Bibliofreakblog

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

For some reason, everyone loves Jane Austen, to the detriment of the Brontë sisters.  To some extent this makes sense.  Austen’s novels numerate more than all of the sisters’ works combined, and each sister really only has one classic.  But, say we take Jane Eyre and compare it to any of Austen’s novels.  The plot is far more intricate than Austen’s.  Brontë might not focus on the banality of privileged life, but her satire and class criticism (and hypocrisy therein) can be just as biting.  

Now, as for the writing itself, I’m not saying that one is better than the other.  The novel was still a relatively young art when Austen wrote, but two generations later, when the brontës were perfecting their craft, it was well established and accepted (accepted along the same lines as drama, poetry, and the epic poem, the latter of which went out of fad as the novel gained momentum).  Therefore, can you even really compare the two generations of female writers?

I’m not going to weigh this review down with hefty debate.  On to the book!

Jane Eyre’s story could easily start ten chapters after it does.  The beginning sets the tone for Jane’s character and granted, gives a lot of background for her later actions.  But it so unrememberable, perhaps a lengthy prologue would have done better.  I’ve just discovered that unrememberable is not a word, but I’m hereby coining it, as I can not think of nothing better to describe Jane’s childhood.  I mean, really, I had to look Jane Eyre up on Wikipedia (Warning!  Wikipedia tends to be full of spoilers!) to remember it.  It’s not that it’s unremarkable or forgettable, I literally just couldn’t remember a thing about it.

But I will sum it up, that she was an orphan, had to live with her mean aunt and cousins, who sent her to a boarding school, and her only friend died.  Yup.  It’s a Hard Knock Life.

And yet, I can remember the rest of Jane’s story very well, after having read it years ago.  She gets a job as a governess, for the ward of Mr. Rochester.  He is unattractive and twenty years older than she is, and yet they fall in love.  But there’s something going on there.  Mysterious fires, voices, and strange woman stalking Jane while she sleeps.  

Jane flees for a time, and meets up with friends–two sisters and their clerical brother.  The brother wants her to marry him and accompany him to India, where he intends to become a missionary.

And now Jane must make a choice.  Does she go back to Rochester, confront him and his haunted house, or follow another into a loveless marriage a world away? 

 
Buy Jane Eyre on Amazon

If you like this book/author, you might like:

(my reviews in blue)

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Jude The Obscure  by Thomas Hardy
Angelica by Arthur Phillips
Hawaii by James Michener
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte by Laura Joh Rowland
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins 
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Thornfield Hall: Jane Eyre’s Hidden Story by Emma Tennant
Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allen Poe
Jane Eyre’s Daughter by Elizabeth Newark
Emma Brown by Clare Boylan
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
The Bronte Myth by Lucasta Miller
Dismantled by Jennifer McMahon
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
 

Other works by Charlotte Brontë:

Villette
Shirley 
Professor 

With Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë:

Selected Poems Brontes 
Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell