Something that matters

A columnist from The Stanford Daily writes about how it feels to write a thesis in English literature and manages to slip in a beautiful message of hope.

When I enter the worlds of “Jane Eyre” or “Dracula,” when I dive into disability theory or the pathologization of female emotion through history, I am confident that I am doing something that matters. Maybe it’s something that only matters to me, but in this time, when the systems and structures we’ve been sold on for so long are failing around us, maybe that is the point. I’m not going to argue that my work is as important as a doctor’s, a firefighter’s or that of the people working to get food to the grocery stores and keep the power coming to our homes. Nor am I under any illusion that it will bring me wealth or fame. But it feeds my soul. It keeps me sane and human and hopeful when everything else has spiraled out of my control. And when I share my work or my thoughts with my friends, I hope it gives them some optimism or enrichment or entertainment too. Because, if I’ve learned anything studying disease in the 19th century, it’s that humans have faced the uncertainty of mass death from disease before, and that art, beauty and humanity will help get us through this. (Jen Ehrlich)

Natalie Jenner, author of the novel The Jane Austen Society, wonders: 'Doesn’t Everyone Reread Their Favorite Books All the Time?' on Literary Hub.

I am also a sucker for a good plot, and tend to race through the best of them. But when I reread, I catch glimpses of the man behind the curtain, pulling all the mechanical levers up and down. As a result, I can now pay more attention to everything else: the hidden Easter eggs in Austen’s Emma, the sheer poetry of The Great Gatsby, the pain behind The Bell Jar, the isolation of Villette. [...]
But ultimately, I’d like to think we reread in order to recover a sense of the distance traveled between our younger and present selves, and how—despite the passage of time—we can be just as thrilled, moved, and satisfied by the very same things now as then. I rely on all my old favorites as touchstones for my own essential self—every time Father Ralph leaves Meggie Cleary on Matlock Island in The Thorn Birds, or Mr. Rochester finally comes clean with Jane Eyre and says he feels as if there is a little string running straight from his heart to hers, I feel the same romantic thrill that I did when I was 14, and I “own” the romanticism that has been my own folly, and guide, throughout my life.

Parade interviews writer Sue Monk Kidd.

When it comes to the classics, have any authors stayed with you throughout your life? Inspired you to write? The nineteenth century author, Charlotte Brontë has been an especially inspirational figure to me. As a young woman, she possessed a pent-up desire to write and penned a letter to Robert Southey, the poet laureate of England, pouring out her hopes. He responded, saying that literature ought not to be the business of a woman’s life and suggested she stick with domestic duties. Devastated by this, Charlotte bravely decided to write anyway and went on to give the world Jane Eyre, which contains a telling line: “I am no bird, and no net ensnares me.” (Megan O'Neill Melle)

University of Nevada interviews budget analyst Chelsea Herrington.

Are you reading any books for fun?I listen to books. So, currently I’m on Sherlock Holmes read by Stephen Fry. I’ve also been reading a lot of English literature, getting ready for a tour of England in July. A favorite is Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. (Juliet V. Casey)

In The Telegraph, Laura Freeman makes the case for 'the pleasure of a cluttered bookshelf - especially in the time of a coronavirus lockdown'.

When Buckingham Palace recently posted a photograph the Duchess of Cambridge sitting at her writing desk, it wasn’t her pink trouser suit that caught my eye, but the row of clothbound Penguin Classics above her blotter. A Christmas Carol, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Middlemarch, Wuthering Heights… Now there’s a woman with good self-isolation intentions. I wonder, though, if Wuthering is the way to go.

According to Screen Rant, Sagittarius will hate Jane Eyre.

Hate: Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre is another classic period piece story that has many intense and dramatic elements. While it has many merits, it’s the type of classic that the Sagittarius would find a bit oppressive. (Amanda Steele)

Pop Sugar recommends 'The 30 Best New Books to Dive Into This Summer'.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Fans of classic novels like Jane Eyre and Rebecca are in for a suspenseful treat courtesy of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic. Set in 1950s Mexico, this haunting novel follows a beautiful debutante named Noemí as she ventures to the secluded High Place in the countryside at the behest of her cousin. What she finds there is an ancient house and a family with plenty of secrets to hide.
Out June 30 (Sabienna Bowman)

The Times has asked several contributors to share the life-changing books that their schoolteachers recommended.

Alice Thomson  When I was 13 and had just discovered Jilly Cooper, Shirley Conran and Emily Brontë, I would sit for hours on the radiators at my all-girls’ school discussing romances. My male history teacher finally cracked: would I, he pleaded, be prepared to read a book that he recommended? I assumed he was going to give me another tome on the Tudors and Stuarts, but instead he handed me My Early Life by Winston Churchill. My brothers “did” the Second World War, so I wasn’t interested. But I loved this autobiography, from Churchill’s disastrous school days to his horses in India and escape during the Boer War, and I ended up reading history at university.

The Irish Times features cartographer Tim Robinson, who was also passionate about literature.

The wide-open millstone-grit moorland which Emily Brontë wrote about appealed to him and when he explored these horizons it helped him understand her writing. (Paul Clements)

Interesting Literature has included both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights on a list of '12 of the Best Nineteenth-Century Novels Everyone Should Read'.