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In Conversation

The One Who Learns and the One Who Doesn't

By John Kaag

Featuring commentary from Roxane Gay and Sadie Stein

Both Pride and Prejudice and The Age of Innocence hand their protagonist the same flaw: a confident misreading of the people closest to them, rooted in vanity and class. Elizabeth Bennet is sure of her own discernment. Newland Archer is sure he sees more clearly than anyone in his world. The novels then diverge on the one thing that matters most. One protagonist is forced to know herself and is changed by it; the other never arrives, and is hollowed out by the failure. Reading these books for Rebind Classics, Sadie Stein and Roxane Gay trace the same psychological structure to opposite ends.

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