Jane Eyre conquers the US blogosphere

That's just a brief (and by no means complete) survey to the US blogosphere and the reactions to the broadcasting of the first part of Jane Eyre on PBS:

Fairwells on Nadie Importa:

I had the wonderful pleasure of watching Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" on Masterpiece Theater, PBS. It was very good and stayed pretty much true to the story.

Unpretentiouslitcrit liveblogs the broadcast. Very funny.

Pop Goes the World loves the series and specially Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens:

I think I have found my one Jane Eyre, the version that I love above all else as it is so far complete (as long as they get the Rochester/Jane part right, which they have so far), excellent chemistry between the two leads, great production values and great score.

SpaceforCate confesses being a Brontëite :

The newest version of Jane Eyre is pretty good so far - appropriately gothicky and cold. I've seen just about every film version of it, and this is one of the better ones. God, the Brontes were brilliant.

The Little Professor is more than angry with the amputation of Jane Eyre's childhood:

So far, the miniseries has done a decent job of preserving at least some of the novel's main themes, including the importance of love, the danger of relying on appearances, and the need to accept personal responsibility for one's moral choices. (Rochester has a bad habit of saying "it wasn't my fault.") And the gothic atmosphere is handled quite nicely. Like a lot of viewers, I suspect, I'm troubled by the amputation of Jane's childhood, although it looks like we actually get St. John Rivers in the second half. Still, at the risk of damning with faint praise, right now this miniseries strikes me as one of the better JE adaptations I've seen (bearing in mind that I don't think JE adapts well at all).

And finally, Thais is not so thrilled:

I felt cranky from all the weird misinterpretations and the strange things they decided to do in adapting, and annoyed by the things they elect to drop. The actress they chose to play Jane was, actually, quite good, one of the best choices ever. Fresh faced and, yes, even a little fae, as she is constantly described in the book. But the Rochester -- well, someone directed him to be mean, but they didn't keep enough of the wit in the conversation to make it sardonic. Rochester isn't the nicest character by any means but his cruelty is through sarcasm and irony-laced wit, not straight-out rudeness, a majority of the time. That's what makes the interaction between him and Jane so interesting, and perhaps even a bit sexy. While the two characters did have a good chemistry in the adaptation, it wasn't as enthralling as the intelligent, charged dialogue in the book. (...)

And what's with removing the majority of the Christian references? It guts Jane's character. Helen Burns barely mentions a whisper of it, but her example (witness?) is in some ways what firmly anchors Jane to her Christian morals. In this one she just served as a vague "friend" figure, the one who advises Jane to advertise (!) rather than the one who gently, lovingly teaches her that, while maintaining her love and hope in God, she must tame her passion and resentful nature and learn forgiveness and patience, and a certain passive and accepting grace of God's will. I wasn't satisfied with Helen's character at all. Much less Christian confidence coming from Jane, too. I miss that; it's what underpins so much of her strength in morality.

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