1999, Carroll & Graf edition from later that year
James Tully
The Crimes of Charlotte Brontë: A Novel
Original and purchase price unknown
Hardcover in good condition
D-
While Tully starts with an interesting premise-- that Arthur Bell Nicholls murdered the entire Brontë family plus at least one of their dogs-- the way he presents it results in one of the worst pieces of historical/biographical fiction ever written. I found myself scoffing at nearly every page, when I wasn't trying to tune out the tedious style. The story is told by two narrators, servant Martha Brown (real person) and modern lawyer Charles Coutts (fictional). Coutts/Tully has the nerve to criticise Emily's use of two narrators in Wuthering Heights, and Charlotte's reduction of the Yorkshire dialect in her reediting of that novel, when the two narratives here are never successfully blended, and Coutts cuts down on Brown's Yorkshire (although he leaves the "him and I" thing, to remind us she's just a servant).
You may wonder about the title if the crimes were actually Nicholls's. Well, Charlotte was supposed to be so besotted with Nicholls, and so jealous of her siblings, that she condoned and sometimes even assisted him in his murders. Martha herself, even though she claims to like all the Brontës except Charlotte, has no qualms about having a decade-plus affair with a murderer. And Emily herself has an affair with Nicholls, so she doesn't mind about him doing in Branwell. There is nothing consistent here with the actual history of the Brontës, their characterisations within the book, or even human nature.
Brown, Coutts, and probably Tully himself are incredibly spiteful towards Charlotte, including her looks, while invariably describing Nicholls as handsome. I know fashions changed, but Google pictures of Arthur and you'll find he was as plain as Abraham Lincoln. He was not some Svengali stud who could get women to do his bidding. Somehow his charisma didn't extend to the village, which is always muttering about his doings up at the Parsonage, without actually, you know, calling in anyone to investigate the mysterious illnesses and deaths. I'll admit that there are some strange things in his behaviour in real life (like his hostility towards Charlotte's friend Ellen), but that doesn't make him a murderer, and Tully never convincingly gets the story to work even on a what-if level. There are times when it's almost so bad it's good, but it's alternately too hostile and too boring to be much fun.
Showing posts with label Brontë. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brontë. Show all posts
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Monday, April 29, 2013
The Brontës: Charlotte Brontë and Her Family
1988, 1990 Fawcett Columbine (Ballantine) edition
Rebecca Fraser
The Brontës: Charlotte Brontë and Her Family
Bought newish for $12.95
Worn paperback
B
As the title suggests, the focus here is mostly on Charlotte, but Fraser does a good job of showing us father Patrick, brother Branwell, and sisters Emily and Anne, as well as Charlotte's various friends and acquaintances. (I thought sweet Ellen and feisty Mary were great.) As I noted previously, Fraser quotes Elisabeth Barrett Browning about as much as Forster does, and she quotes heavily from the writing siblings she profiles, including their letters. She points out the contradictions between the quiet lives and the wild fiction, and the reactions of their contemporaries to both aspects. Fraser comes by her biographical skills partly through heredity. She's the granddaughter of Lady Longford, who wrote the 1965 biography of Queen Victoria, and the daughter of Antonia Fraser, who wrote the 1969 Mary Queen of Scots bio and The Wives of Henry VIII, coming up in 1992.
As I read this book, I couldn't help thinking of what James Tully would do with the same material, especially Arthur Bell Nicholls's prickly personality, in The Crimes of Charlotte Brontë, which I'll discuss under 1999.
Rebecca Fraser
The Brontës: Charlotte Brontë and Her Family
Bought newish for $12.95
Worn paperback
B
As the title suggests, the focus here is mostly on Charlotte, but Fraser does a good job of showing us father Patrick, brother Branwell, and sisters Emily and Anne, as well as Charlotte's various friends and acquaintances. (I thought sweet Ellen and feisty Mary were great.) As I noted previously, Fraser quotes Elisabeth Barrett Browning about as much as Forster does, and she quotes heavily from the writing siblings she profiles, including their letters. She points out the contradictions between the quiet lives and the wild fiction, and the reactions of their contemporaries to both aspects. Fraser comes by her biographical skills partly through heredity. She's the granddaughter of Lady Longford, who wrote the 1965 biography of Queen Victoria, and the daughter of Antonia Fraser, who wrote the 1969 Mary Queen of Scots bio and The Wives of Henry VIII, coming up in 1992.
