Jane Eyre: Charlotte Bronte

Yeah, I get it.  How can it be possible to be a twenty eight year old female book addict and never have read Jane Eyre?

Three reasons:

1) I tried when I was 14 – like, the age when you are supposed to love Jane Eyre – and read the first couple of chapters, up to the Red Room incident.  Then I thought, this is rubbish.  And went back to being a stupid, self-absorbed teenager.

2) I tried again when I was 18 and had glandular fever (mono) and got to the bit where Helen Burns has consumption.  Then I thought, woah, I don’t need to read about people wasting away thanks.  I’m in the wrong frame of mind.  And went back to watching mindless TV.

3) When I was about 21, I got myself into an absurd Emily Bronte girl-crush.  Wuthering Heights was my favourite thing in the world.I also somehow decided that you had to choose ‘sides’ and you could only like one Bronte at at time.   Charlotte seemed pious and boring, and Anne pious and wet by comparison.  (I reached this conclusion without actually reading their books, obvs.  That’s the great thing about unfounded prejudice).

Anyway, now I’m older-but-who-am-I-kidding-not-wiser; I have seen the error of my ways and actually think that Wuthering Heights is melodramatic in the extreme.  I was thinking of going to the Bronte house when I’m in the Peak District this summer, but figured it wouldn’t be fair to them if I hadn’t at least got an informed opinion of their books.  So I gave Jane Eyre another go.

Turned out to be fourth time lucky, and I chomped through five hundred pages in just a couple of days.  Oh Charlotte, how could I have left you on my shelf for so long?

I’m not going to really review this, because what’s the point.  You know the story even if you haven’t read the book.  Plucky orphan, gothic house, triumph over absurdity yadayadayada.

But it’s really amazing writing and just think about how imaginative and original this would have been at the time!  She’s single-handedly invented the madwoman in the attic!  The unattractive heroine!  The unattractive hero too, for that matter, though popular culture seems to always make Mr Rochester pretty dashing, a la Mr Darcy.  (Unlike Jane, who is still allowed to be plain).

If you had used a bit more punctuation, Charlotte, that probably would have helped me out.  But I like a nice semi-colon as much as the next girl, so I’m not going to complain too much. Plus, your vocabulary is ace.  Blent?  Cachinnation? Moiety?  These are all words I want to use.  It will make a change from ‘amazing’ anyway.

Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel:; they need exercise for their faculties and a field for their exercise as much as their brothers do.

Isn’t that the truth.  Though I bet she got laughed at in 1847.

Footnote: ‘The Bronte Myth’ by Lucasta Miller is a really good read for anyone interested in the Brontes.  Mrs Gaskell has got a lot to answer for.