“What is she to write about now, in the silence of this darkened room?”

The New York Times reviews positively Becoming Jane Eyre by Sheila Kohler. You still have the weekend to enter our Christmas contest. BrontëBlog will publish a review in the coming days.

“It is moorish, and wild, and knotty as a root of heath,” Charlotte Brontë wrote of her sister Emily’s novel, “Wuthering Heights.” The Brontës brought a new emotional weather to the English novel — stormy, blasted and passionate. “I never saw a Moor,” Emily Dickinson wrote, as though speaking for the whole far-flung Brontë cult. “Yet know I how the Heather looks.”
“Becoming Jane Eyre,” Sheila Kohler’s muted and gently probing 10th work of fiction, opens during the summer of 1846 amid the “charmless, suffocating streets” of industrial Manchester. The 69-year-old Rev. Patrick Brontë has come from his rural parsonage on the Yorkshire moors to have a cataract removed. He is attended by a hired nurse who raids the kitchen late at night and “gnaws . . . ravenously” at a lamb bone, “grinding on a delicious piece of gristle with her good back teeth.”
Less intrusive is his prim daughter Charlotte, who receives a rejection letter for her first novel on the very day her father submits to surgery, “excruciatingly conscious of the knife’s work in that delicate place.” Charlotte is 30, single, with two unemployed and unmarried younger sisters with rejected novels of their own, “a shiftless, dissipated wreck” of a brother far gone to gin and opium, and an aging father reduced to “a blind mouth.” “What is she to write about now, in the silence of this darkened room?”
The spark for Kohler’s novel was a line from Lyndall Gordon’s biography, “Charlotte Brontë: A Passionate Life”: “What happened as she sat with Papa in that darkened room in Boundary Street remains in shadow.” Gordon proposed that the crucial breached “boundary” was the adoption of an androgynous pseudo­nym, Currer Bell, which allowed Brontë to project herself beyond the confines of proper domestic womanhood. For Kohler, however, liberation comes with the sudden invention of Brontë’s fictional alter ego, Jane Eyre, the dauntless and self-reliant heroine, both “ire and eyer,” of her second novel. “Sitting by her blinded, silenced father, she dares to take up her pencil and write for the first time in her own voice.”
“Becoming Jane Eyre” is narrated in a continual present, the tense of “becoming.” Short chapters take us back through remembered moments in Charlotte’s life, spots of time that, disguised and transformed, make their way into “Jane Eyre.” From her days as a governess, she invents a bully for the opening pages of the novel. From her difficult period in Brussels, when she fell in love with a married teacher whom she addressed abjectly as “Master,” she draws the contours of “the bigamous Mr. Rochester.” A visit to a “house with battlements” yields a housekeeper’s story of “a madwoman . . . confined up here during the 18th century,” the inspiration for the bestial Creole heiress whom Rochester has locked in his attic. Some parallels between novel and biography seem more of a reach: “An orphan is not so far from a middle child.”
“Becoming Jane Eyre” is divided into three parts, rather grandly called “volumes.” The first, centered on the operation in Manchester, is claustrophobic, with comic relief provided by that peckish nurse. The second opens more broadly into the world of Haworth Parsonage, where tough-minded Emily offers a fresh view of her sister. Why, she wonders, is Charlotte “so preoccupied with her own small problems of love when her brother’s are so much more serious?”
The third section, which follows Charlotte to London after the triumphant publication
of “Jane Eyre,” is full of satisfying recognitions. When Charlotte, the plain country girl, reveals herself as the writer behind the pseudonym Currer Bell, her stupefied young publisher echoes Lincoln encountering Harriet Beecher Stowe. “Can this be, is it possible that this little woman is the author of ‘Jane Eyre’?”
“Becoming Jane Eyre” is driven by interesting questions. How exactly does a fictional character take shape in a writer’s imagination? What impact can an invented character have on a writer’s life? Kohler believes that writing “Jane Eyre” was therapeutic for Charlotte, a release from “stifled rage.” “She writes, hardly seeing the words. Her toothache is better, and since she has been writing her bowels, so often obstructed, have moved regularly.”
But the Brontës seem diminished in “Becoming Jane Eyre.” One ­wearies of their incessant questions and exclamations, meant to reproduce their thoughts but sounding a bit too much like 21st-century anxieties. “Can she own these words,” Charlotte wonders, “which speak of the longings of a woman for fulfillment, for love, for the same rights as a man?”
Kohler was wise to pitch the novel in a subdued mode, not vying with the passions unleashed in the Brontë novels or in “Wide Sargasso Sea,” Jean Rhys’s excruciatingly gorgeous fictional evocation of the first Mrs. Rochester’s life. She has written instead a small, uncluttered novel about sibling rivalry and the various meanings of “publication” for women writers in a straitened world where women were supposed to stay private. (Christopher Benfey)

