subtle commentator on invisible histories, and a writer whose reach extends far beyond the boundaries of Regency England. Marlon James’s enthusiasm proves infectious, challenging both inherited readings of Austen and our understanding of literary “legacy.”

Transcript

[Afua Hirsch]

Hola.

[Peter Frankopan]

So, Afro, we got some more on Jane Austen. I can tell you. I've been checking 10 pound notes out and looking at more carefully now since we recorded the first couple of episodes about. About Jane Austen. And I've. I've downloaded all of her novels to read through over Christmas time as a tribute to the fact that we're at the 250th anniversary. When we talked last time about Jane Austen, her life and her love, what were the things that you came away thinking that we haven't talked about?

[Afua Hirsch]

I think that my relationship with Austen has really changed as I've grown and become better educated. And I think when I read Austen as a schoolgirl, I genuinely thought that the world she lived in was this kind of rarefied world that had no connection to the geopolitics of her time. We talked about that in the last episode. It's like a hugely seismic period with revolutions and wars and big cultural change, but also that this was the apex to. Of transatlantic enslavement and colonialism. And I think that the way that is not visible in Austen's world contributes to our sense as people growing up in England today, that it wasn't really the main event, that it was a peripheral event that wasn't really connected to the lives people were living. And rereading it now, I see it completely differently. And I also notice how she references that well, but in very coded language, which I wasn't equipped to. To interpret at the time, these West India merchants and all these incomes and livings, these references to bondage. I don't know whether she was deliberately referencing that world or whether just the overwhelming fact of it inevitably popped up in her work. But that's something that I would love to get into a bit more in this episode.

[Peter Frankopan]

So, listeners, you're in for a huge treat today because Afra and I have got hold of one of the greatest living novelists in the world today, a great old friend of mine, Marlon James, who won the Booker Prize, of course, for A Brief History of Seven Killings, Black Leopard and Red Wolf, and his most recent book, Moon Witch and Spider King Marlon happens to be around about. I tracked him down and asked whether he'd come and talk to us about Austen and his relationship with her work and how he reads it as a novelist and how he thinks about some of these questions Afraid's been talking about, about Empire, about race, about colonialism, about slavery, but also to try to put Austin in a wider context. So those who subscribe to Legacy, how lucky you are that you have a really astute, clever, sharp mind to walk us through Austin. That will lighten her up and her work even more than we've hopefully done already.

[Afua Hirsch]

That's just me. And then you get Peter and Marlon as well.

[Peter Frankopan]

Hello and welcome to a new episode of Legacy. I'm Peter Frankerpan.

[Afua Hirsch]

I'm Afua Hirsch.

[Peter Frankopan]

And this is Legacy, the show that explores the lives, events, and ideas that have shaped our world and asks whether they have the reputation that they deserve.

[Afua Hirsch]

This is episode three.

[Peter Frankopan]

Three.

[Afua Hirsch]

It's Jane Austen's world, and we're living in it.

[Peter Frankopan]

Today. It is the 16th of December, 2025. So it's the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth. So this is the third and last and most special of our series on Jane Austen. Tell us, Marlon, I've heard you talk about Austen in the past. How do you rate Austen as a novelist? Is it someone you turn to a lot? Is it somebody you read with great interest? You find something new every time you read her?

[Marlon James]

Yes, to all of the above. I read her quite often. I return to her quite a lot. I do think she's one of the wisest of the novelists. Her insight into human condition, to me, is up there with Dostoevsky.

[Peter Frankopan]

Wow.

[Marlon James]

Because, you know, she doesn't need a Raskolnikov to talk about how crappy people are. One of the things I like about Mansfield park is that almost every. Everybody in that novelty is unlikable.

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Marlon James]

The way in which she just sort of gets the human condition and she doesn't judge it. She's not like, you know, she's not Kathryn Mansfield. She's not gonna judge it. One of the things I love about her is how, like real life, she kind of leaves people to, you know, to sort of fall into their own mess. So you have a Mrs. Norris in.

[Afua Hirsch]

The Awful Aunt in Mansfield Park.

