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| Charlotte Brontë |
One of the many things I love about this yearʼs theme is this idea of re-visiting great literature. For some of us this means re-reading books we might not have fully appreciated at the time of first reading. For others, itʼs tackling big books that are new to them. But with all of the great literature we are exploring this year, I believe thereʼs one thing we all have in common—the sparks of memory and various associations they help kindle in our minds. And, taking advantage of my role as corresponding secretary, this means you all must suffer the sparks and ramblings of mine! (You can certainly stop reading here. All pertinent information has been expressed above.)
I was so excited to learn that Sharon was going to be reading Jane Eyre for the first time. How I love that book! But then I realized I don't remember actually reading Jane Eyre, but I know I did. My Bantam Classic edition is on my shelf with my name written in it with “New York” and “1987” written on the title page. After college and living two blocks from the much-missed Shakespeare & Company on 81st Street, I took it upon myself to read many of the classics I hadn't in high school and college. ($4.50 for a paperback with lettering so small I would be unable to read them today.) The Brontës were top of my list, but it's the turbulent, romantic, and tragic Vilette, Charlotte Brontë's final novel I remember reading more clearly on a bench in Riverside Park. And yet—Jane Eyre!
I first encountered the story of Jane Eyre on channel WPIX where the 1944 Orson Wellsʼs classic film seemed to be on constant rotation, and I watched it through every time it was on. Forget the love story between Joan Fontaine and the still handsome Orson Wells. It was the tragic and intense friendship between Jane and Helen in Lowood that got me every time. How heartbreaking and formative it was for me to watch Jane cruelly lose her first and only friend so early in the film. It was just too much to bear—and I couldn't look away.
It was certainly the love story between Rochester and Jane that caught my imagination later with the book, and I eagerly sought out Wide Sargasso Sea to remain in that world. But I didn't get it! All of the allusions to the action of the book just made no sense at all. I just remembered a lot of churning and roiling sea water. Thankfully I will have Sharon to enlighten me. I still remember my confusion at the time because I felt so dissatisfied and at lose ends in my incomprehension of the book. I wanted the dirt on Berthe and Rochester! Don't cloak it!
But here's the kicker! Moments ago, I had an epiphany! I had gotten myself confused and for whatever reason, thought that Jean Rhys had also written the modern play Antigone which I had loved in my AP English class and was so eye-opening in exploring the power of tragedy. Wide Sargasso Sea was so dense. But I just looked it up and was reminded that Jean Anouilh wrote Antigone, not Jean Rhys, so, mystery solved! All these years later I can finally put that baby to bed! Another score for Lit Club!
Ed Young Day, which has consumed me for the past several months, begins in just a few hours, so I apologize for this very long and rambling reminder. I am just writing this out this morning, and even with the turning back of the clocks, I didn't have time to write a short, condensed version! (I know. When are they ever short and well-edited???!!!)
I look forward to seeing many of you on Wednesday, as well as this afternoon at the library to celebrate all things Ed! x Jacquie
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| Sharon in costume |
Recommendations Influenced by last week’s NYC Marathon, Frances recommended 2 books about walking or running, Hiroki Murikami’s memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and The Santiago Pilgrimage, Walking the Immortal Way by Jean-Christophe Rufin. Joanna recommended Buckeye by Patrick Ryan, a story of two Ohio families spanning generations and decades. Joanna and Connie have both seen Ragtime, on Broadway, and add up votes to Laura’s previous recommendation. Joanna recommended, a documentary about the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, which can be streamed on Amazon Prime or Kanopy. Some of us didn’t know that Kanopy is a free streaming service provided by our Westchester public libraries. It’s wonderful, the film catalog is wide-ranging and huge.
To Sharon’s presentation on Jane Eyre and The Wide Sargasso Sea
Not one of us hadn’t read Jane Eyre. Sharon had read at 16, and now, at 62, she
was rereading it and listening to the audiobook. She thought Rochester a bully, then and now, but her assessment of Jane changed. She appreciated how strongly Jane claimed her right to independence. In the 19th century, this was a show of courage for a petite and impoverished 18-year-old without friends or family.
One could search for the origins of that courage in Charlotte Brontë’s life.
She was born in 1816, in Yorkshire, the daughter of an Irish Anglican minister. Her mother died when she was 5. At 8, Charlotte and three of her sisters were sent to a boarding school for clergymen’s daughter. Conditions were harsh; two sisters died there.
Brontë worked intermittently as a governess, work she found demeaning, writing in letters that she felt treated as “a piece of furniture.” She spent much of her adult life in her father’s parsonage. Her sisters Anne and Emily were also writers. In 1846, the three published a book of poetry, selling only two copies. Unfazed, the following year Charlotte published Jane Eyre, Emily Wuthering Heights and Anne Agnes Grey.
The joy of their success was overshadowed by death. Anne, Emily and their brother Branwell died between September 1848 and May 1849.
Brontë continued to write, publishing an additional three novels. Her emotional life remained fixed in the parsonage. In 1854, she married her father’s curate. She was pregnant when she died the following year.
Jane Eyre was an immediate success. The heroine’s demand for dignity and equality in love resonated with its readership. Brontë’s influence on other women writers was powerful. Virginia Woolf wrote “she had more genius in her than all of us. That shines from every page of her work.”
Sharon selected conversations between Rochester and Jane for us to read. Jane doesn’t see through Rochester’s deceptions but she stands up to his bullying. The madwoman in the attic, Brontë’s creation of genius, destroys Rochester. His desire to marry Jane is revealed as bigamy. The mad wife burns Thornfield Hall down. The fire blinds and maims Rochester.
Jane flees Thornfield Hall after she witnesses the confrontation between Rochester and the woman in the attic. She spends days wandering, hungry, cold until she’s saved by two sisters and their brother. After a couple of plot twists involving the brother proposing marriage to our heroine, Jane improbably winds up a rich heiress. Many of us couldn’t remember this part, probably because the psychological realism of the novel is jarringly suspended.
But we have come to love plucky Jane. With her direct appeal to us – “Reader, I married him” – we are back on Jane’s, and Brontë’s, side.
The woman in the attic, the Creole from Jamaica, haunted Jean Rhys. The Wide Sargasso Sea is her back story, both prequel and critique of Jane Eyre. We read from Edwidge Danticat’s introduction. Rhys was born on Dominica and emigrated to England. The screaming vengeful woman locked up in an English attic was born on a tropical island like Rhys’. Her name was Antoinette, although Rochester called her Bertha, as if Antoinette was too delicate a name for what she had become. She was a young woman when the British outlawed slavery. The plantation economy in Jamaica collapsed. Many English colonists like Antoinette’s family were impoverished. Antoinette’s early life in Jamaica was framed by a mentally ill mother, by a descent into poverty and by a social order that had imploded. Plus, reader, she married him.
Respectfully submitted,
Frances Greenberg
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