And don't forget to check out the nice illustration by A. Richard Allen which goes with the article.

The Belleville News-Democrat includes a Brontë question in their Christmas Quiz:

4. Who are Acton, Currer and Ellis Bell better known as?

El Sur (Spain) talks about the publication of a new Spanish translation of Wide Sargasso Sea:

Se publican dos obras de Jean Rhys: unos apuntes autobiográficos elaborados al final de su vida recogidos bajo el título 'Una sonrisa, por favor' y una nueva traducción de su obra más célebre, 'Ancho mar de los Sargazos'. En esta novela, Jean Rhys (Roseau, Dominica, 1890-Londres, 1978) se atrevió a dotar de protagonismo a un personaje enigmático y secundario de una de las grandes historias románticas de la literatura inglesa del siglo XIX, 'Jane Eyre'. Ese personaje es Bherta, la esposa loca que Rochester tenía encerrada y oculta en una de las torres de su mansión, responsable de que la boda entre la institutriz Jane Eyre y el señor Rochester no se llevara a cabo.
Hasta ahí la anécdota metaliteraria, la idea de hacer literatura de la literatura que a menudo denota escasa imaginación o falta de talento para contar lo ya contado en 'remakes' con ligeros cambios de enfoque.
No es el caso de Jean Rhys. Al utilizar ese personaje de la loca del desván para construirle una vida anterior en Las Antillas, acentúa los problemas de su origen criollo. Y con la evocación del mundo mágico de la isla antillana, consigue una recreación brillante y única en la historia de la literatura, de modo que ya nunca podremos volver a leer 'Jane Eyre' de la misma manera que después de 'Ancho mar de los Sargazos'.
La esposa enajenada de Rochester no será sólo esa figura fantasmal, ni el personaje plano dibujado por Charlote Brontë, desde que Jean Rhys imaginó para ella la educación jamaicana de la hija de un viejo hacendado. Su profundo contacto con la santería, junto con la rebelión de los esclavos que presencia cuando se aprueba la Ley de Emancipación en su Martinica natal, explican un desarraigo que deriva hacia una vida atormentada. Y desembocará en locura al ser trasladada a Inglaterra tras un matrimonio de conveniencia. Antes de permanecer encerrada en una habitación durante años e incendiar la mansión de Rochester en la que ella misma muere, mucho antes de perder la razón, será Bertha Antoniette Cosway, una mujer de existencia conmovedora y atormentada a quien la triste figura gótica que se le reserva en 'Jane Eyre' no hará justicia.
Jean Rhys adoraba esa novela que le obsesionó durante años. Uno de los motivos es que compartía sus orígenes jamaicanos con el personaje literario extraído de 'Jane Eyre'. El padre de la escritora era un médico galés y su madre, una dama criolla de origen escocés. Además, a Jean Rhys le acompañó siempre ese profundo sentimiento de desarraigo propio de quienes pertenecen simultáneamente a dos culturas alejadas entre sí, sin sentirse plenamente integrados en ninguna. (...)
Uno de los logros técnicos de 'Ancho mar de los Sargazos' es manejar diferentes puntos de vista con maestría. En la primera y tercera parte habla Antoinette, la criolla, pero su voz interior es muy distinta antes y después de enloquecer. La segunda da cuenta de los hechos a través de la voz ajena del señor Rochester, un contrapunto para hablar de esa locura que progresa. Las hondas reflexiones y la exploración contenida de la desdicha se deslizan en una historia de la que nosotros, y sólo nosotros, lectores, conocemos la continuación trágica. Así esta novela sería lo que hoy se conoce como una 'precuela', cuya referencia cronológica se sitúa en el pasado de la obra de referencia, que no 'secuela'. Sabemos más que los propios protagonistas de la historia: conocemos su futuro. (María Bengoa) (Google translation)

