Bustle goes through the '11 Emotional Stages Of Reading
'Jane Eyre', Which Reveals More And More Each Time You Read It'.
If you were forced to read Jane Eyre in high school or in a lit comp class in college and you hated it, then I’m here to tell you that you MUST read it again. Seriously. It’s one of those classics that stick with you because (like most classics you read and reread) it exposes new layers to you every time you read it. It’s happened to me each time without fail. It’s also incredibly groundbreaking — Charlotte Brontë, who wrote the novel under the pen name “Currer Bell,” has been called “the first historian of the private consciousness.”
Private consciousness is right. Brontë was one of the first women to write a first-person narrative novel about a woman. And the story of her character and narrator, Jane Eyre, is one of the most complex and heartbreaking you’ll find today. It’s also spawned some of the most well-known TV tropes, the so-called madwoman in the attic.
A classic that (hopefully!) will never go away, Jane Eyre is still a total emotional ride, and one that never leaves me dry-eyed. I always get a pounding in my heart, especially now when I’m older and begin to realize quite how horrible some of the things Jane goes through are. Reading the book start to finish… well, yes, it’s long, but deal with it, because you’re going to feel a whole bunch of things. (Read more) (Ilana Masad)
If you are in
Plainview, Texas, this might be a good chance to reread the novel:
The next meeting of the Literary Lunch Bunch is at noon Tuesday, May 5, in Van Howeling, Room 104 on the Wayland campus. A light lunch will be provided. Books to be discussed are “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë, “The Rosie Project” by Graeme Simsion, “Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence,” by Karen Armstrong, “Pioneer Girl: the Annotated Autobiography” by Laura Ingalls Wilder, ed. by Pamela Smith Hill and “The Fierce Urgency of Now” by Julian Zelizer. Also to be discussed is “Daphne du Maurier: Writing, Identity and the Gothic Imagination” by Avril Horner and Sue Zlosnik. Discussions are led by Micheal Summers, assistant professor of religion.
We are not leaving Texas just yet, as
The Houston Chronicle has an article on pulp fiction, which they describe as
juicy covers featuring original (and sometimes provocative) art, blurring the lines between canonical literature (Emily Brontë and Honoré de Balzac) and the low genres of crime, romance, and Westerns. (Paula Rabinowitz)
Paste Magazine interviews Aislinn Hunter about her novel
The World Before Us.
Paste: Jane is a strong yet shaken protagonist. Did you draw any inspiration from any other literary characters when creating her? Hunter: At the same time as I was writing The World Before Us I was working on a PhD on Victorian writers’ houses and museums, so I was reading a lot of the Brontës when I was working on the book—Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights and also Charlotte’s letters. The juxtaposition was useful, because I was interested in the way the sisters handled their genre—that crafty supernaturalism they write so wonderfully. So, there is probably an ounce or two of Charlotte’s governess Jane (from Jane Eyre) in my Jane. Both of them have come through difficult events in their childhood. Both are, I think, a bit untrusting but still hopeful. (Mack Hayden)
Daily Xtra discusses the 'undeniable branding of straight living' and apparently
the market proceeded the brand. Consider that Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, taught in my high school as the epitome of romanticism — a book about crazy, incestuous heteros — preceded the term “heterosexual” by more than 20 years. (Michael Lyons)
Writersbrew reviews
Wuthering Heights;
Jane Eyre 2011 was screened today at the
Kerry Film Festival.
it exposes new layers to you every time you read it.
ReplyDeleteThat's very true and it's even often true with Charlotte's letters or with anything she wrote. But Jane Eyre.... well it's Charlotte's genius of course, and part of that genius was how artfully she filled the novel with her vast esoteric knowledge. It would be known to the educated 19th century person...usually male...but today most of us are obvious to it as it's simply not usually taught.
However while we may not have this knowledge consciously, it is so steeped and elemental in the human psyche, that the stories, legends, mysteries, myths , Masonic principles fairy tails, etc. Bronte evoke and utilize in her novel still work their powerful magic on today's reader subconsciously.
A great part in Charlotte's achievement is how she wove it in so seamlessly. The book can be read and enjoyed on several levels. But a good number of her first readers understood what she was doing and that convinced a good many at first the author was indeed male as men were usually the ones to receive this knowledge , though their Greek and Latin studies . It was not just the passion found in Jane Eyre that confused people as to the author's gender. It was this knowledge as well