[Marlon James]

In Mansfield Park. And I can't. I mean, I used to be able to quote it, but I can't quote it. Cause I'm old now, so I can't remember it. But she was Talking about how Mrs. Norris punishment was to live with somebody. You know, basically to watch just the sheer poison of her personality eventually infect her. And she knew that's how it is. It's like. Yeah. You know, or put it another way, sooner or later, everybody gets what they deserve.

[Afua Hirsch]

That's so real.

[Marlon James]

And that's the thing, actually. That's it. I find her real. I find she realizes humans are complex, but she's so simple. About it.

[Afua Hirsch]

And is there, like a kind of restraint as well? Like she's not. Doesn't feel the need to kind of go all the way. She just leaves it for you to understand what is happening.

[Marlon James]

Yeah. And, you know, I mean, almost every time I praise Austen, I crap on the Brontes. It's not that I have anything personal against the Brontes. I just don't think they're right humans. I do wonder. I wonder how she got to be so wise about the human condition. And as a writer, all I can think of is that she was just more inquisitive than anybody else. She was just more interested in people than anybody else. And I think that's one of the reasons why she endures so much personally tend to like her unsavory characters more than anybody else because you pick a person, like, let's pick somebody who is supposed to be a villain. But I like her. Lady Susan Vernon. She's kind of a villain, but she's also kind of an anti hero. And I said this as well, and I mean, it's a hip hop term, but it applies. The unsavory characters in the novel know what time it is. She's not a villain, but I'm very Mrs. Bennet, because Mrs. Bennet is the only person in that book who knows what time it is. It's like, I feel like sometimes I read Pride and Prejudice, I just want to show up like I'm the ghost from the future. Let me tell you what happens to women who don't get married. And you can talk about, you know, all about their virtues and this and so on, but if those four girls don't get married, they're going to be out on the street. And Mrs. Bennet is the only person who seems to know this.

[Afua Hirsch]

But it's so interesting thinking from an autobiography, from a biographical perspective about Jane Austen, that she's capturing that the kind of. And it is like a very dark social reality underneath the comedy and the satire. But that's her like, that's her unmarried, her in that precarious financial position. It's such like, on a personal level, it's fascinating to me how as a woman, she saw everything, she understood it, and yet she still suffuses her novels with that wisdom. I just wonder how she reconciled that in her own life.

[Marlon James]

I wonder if she found a sort of comedy in her own life as well. I think. I think writers at some point have to get to the point where they can laugh at their circumstances in a way, or at least create a Sort of distance. I think that this is essential for a writer, especially if you're writing about what you know. You definitely have to sort of create a distance. Even if you appear in a book, you have to become a character. And I think she just understood that. And I think some of that would have been reading the stuff that would have been in her, you know, that should have read and realized that can do better than that. I mean, can you imagine a smart woman reading Pamela and going, oh, this is entertaining, but where's the woman? Or, I mean, Mal Flander's. Okay. I'm not surprised at Jane Austen. I'm surprised they weren't more like her. And I have a feeling there were more.

[Peter Frankopan]

I wonder, Marlon, you know, I was talking with Aphra when we recorded before about Mr. Bennett, who I can't stand, who's always dressed up as being the sort of bumbling kind of man. What do you think about.

[Afua Hirsch]

Oh, I. I've got a lot of.

[Marlon James]

I'm sorry, I'm not here for tea, Mr. Bennett. Mr. Bennett is going to get his daughters dead. I'm sorry. No, it's all well and good, as he appreciate art and stuff. That's lovely. But he's condemning his daughters. Of course, Wickham steals one away. I blame that purely on Mr. Bennett.

[Afua Hirsch]

Wow, that's tough.

[Marlon James]

That is. Hey, homeboy needs some tough love because homeboy has four kids. He doesn't even try to. You know. I mean, funny enough, I'm actually going to praise the Brontes here. If this were a Bronte novel, Mr. Bennett would have fought Collins inheriting that estate.

[Afua Hirsch]

That's true. That's true.

[Marlon James]

My rare moment of giving the Brontes props.

[Afua Hirsch]

I actually want to do a whole nother podcast with Marlon about. About the Brontes. Now, this is. I would love to get into that, Mother.

[Marlon James]

Except for Agnes.