As I read this book, I couldn't help thinking of what James Tully would do with the same material, especially Arthur Bell Nicholls's prickly personality, in The Crimes of Charlotte Brontë, which I'll discuss under 1999.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
The Professor
1857, 1989 Penguin Classic edition
Charlotte Brontë
The Professor
Probably bought new for $4.95
Worn paperback
B
Although this novel was written in 1846, it was rejected by publishers nine times, despite the success of Jane Eyre. I'm going with the posthumous publication date, because Brontë's widower and father edited out some of the "coarser" passages. The story has similarities to Villette, although Brussels is undisguised here, and it's a male narrator this time. I like The Professor better than Villette, although as always Brontë can't write an appealing romance to save her life. The introduction by Heather Glen suggests that this is deliberate-- to go along with the themes of violence and conflict that run throughout the book-- but if Brontë actually meant the romances to be unappealing (something I considered and then rejected about the Twilight series), it makes me more annoyed with her. Also, Brontë's prejudices against "foreigners" (French, Belgian, Catholic, etc.) are on full display here.
So why read this novel? Well, I do like her recurring motif of the teacher overcoming obstacles and starting a school. The narrator, messed up individual though he is, remains my second favorite of Brontë's after Jane Eyre. He's dry and sarcastic, and yes, it is nice to see what Brontë does with a male main character. Also, I liked the setting of Villette, so it's cool to get the real names of places here. And finally, there is no character who makes me impatient to be done with the book as M. Paul did.
Charlotte Brontë
The Professor
Probably bought new for $4.95
Worn paperback
B
Although this novel was written in 1846, it was rejected by publishers nine times, despite the success of Jane Eyre. I'm going with the posthumous publication date, because Brontë's widower and father edited out some of the "coarser" passages. The story has similarities to Villette, although Brussels is undisguised here, and it's a male narrator this time. I like The Professor better than Villette, although as always Brontë can't write an appealing romance to save her life. The introduction by Heather Glen suggests that this is deliberate-- to go along with the themes of violence and conflict that run throughout the book-- but if Brontë actually meant the romances to be unappealing (something I considered and then rejected about the Twilight series), it makes me more annoyed with her. Also, Brontë's prejudices against "foreigners" (French, Belgian, Catholic, etc.) are on full display here.
So why read this novel? Well, I do like her recurring motif of the teacher overcoming obstacles and starting a school. The narrator, messed up individual though he is, remains my second favorite of Brontë's after Jane Eyre. He's dry and sarcastic, and yes, it is nice to see what Brontë does with a male main character. Also, I liked the setting of Villette, so it's cool to get the real names of places here. And finally, there is no character who makes me impatient to be done with the book as M. Paul did.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Villette
1853, 1987 Signet Classic edition
Charlotte Brontë
Villette
Original price $4.95, bought used for 95 cents
Worn paperback
B-
This novel is mostly set in a fictionalised version of Brussels (the title being ironic, as if a capital city is a little village). The setting is what I like best, although I also enjoy most of the characters and, as usual with Brontë, the first-person narration. Unfortunately, also as usual with Brontë, the love interest and romance don't work. M. Paul is not as repellent as a Moore brother but he's not as tolerable as Mr. Rochester. He spends most of the novel bullying the heroine, to the point that he even locks her in an overheated attic to rehearse an acting role he's pressured her into taking. Not only is Lucy Snowe more passive than Jane Eyre, but even Fanny Price would've protested at this. Lucy mostly seems amused. At some point, they decide that they're friends, so they swear eternal friendship, which turns to love. They'd marry in the end, but he dies at sea. Or does he?
It is this ambiguous ending that rescues the novel from a C+. People who are more romantic than I am can imagine a Happily Ever After. (I am generally a matchmaker of fictional characters, ever since as a little girl I imagined Heidi grew up to marry Peter the goatherd, but I have my limits.) And people who hope that Lucy is a happy spinster schoolteacher, can believe that M. Paul is out of her life for good.
A note about this edition. There are a shocking number of typos for a professional publication, often of the letter-dropping sort, like "vice" for "voice" and "she" for "shed," although in one case I had to shake my head at "misserable." Shame on you, Signet Classic!
Charlotte Brontë
Villette
Original price $4.95, bought used for 95 cents
Worn paperback
B-
This novel is mostly set in a fictionalised version of Brussels (the title being ironic, as if a capital city is a little village). The setting is what I like best, although I also enjoy most of the characters and, as usual with Brontë, the first-person narration. Unfortunately, also as usual with Brontë, the love interest and romance don't work. M. Paul is not as repellent as a Moore brother but he's not as tolerable as Mr. Rochester. He spends most of the novel bullying the heroine, to the point that he even locks her in an overheated attic to rehearse an acting role he's pressured her into taking. Not only is Lucy Snowe more passive than Jane Eyre, but even Fanny Price would've protested at this. Lucy mostly seems amused. At some point, they decide that they're friends, so they swear eternal friendship, which turns to love. They'd marry in the end, but he dies at sea. Or does he?
It is this ambiguous ending that rescues the novel from a C+. People who are more romantic than I am can imagine a Happily Ever After. (I am generally a matchmaker of fictional characters, ever since as a little girl I imagined Heidi grew up to marry Peter the goatherd, but I have my limits.) And people who hope that Lucy is a happy spinster schoolteacher, can believe that M. Paul is out of her life for good.
A note about this edition. There are a shocking number of typos for a professional publication, often of the letter-dropping sort, like "vice" for "voice" and "she" for "shed," although in one case I had to shake my head at "misserable." Shame on you, Signet Classic!
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Shirley
1849, 1974 Penguin Classics edition
Charlotte Brontë
Shirley: A Tale
Original price $4.95, bought newish?
A bit worn paperback
C-
Easily the worst of Brontë's novels, this is also the worst novel I've read so far in this project. The other C-s are all part of that Shakespeare collection, so it's not like I'll be getting rid of them. With this book, I'll decide later whether to keep the discrete C-s. As for why this scores so low, it blends a boring historical plot of the early days (1811-12) of the Industrial Revolution with not one but two icky romances. The best two things about it are the mockery of three Yorkshire curates (based on actual people, including ironically her future husband) and the women's rights pleas. Even more than Jane Eyre, this novel shows the difficulties of single middle-class girls and women, who had so few options. In fact, Brontë puts the words of a negative reviewer of Jane Eyre into the mouths of some upper-class women who are berating a governess.
This makes it all the more frustrating that she gives her two intelligent co-heroines, the title character and Caroline, such unpleasant suitors. Robert Moore is focused on money over emotion, to the point that he proposes to clever, beautiful Shirley only because she's an heiress. Caroline lapses into a Marianne-Dashwood-like fever brought on by months of rejection, only to be saved by finding out that Shirley's ex-governess is Caroline's long-lost mother.
As for the romance between Robert's brother and Shirley, here's Louis Moore talking about the woman he loves, except wishing that she were poor: "Something to tame first, and teach afterwards: to break in and then to fondle. To lift the destitute proud thing out of poverty; to establish power over, and then to be indulgent to the capricious moods that never were influenced and never indulged before; to see her alternately irritated and subdued about twelve times in the twenty-four hours; and perhaps, eventually, when her training was accomplished, to behold her the exemplary and patient mother of about a dozen children, only now and then lending little Louis a cordial cuff by way of paying the interest of the vast debt she owes his father." That this is exactly the kind of man that Shirley wants, someone to tame the "lioness" that everyone sees her as, does not make it more palatable to me.
The first third of the 560-page novel is the dullest, the last third the most unpleasant. The story behind the story is much more interesting, although tragic. The author's three surviving siblings all died during 1848-49, and yet Charlotte continued to struggle to write. Also, the title is interesting in that Shirley herself doesn't show up till several chapters in (part of why the first third is boring), and she has been given a boy's name and jokes about how she would act if she were Captain Keeldar, the male version of herself. This is weird for someone born in the 20th century, because of course "Shirley" suggests Miss Temple. In fact, the popularity of this novel changed "Shirley" from a boy's name to a girl's.
Charlotte Brontë
Shirley: A Tale
Original price $4.95, bought newish?
A bit worn paperback
C-
Easily the worst of Brontë's novels, this is also the worst novel I've read so far in this project. The other C-s are all part of that Shakespeare collection, so it's not like I'll be getting rid of them. With this book, I'll decide later whether to keep the discrete C-s. As for why this scores so low, it blends a boring historical plot of the early days (1811-12) of the Industrial Revolution with not one but two icky romances. The best two things about it are the mockery of three Yorkshire curates (based on actual people, including ironically her future husband) and the women's rights pleas. Even more than Jane Eyre, this novel shows the difficulties of single middle-class girls and women, who had so few options. In fact, Brontë puts the words of a negative reviewer of Jane Eyre into the mouths of some upper-class women who are berating a governess.
This makes it all the more frustrating that she gives her two intelligent co-heroines, the title character and Caroline, such unpleasant suitors. Robert Moore is focused on money over emotion, to the point that he proposes to clever, beautiful Shirley only because she's an heiress. Caroline lapses into a Marianne-Dashwood-like fever brought on by months of rejection, only to be saved by finding out that Shirley's ex-governess is Caroline's long-lost mother.
As for the romance between Robert's brother and Shirley, here's Louis Moore talking about the woman he loves, except wishing that she were poor: "Something to tame first, and teach afterwards: to break in and then to fondle. To lift the destitute proud thing out of poverty; to establish power over, and then to be indulgent to the capricious moods that never were influenced and never indulged before; to see her alternately irritated and subdued about twelve times in the twenty-four hours; and perhaps, eventually, when her training was accomplished, to behold her the exemplary and patient mother of about a dozen children, only now and then lending little Louis a cordial cuff by way of paying the interest of the vast debt she owes his father." That this is exactly the kind of man that Shirley wants, someone to tame the "lioness" that everyone sees her as, does not make it more palatable to me.
