During the school year, I spend so much time reading for
work that I have very little time for reading for pleasure. And, to be
perfectly honest, after long grading marathons and hours spent lesson planning,
sometimes the last thing I want to do is read. I still read a few novels a
semester, but my habits are inconsistent. Instead, I find that I usually spend
my free-time (when I have it) catching up on my favorite television shows.
The summer is my time for reading. Although I am still
teaching this summer, my schedule is much lighter, and summer thunderstorms and
longer days are conducive to getting lost in a good book. In this post, I will
discuss the first novel I read this summer. I have read others and still have so many others
on my list ( I hope to write of these in future posts), but I decided to begin
with a reread.
Early in the Spring, I was discussing Shakespeare’s King Lear with a colleague. To be more exact,
we were talking about what constitutes “good literature.” He made a statement
that I agree with wholeheartedly. To paraphrase our discussion and consensus,
good literature is any text that makes you think. It is a text that speaks to
you where you are. In other words, a reader brings to a text as much as a text
gives to the reader. My colleague gave the example of a friend of his who spent
a whole month reading and rereading King Lear, and he could never escape the
idea of mothers. He said that his friend had never thought of the play in those
terms before, and it baffled him. But, then he realized that it was because he
was coming to terms with the death of his own mother. Revisiting literature
allows us to take something new and different from it every time. That was
certainly my experience when rereading Jane
Eyre.
I first read Jane Eyre
when I was thirteen or fourteen years old, and I haven’t read it again in
years. I try to revisit at least one old favorite each year (though I often
feel that rereading novels is greedy when there are so many on my TBR pile). This
year, I chose Jane Eyre for two reasons:
1. I
loved it as a teen. The melodrama, the madness, the intrigue, the star-crossed
love, and the subversion appealed to me.
2. My
niece, Caitlyn, is now homeschooling, and I am in charge of her English work.
Her teacher at the private school she attended last year thought it best to
have students read spark notes (the horror!) and take tests instead of reading
the literature themselves. Because I loved Jane
Eyre when I was young, I thought it would be a good introduction for her. I
wasn’t entirely correct.
I’m glad I revisited Bronte’s novel, but I must admit that
it wasn’t entirely pleasurable. In Bronte’s own words, “These observations will probably irritate
you, but I shall run the risk.” I’m sure my opinion is not a popular
one, especially for those die-hard fans, but let me explain. I understand and appreciate the novel’s literary worth
critically, in terms of its context, its agenda, its critique of the separation
of sexes and social classes. I also understand its role in our understanding of
feminism today. My response here, though, is not as a critic, but as a reader.
The novel itself was not as entertaining to me as it once was. I found myself
rolling my eyes at the over-the-top melodrama and love affair between Jane and
Rochester.
That said, I found new things about the novel that reminded
me of the reason why I loved it. I admire the style and language and the clever
fairy tale allusions. I still found myself smiling at Jane’s speeches about
freedom and women’s rights (Preach!). There were also other differences in my
reading of Jane Eyre as an adult. As
a teen, my favorite scenes were those exchanges between Rochester and Jane.
This time around, I was drawn to Jane’s time at Lowood because it is during
this time, for me, that the novel focuses most on Jane’s internal development
and her evolving independence. She becomes Jane.
Charlotte Bronte once said of Jane Austen, “she
ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him by nothing profound: the
Passions are perfectly unknown to her; she rejects even a speaking acquaintance
with that stormy Sisterhood; even to the Feelings she vouchsafes no more than
an occasional graceful but distant recognition; too frequent converse with them
would ruffle the smooth elegance of her progress. ... Jane Austen was a
complete and most sensible lady, but a very incomplete, and rather insensible (not
senseless) woman, if this is heresy—I cannot help it. If I said it to some
people (Lewes for example) they would accuse me of advocating exaggerated
heroics, but I am not afraid of your falling into any such vulgar error."
I have always preferred Austen to Bronte, perhaps because I am practical above
all. I am amused by Jane Austen’s reserved style, her humor, and witty
subversion. I love Austen for those very things that Bronte detests. I
absolutely think that is why I didn’t enjoy Jane Eyre as much this time. I have
matured and evolved both as a reader and as a woman. I’m no longer that young
girl who thinks that nothing is as romantic as the love between brooding
Rochester and the elfish Jane. Now, not so much…
I will not give up on Bronte. After all, I have
never read Villete (it’s on the TBR
list), and I have heard that is much more…mature. Even though rereading Jane Eyre wasn’t as enjoyable as I would
have liked, it still did what good literature does: it made me think, and I
learned things about myself in the process.
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