[Afua Hirsch]

But anyway, I heard you talking about Northanger Abbey, and it was so funny. You were saying that that was Jane Austen being like, I know who I am as a writer now. Like, I'm that bitch. I'm that bitch. Like, here. And it was you. It so captured that, the energy. Because it feels like she's so aware of her power of what she can do and the audacity of that novel, in a way.

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[Marlon James]

And she's having fun with it because Northanger Avi is kind of a gothic novel.

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Marlon James]

And I mean, to align yourself with the gothic stuff is to align yourself with all sorts of filthy things. The goth novel doesn't have a great reputation. Certainly not then.

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Marlon James]

And to flirt with that. In some ways, it's almost like I'm gonna do it. But I'm gonna let you off with a warning. I'm not gonna arrest you. I'm gonna let you off with a warning. And that how that novel, how that novel plays. And I don't even think it's one of her major books.

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[Paige DeSorbo]

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[Hannah Berner]

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[Paige DeSorbo]

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[Hannah Berner]

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[Paige DeSorbo]

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[Peter Frankopan]

As a novelist, Marlon, how do you put. How do you rate Austin's use of dialogue? How good is she at communicating what people are saying and thinking? Because, I mean, they all have a sort of a cadence to the novels. They all tie themselves up beautifully. I mean, how do you rate her as a writer?

[Marlon James]

I mean, writer of dialogue or writer in general?

[Peter Frankopan]

Well, as dialogue in particular.

[Marlon James]

I mean, dialogue in particular because Austen throws so much to her characters. And I think that is in some ways different from a lot of novels at the time. I think a lot of novels at the time and even after are very much. They're very much tellers instead of showers. And she tells a little bit, but she really is. Her real skill is showing. Right. And I think that was a turning point in literature. I think that was this sort of let me throw this book more and more to the characters and let them ruin their lives, basically. Or let them. You know, the thing about Pride and Prejudice is watching the characters come out of their own mess.

[Peter Frankopan]

Yeah.

[Marlon James]

Before that was the author's job. And you would sit. That's where the author, the Deo6 machine would come in. And we'll be fine with it because that's just how books were written. And I think. I mean, I have no historical evidence to back that up, but I have a feeling that Austen's novels is one of the. Certainly for women to give them agency. Even Charlotte. Is it Charlotte, whoever that jackass is who end up with Wickham?

[Afua Hirsch]

Isn't it Lydia?

[Marlon James]

Lydia. But it's her choice.

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah, she actually.

[Marlon James]

She wasn't. You know, she wasn't.

[Peter Frankopan]

Fine.

[Marlon James]

She was seduced. She was. She wasn't lured. She wasn't trapped. Homegirl made a choice. It was a bad one. And that's really interesting.

[Afua Hirsch]

Marlon. Can I ask, like, as a black man from Jamaica, do you think people are surprised to realize that Austen resonates with a writer like you? Because it's seen as, like, so parochial in English and. And, like, obviously, there's a huge history of. I mean, Africans love Austin. It speaks very much to the kind of, like, marriage and family politics in Africa, in India. There's a Bollywood Austin vibe. But do you think people still kind of misunderstand how much it resonates with people from completely different backgrounds to the England she's writing in?

[Marlon James]

I think people who misunderstand her haven't read her. And that's very easy because Austin is part of our cultural language. Honestly, I didn't realize until a few years ago that I actually haven't read Middlemarch, because I talk about it all the time, but I think it's. Yeah, because we still want to know what to do with love. We still talk about marriages of the heart versus marriages of the pocketbook. We're still doing it. It's a sign of growth for us when we can look at things with an ironic distance that's still new for us. And she was already there. And, yeah, as somebody from the former colonies, I do have a conflicted relationship. I'm like, girl, Mansfield park, that's a slavery novel. You don't even realize.

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah, but did she realize? And does she realize? Because, like, rereading it now, I'm conscious of how much she drops like the shadow of that world. The merchant from the West Indies. Even the name Mansfield Park. You know, there's something in almost every novel that's like a. Not even a reference. It's like a reference to a reference. But I'm like. I'm wondering now whether she did that. She was so in control of her rights, and she Everything was a deliberate choice with her.