The first third of the 560-page novel is the dullest, the last third the most unpleasant. The story behind the story is much more interesting, although tragic. The author's three surviving siblings all died during 1848-49, and yet Charlotte continued to struggle to write. Also, the title is interesting in that Shirley herself doesn't show up till several chapters in (part of why the first third is boring), and she has been given a boy's name and jokes about how she would act if she were Captain Keeldar, the male version of herself. This is weird for someone born in the 20th century, because of course "Shirley" suggests Miss Temple. In fact, the popularity of this novel changed "Shirley" from a boy's name to a girl's.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Wuthering Heights
1847, 1981 Bantam Classic edition
Emily Brontë
Wuthering Heights
Original price $1.75, bought used for unknown
Very ratty paperback
C+
While big sister Charlotte was writing Jane Eyre (and little sister Anne was penning Agnes Grey, which I've never read), Emily created this tale of tortured love. The writing is compelling and sometimes lovely, but the characters, Heathcliff in particular, are so unsavoury it's hard for me to enjoy this novel. Narrator Ellen comes across the best, although on this reading I was really struck with how manipulative she is. Yes, she's in the midst of people who are spoiled and/or insane, but sometimes her endeavors to survive and help others survive only make matters worse.
A previous owner wrote marginal notes on vocabulary words and their definitions, although he/she stopped after awhile. Perhaps it was assigned for school but the student couldn't get through it.
Emily Brontë
Wuthering Heights
Original price $1.75, bought used for unknown
Very ratty paperback
C+
While big sister Charlotte was writing Jane Eyre (and little sister Anne was penning Agnes Grey, which I've never read), Emily created this tale of tortured love. The writing is compelling and sometimes lovely, but the characters, Heathcliff in particular, are so unsavoury it's hard for me to enjoy this novel. Narrator Ellen comes across the best, although on this reading I was really struck with how manipulative she is. Yes, she's in the midst of people who are spoiled and/or insane, but sometimes her endeavors to survive and help others survive only make matters worse.
A previous owner wrote marginal notes on vocabulary words and their definitions, although he/she stopped after awhile. Perhaps it was assigned for school but the student couldn't get through it.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Jane Eyre
1847, 1971 Norton Critical edition
Charlotte Brontë
Jane Eyre: An Autobiography
Original price unknown, bought used for $4.50
Torn paperback
B+
Although the love interest and thus the central romance don't appeal to me, this story remains a good one. It's partly the first-person narrator. Jane has a dry humour and a gift for description. Also, the way she directly addresses the reader, mostly famously with the opening of the last chapter-- "Reader, I married him"-- is engaging. I like the part about Jane's childhood and how she finds sisterhood with Diana and Mary, who turn out to be her cousins. I also enjoy reading the parts about Jane's teaching career, and frankly a happier ending would've been if she'd used her inheritance to start a real school of her own.
A note about the "autobiography" part of the title. Brontë admired Vanity Fair, which was then being serialised, and she dedicated this novel to William Makepeace Thackeray. Unfortunately, she didn't know that Mrs. Thackeray was insane. Rumours started about "Jane Eyre" being Mr. Thackeray's governess-mistress. There are autobiographical elements of Charlotte's life in this novel, but less than in Villette (1853).
This copy has several notes, in tiny, almost illegible writing. The most interesting is one about how Jane assumes she knows what others are thinking.
Charlotte Brontë
Jane Eyre: An Autobiography
Original price unknown, bought used for $4.50
Torn paperback
B+
Although the love interest and thus the central romance don't appeal to me, this story remains a good one. It's partly the first-person narrator. Jane has a dry humour and a gift for description. Also, the way she directly addresses the reader, mostly famously with the opening of the last chapter-- "Reader, I married him"-- is engaging. I like the part about Jane's childhood and how she finds sisterhood with Diana and Mary, who turn out to be her cousins. I also enjoy reading the parts about Jane's teaching career, and frankly a happier ending would've been if she'd used her inheritance to start a real school of her own.
A note about the "autobiography" part of the title. Brontë admired Vanity Fair, which was then being serialised, and she dedicated this novel to William Makepeace Thackeray. Unfortunately, she didn't know that Mrs. Thackeray was insane. Rumours started about "Jane Eyre" being Mr. Thackeray's governess-mistress. There are autobiographical elements of Charlotte's life in this novel, but less than in Villette (1853).
This copy has several notes, in tiny, almost illegible writing. The most interesting is one about how Jane assumes she knows what others are thinking.
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