Anne Bronte – Agnes Grey

INTENTIONALLY PROVOCATIVE REMARK: Agnes Grey is not very good. I wonder if anyone would read it if it wasn’t by a Bronte?

Until now, I have never met a Bronte I didn’t like. I’m just glad I read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall first. It is ACE. If I had read Agnes Grey first, I would never ever have picked up Tenant.

Agnes faces misfortune (capital M) in the manner of a 19th century heroine: with spirit and pluck and a naive but well-intentioned desire to be a Governess. Her mum and sister say, silly old Agnes, of course you can’t be a Governess. She says, oh I can, you never let me do anything. (Secret subtext, oooh, if only I can get away, I will have adventures! Possibly of a romantic nature!)

She goes off to crappy house number 1, where the children like to roll on the floor and bite the heads off birds, in a proto-Ozzy Osbourne way. Having failed to overcome the floor-rolling and bird-biting, Agnes is sacked.

At crappy house number 2, the children are older but no wiser. One is a horse-loving tomboy, the other is a man-crazy flipperty-gibbet.

Then there is a ludicrous plotline involving a Vicar (always, always the Vicars in 19th century literature) and a very unlikely tug of love-war. Blah blah blah. The End.

Agnes Grey made me think of a creative writing exercise. As if a therapist had said to her, just write down all the crappy things that happened to you as a Governess, and get it all out of your system. Which is fair enough, as I’m sure she had a terrible time, but Great Art is not made of such literal material. It needs to be Jane-Eyre-ified with some creative firepower.

There were two main reasons why I didn’t like Agnes.

First, entire lack of dramatic tension. All the twists and turns were yawn-inducing. Bronte somehow manages to use literary cliches even when they haven’t been invented yet.

The other reason was Agnes herself. She’s so bloody critical and sanctimonious. She believes in her divine right to be treated nicely, with compassion and grace, but is always looking down at everyone. ‘In truth, I considered myself pretty near as good as the best of them, and wished them to know that I did so; and not to imagine that I considered myself as a mere domestic’. Oh Agnes, don’t be such a self-righteous priss. Do you think Jane Eyre would whine like this?

Because she’s so sanctimonious, you honestly can’t care what happens to her. To mix up some Austen with my Bronte, I was much more interested in the Lydia Bennett of this story, Miss Murray. You know how when reading Mansfield Park you secretly root for Mary Crawford because naughty girls are fun? That.

As Agnes says near the end, ‘I fear, by this time, the reader is well-nigh disgusted with the folly and weakness I have laid before him’.

Of course, she wants you to say, oh no Agnes, I am so interested in your endless blather. But all you can actually think is, yes, and when will this end?

Fortunately it does end soon. Probably the best bit of Agnes Grey is that it is short. Would have been even shorter, apart from random house number 1. What was that about?