[Marlon James]

I wonder, though, because I'm trying to remember, who is it? Who is it? Is it Mansfield Park? There's. Who's a character whose name is actually based on a slaver?

[Afua Hirsch]

Well, I mean, Mansfield Park. Some scholars think it's a reference to Lord Mansfield, who decided on the Zong case and, you know, like, delivered some really important precedents on enslavement. And then obviously, that's the novel as well, which is the only one of the novels where there's a direct conversation about slavery. When Fanny asks Sir Thomas Bertram, who keeps going to his plantation in Antigua, she asks him about it. And then there's this silence. And for me, that silence is a metaphor for what she's doing in all her novels, where she's kind of showing that that world exists behind what you can see, but there's a silence around it.

[Marlon James]

But I appreciate that. And I appreciate, because as somebody from one of those slave economies, I never understood, how is it the British didn't know?

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Marlon James]

How did they square this?

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Marlon James]

And you read Mansfield park and you see how they squared it. They either didn't talk about it or they exoticized that. He's going after Antigua now he's going to have to go whip some slave people and kill a few and commit murder, rape, and all sorts of stuff. Yeah. I mean, we're dealing with this reality. No, there's still people. I remember when Britain, when UK hosted the Olympics and they opening ceremony and I had to call people all over the Commonwealth, we're like, are you seeing this? I honestly thought they're going to call Sri Lanka Shiloh because it's like, how do we hold onto the glamour and pomp of empire and subtract the blood?

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Marlon James]

And I think Mansfield park was doing that as well. And I don't know. I don't know how much she knew about it. I don't know how horrified she was about it, but I do think she was real.

[Afua Hirsch]

She read abolitionist pamphlets and she supported the abolitionist movement.

[Marlon James]

That doesn't surprise me. But it also. I think Austin also is very careful to stick to subjects she knows she has an authority on. And I don't know how much about slavery she knows, but there's another point you mentioned about just being from the colonies. And I wrote a lot of novels where I tried to reclaim my African heritage. And there is a part of me that, you know, I watch the crown. At some point, it always becomes a hate watch. And most of the hatred is, why do I know this Stuff.

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah, yeah. Like why you have no business knowing the minutiae of this family. But we all were raised on it. And the more actually.

[Marlon James]

But I also think against their, maybe against colonialism's better wishes, we learned the right stories from Austin.

[Peter Frankopan]

What do you mean by that, Marlon?

[Marlon James]

Meaning that I think that. I think a lot of the stuff we learned in our colonial education was to make us subjects and not to give us a sort of deeper wisdom about even the people imposing it. And I think it backfired with somebody like Austin because the fact that the colonial education is what made me real about the colonies, I don't think that's what they intended. I don't think that's what. I don't think that was the purpose of my English lit class. I remember the person who introduced me to Austin was the vice principal of my high school. And he came into the classroom and go, you know, I envy you boys. I envy you boys. Cause you're gonna do something I never get to do again. You get to read Austin for the first time. And we're. And I said it, I was like, you know, listen, we're 16 year old boys. We're here for one reason, D.H. lawrence. We waited patiently. We're gonna get sex.

[Peter Frankopan]

We waited four years and you got Jane Austen.

[Marlon James]

And we got Jane Austen. I'm like, we waited very patiently to do Lady Chatterley's Lover, but here we are. But the thing that hooked us is that there's nothing 16 year old boys like more than feeling smart. And when you get Austen, because Austin is a very smart novelist and you get her. Is that the first time you read a Dickens and you get it. Most of us read Dickens when we're pretty young. And it's when you're young and you're like 13, but you're digging David Copperfield and you're getting it. And I think that was it. I felt smarter after reading her. And I never forgot that because I feel I did some growing up.

[Peter Frankopan]

Do you think Marna, that's because of the way in which she pulls all the plot lines together and there's the ability to create suspense and to walk you through what it is that you can see before the characters can see it. I mean, is that her skill as a writer?