Toneelblog reviews the performances of De Brontë Sisters by the Toneelgroep Dorst:

De personages worden door de, door de wol geverfde, cast van het stuk uitstekend neergezet. Elsje de Wijn speelt de jongste, Anne, met veel humor en worstelend met het godsbeeld van haar vader. Trudy de Jong is zeer scherp als Emily en Petra Laseur zet Charlotte neer als een zeer ambitieuze vrouw. Theo de Groot lijkt haast een jonge god in de rol van de veelbelovende Branwell. Maar hoe intrigerend het spel ook is, toch rijst de vraag waarom ervoor gekozen is om dit stuk te spelen. Charlotte Brontë bereikte met haar 38 jaar de hoogste leeftijd, de anderen werden niet ouder dan 30. Waarom een personage spelen dat niet veel ouder geworden is dan de helft van je eigen leeftijd? Deze vraag verdwijnt door het goede spel weer snel naar de achtergrond. In het simpele decor – een kamerscherm en wat stoelen en tafels – zetten de spelers doeltreffend verschillende situaties neer, van kindertijd tot volwassenheid, van droom tot succes. De door Yan Tax ontworpen kostuums zijn erg mooi en variabel, al naar gelang de situatie verandert.
De regisseur en de spelers hebben gekozen voor een vrij ronde, vloeiende manier van bewegen. Hierdoor lijken sommige handelingen een beetje gemaakt en wordt het geheel zachter dan je zou verwachten. De hardheid van de tijd, de overheersing door vader, de ziekte en dood komen hierdoor iets minder overtuigend over. Uitzondering hierop is de dronkenschap van Branwell en alle handelingen die hieruit voortvloeien.
Uiteindelijk blijft de voorstelling boeien door het innemende spel van vier klasbakken van acteurs. De manier waarop zij samenspelen maakt elk decor overbodig. De geluidseffecten van de wind mogen wat mij betreft uit de voorstelling gelaten worden. Als Trudy de Jong speelt dat Emily op de hei staat, dan geloof je dat ook zonder wind.
De Brontë Sisters is geen voorstelling voor ‘de gezellig’, want het leven van de personages gaat nu eenmaal niet over rozen, integendeel. Er is zeer veel ongeluk en maar een klein beetje geluk om daar tegenover te zetten. Een liefhebber van goed spel mag zich hier zeker niet door laten tegen houden. (Martijn Groenendijk) (Google translation)

Read Like Me recommends Wuthering Heights 2009, Television Obscurities mentions a virtually-unknown TV adaptation of Jane Eyre. It was aired by NBC’s experimental station W2XBS in New York City in 1939 (October, 12):

8:30-9:30PM – “Jane Eyre,” by Helen Jerome, with Margaret Curtis, Dennis Hoey, Effie Shannon, Ruth Matteson, Carl Harbord.

The original play by Helen Jerome was premiered in 1936.

The Pursuit of Happiness is reading Jane Eyre (in Swedish), O Globo (Brazil) links Wuthering Heights and the Twilight saga once again, ABC (Spain) reviews 44 escritores de la literatura universal by Jesús Marchamalo and Damián Flores, Europa Sur (Spain) compares Charles Dickens's short tale The Ghost in the Bridal Chamber with Wuthering Heights (!). Finally, an alert for our Romanian readers, as Wuthering Heights 2009 will be broadcast tonight (December 26) and tomorrow (December 27):

TVR2
Sâmbătă, 26 decembrie şi duminică, 27 decembrie, 20.40 - premieră
LA RĂSCRUCE DE VÂNTURI (WUTHERING HEIGHTS-Marea Britanie, 2009)
Regia: Goky Giedroyc
Cu: Tom Hardy, Charlotte Riley
Dramă. Cea mai recentă ecranizare a romanului scris de Emily Bronte. Povestea, întinsă pe două generaţii, a clanurilor Earnshaw şi Linton, complexa împletire a destinelor lor şi blestemul fatal care urmăreşte una dintre cele mai celebre perechi de îndrăgostiţi din istoria literaturii: Catherine şi Heathcliff.

Categories: Books, Fiction, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Theatre, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights