[Pride and Prejudice] showed her “how dialogue can lift and dance on points, how sentences can shine and crackle with a concentrated energy and a sharp crystal intelligence. So listening to Miss Barnes read it is like falling in love. It’s like walking on air. It fills Dinah’s mind with a new kind of music. Language is all the music she’s never learned to play. Language is all the ballet steps she’s never learned to dance. And maybe what she loves best of all is the book’s disregard for any ‘description’. ‘Description’ isn’t there. It’s expendable. It’s burned away. All that’s left is dexterity and concentration. Pride and Prejudice is real life, but all transfigured, and dancing in a box.”
— Barbara Trapido’s Frankie & Stankie