[Marlon James]

There is that. There is that. There is. In a lot of ways, she's a classic novelist in that she does also make him laugh, make him cry, make him wait. She is one of the all time greatest plotters in the history of lit. She can imbue Things with stakes that we wouldn't think are stakes now, but they still have the stakes of life and death. And I don't know, like I said before, she also has a great way of seeming that she gets out of the way and let the characters do their own work. It's like going back and reading Richardson or even somebody later like Gaskell. I don't think they trust their characters much, and there's a lot of trust in letting these characters make their mess. That is one of the reasons why I'm not surprised she's adapted for screen.

[Afua Hirsch]

So much, because the characters really can live their own arcs.

[Peter Frankopan]

Yeah, tell us about that, Marlon. Have you watched lots of the adaptations? What do you think of Austin being made into sort of period costumes today or into Bollywood epics?

[Marlon James]

The Bollywood epics I love. Of course, I'm here for Pride and Prejudice on Zombies. Don't hate me. The Pride and Prejudice TV series with Colin will always be the goat. Yeah, it would always be the goat. And I like the liberties that he took. Why am I saying he? I remember his name. I just was just on a panel with him.

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Peter Frankopan]

The director, Andrew Davis.

[Marlon James]

Andrew Davis took. He was. I said, oh, my God, I instantly in love with you. I'm also that person, the nerd who's screaming at the back when they get it wrong. So I am no fan of the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice, but I was the person at the back screaming when. When Darcy's approaching her in the moors and the person back going, that's Heathcliff. That is not Darcy. That is flipping Heathcliff.

[Afua Hirsch]

What about Emma? We haven't talked to you about that. And that was obviously a very Hollywood. I'm not a fan of Emma. That's my least favorite Austen novel. And I disliked the. The film for the same reasons. I thought it was quite a faithful adaptation of the novel. And that's probably why I disliked it, because I didn't like the novel. But what do you think about Emma? And did you watch the film?

[Marlon James]

I did watch the film, and it frustrated me as well. I still think the best version of Emma is clueless.

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah. Oh, 100%. And I didn't know Clueless was based on Emma. For a long time afterwards.

[Marlon James]

I watched it Clueless. And I think, you know, I think Austin would have approved.

[Peter Frankopan]

Yes.

[Marlon James]

Because again, Austin always knows what time it is. And I think there are things that I expected out of the last Emma that I got out of the last little woman. So what I like that Greta Gerwig did with Little Woman is she doesn't try to rewrite the material, she doesn't try to imbue it with. But she have these women chafing against the circumstances that are imprisoning them, that are locking them in. And you can feel that. And we can say it's modern, but then. But to say it's modern is to say women never had souls until the 20th century. No. They always knew this system was shit. There's a scene in trying to drag it into Little Women, but the scene that most directors caught that Greta kept was when the mother says, I'm angry all the time, you know, And I was like, yeah, women are sick of bullshit all the time. And I think to come back to adaptations, I think that's one thing that was frustrating about Emma, even though I thought it was faithful. Emma is just a perfectly put together novel that sometimes you forget that you actually kind of don't like her.

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah, exactly. Well, I don't forget.

[Marlon James]

I know.

[Afua Hirsch]

She said, yeah, it's the only one to me, where she's created a heroine who's that unlikable and who also.

[Marlon James]

Yeah, it is her least likable heroine.

[Afua Hirsch]

That performs the behaviors that she's critiquing, which is so interesting because in the other novels, her heroines push back against the social norms that she's critiquing. But in Emma, she kind of gets rewarded for them in the end, which I find. Really?

[Peter Frankopan]

Yeah.

[Marlon James]

It's like Elizabeth is a boundary pusher, but Emma is the boundary.

[Afua Hirsch]

Yes.

[Marlon James]

And it reminds me of people who sometimes get labeled boundary pushers. I'm like, dude, you're not the boundary pusher.

[Afua Hirsch]

You're the boundary that nails it.

[Marlon James]

Yeah, but I still, like, I don't give Emma props, but I give Austin props.

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Marlon James]

Because this type of character we'd be writing so many papers about if it were a man.

[Peter Frankopan]

That's true.

[Marlon James]

You know, as I say, I mean, one of my certain time traveling wishes is to go back in time and just sit over and go, jane, how. How did you know this? How did you do this? Why did you do this?

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[Afua Hirsch]

How would you have experienced being in that world, Marlon? Because I'm just so interested. You said about the. The realness of it like, you know, and it's. And it's still real, you know, the transactional nature of marriage and the financial calculations that people make. I love how you talked about Mrs. Bennet like she was the only one who knew what time it is. Like, who is your character in that world? Would you be the Mrs. Bennet?

[Marlon James]

No. See, that was a great. That was a very good question. Because though, that. That ties into the whole reading of colonial literature as a post colonial person. Because my whole experience growing up is reading worlds I was not part of.

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Marlon James]

And reading worlds I would not be led into.

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Marlon James]

I remember once somebody was going to invite me to a Mad Men theme party. I'm like, what, you want me to come there to serve you drinks?

[Afua Hirsch]

Shy in the shoes.

[Marlon James]

Yeah. And here comes the conflict. And it goes back to your previous question. What do I do with this world that I think I'd have been locked out of?

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Marlon James]

I'm starting to think maybe because of Sanditon, maybe there would have been a way.

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah. She was moving towards being more curious about including some of.

[Marlon James]

Yeah. And man, I wish she had lived to finish it. I like to believe the best of authors, but I wonder, because of the details left in Sanditon, if there would have eventually been a place for somebody like me. I wonder. To read these novels is to be outside. I'm 10 years old and I'm reading about snow. I have no idea what that is. I have no concept of it. I have no concept of bundling down for bed. I'm like, it's 96 degrees here. My second novel, my character's crisis is literary because she's reading all these honorable men and she's not surrounded by a single one. So of course, homegirl ends up burning down a plantation because. Because it is. It is her. I imagine for me, my character was, if I having an issue, if I'm having conflicts resolving these worlds in the 20th century, what would happen if a black woman from the 18th came across this stuff? And I think, yeah, it would make her go a little bonkers and a little homicide and a little like, this is not the world you're promising us. So I do wonder about it to the point where I think, you know, because there have always been black Britons. Yeah, they've always been black Britons from predate the Tudors.

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Marlon James]

And a lot of them found their way, but they found their way the way in which black people found their way in France in the early 20th century. You just end up being exceptional Negroes.

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Marlon James]

And I wonder if that would have been the only fate I had. Being an exceptional person, you know?

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah.

[Marlon James]

What if I just want to be ordinary?

[Afua Hirsch]

Well, I can't unsee it now. Like your character in an Austen novel. What would that look like? I'm into that.

[Marlon James]

All right. I'm going to write it. I'm going to write it. I've been dying to go. I've been dying to go back to the 18th century. I kind of miss it.

[Peter Frankopan]

I think you ought to be careful what you wish for, Marlon.

[Afua Hirsch]

We need for Austen what Jean Reese did for Bronte with Wide Slack soc.

[Marlon James]

Oh, my God. And you know, that's one of my top five novels.

[Afua Hirsch]

I am obsessed with White Sox soc.

[Marlon James]

And talk about reread. So because of Whitestarg Soc, who is it? Was it Guardian? I don't remember who. When I was in the UK maybe 10 years ago, and they approached some authors to write a final. Final chapter to a final chapter. And I said, I want Jane Eyre. And unfortunately somebody already had it. That's my only condition. I want Jane Eyre. Because I am convinced Rochester drove her mad too.

[Afua Hirsch]

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Woo. Woo. Maybe someone needs to finish Sanditon, Marlon.

[Marlon James]

Is that a hint?

[Peter Frankopan]

Just saying.

[Afua Hirsch]

Just saying.

[Peter Frankopan]

We can make it happen. But I'm interested, Marlon, as the genius of Austen. I mean, how come she stands her head and shoulders above the writers of that period? I mean, what is it that there was. What's her special source that made her able to see these things in the way that she did, that she can sit on the side and on the shoulder with such astute vision? I mean, you know, she was a nothing special background. She's a middle class English woman. You know, to have that kind of insight, it's very unusual. I mean, what would you put that down to?

[Marlon James]

Well, I put it down to genius. I think we're trying to find a regular explanation for a not regular person. And I think part of it, it says something about us sometimes that we're scrambling. You know, nobody scrambles to explain Tolstoy truth. You know, they just go, oh, he's a genius. She's a genius. It's not like she like traveled the world and did a million things and so on, but she did travel. She had certainly had a remarkable reading life. And I said that as somebody who was also spent a lot of. Lot of his years in a bedroom with nothing but books. And somehow I ended up learning the human condition. Anyway, so there is. So, yeah, I mean, you know, props to all the bedroom poets and the Bedroom novelists, and she was one of them. And as I said, I think. I think she was just. Just straight up genius. I think there's a part of it that can't be explained. And I think there's a part of it where, you know, people are remarkable for a reason, and she is remarkable. There's a lot of forensic investigation into Austin, as if we can just say, homegirl, genius undone. And I don't think it's that complicated. I think she's just. She was just. I said this at Cliff then that she was just the wisest. And wisdom comes from experience. It comes from. From a lot of. But it also comes from reading a lot.

[Afua Hirsch]

Just the amount you read. And I've listened to your podcast as well. I mean, if anyone listening to this hasn't listened to Marlon's podcast, you usually talk about around, like, 30 books in one episode. It's literally dizzy. And it's your command of the literature you read is also dazzling because it's not just like, I mean, we all read, but you can just kind of summon all of the novels you read into this discourse that feels so effortless. And when you actually think about all of the books you're referencing all the time, it makes my head spin. So you read a lot?

[Marlon James]

Yeah, I'm a nerd.

[Peter Frankopan]

And, Marlon, just wait till you get to D.H. lawrence. It's going to be very exciting when you. When you finally get there.

[Marlon James]

I don't know. I got to D.H. lawrence, I'm like.

[Peter Frankopan]

And then. Last question. Marlon, listen, it's so interesting hearing you talk about such a wide range of things, but in terms of Austen and her legacy and what she did for other writers, I mean, is there a way. Her influence on others, does she sit within a continuum that you can trace back to? Is there a way in which Austen should be judged on her own terms, independently? How does she sit within the canon of literature?

[Marlon James]

Well, you know, when I read a writer, presently a writer like, say, Claire Masood, I see that Austin is alive. When we talk about people sort of put together in society and how they chafe against each other and how their values and their desires can clash and how in some ways, ultimately, we all just want happiness. Yeah, actually. Actually, yeah, it still holds true. We kind of want to love and be loved. We still do. And sometimes we are the ones who get in the way of our own futures. You know, if you read something like Persuasion.

[Afua Hirsch]

Oh, Persuasion.

[Marlon James]

Yeah. I just think she reminds me to always be human, humane, rather to my characters. She reminds me to do that. And she reminds me to remember that, you know, another writer said once, you have to love each character into existence. And I think she does. I think she, she, she had to love each character into existence. And I think as writers, you need to remember that.

[Peter Frankopan]

Marlon, it's been a pleasure and a privilege to hear you see you. Thank you for cutting into your. I hope you're on promo tour at the moment, if that's why you're.

[Marlon James]

Why you are candid. This week my partner is here in a conference on James Baldwin and I get to be book boyfriend. I love it.

[Afua Hirsch]

I love that for you.

[Marlon James]

I know, isn't it great? I just go, oh, I'm just with him.

[Afua Hirsch]

I love that for you. It's been so fun talking to you. I've loved this conversation. I can't wait to read your version of Sanditon. Thank you so much, Marlon.

[Peter Frankopan]

Such a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for joining us.

[Marlon James]

Thank you guys for having me.

[Afua Hirsch]

I could listen to Marlon all day. Thank you so much for managing to get him on theater. It's such a treat to talk to him and a genuinely original perspective on Jane Austen. And I love how surprised even I was that he is so passionate about Austen. So I love the unexpectedness of him. Obviously an authority on literature, but also an authority on Austen. Thank you so much for listening to Legacy.

[Peter Frankopan]

Don't forget to hit subscribe on your favorite podcast player. And you can also watch all of our episodes on YouTube, so make sure that you subscribe there too.

[Afua Hirsch]

And of course we're on all the socials. All the links are in the show notes for this episode or just search Legacy podcast.

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