Jane Eyre: Charlotte Bronte (Penguin Classics)

A true classic that reveals much about the attitudes of the day - a romantic tale which doesn’t diminish with time.

Took a while to decide to read this. A popular and universal English classic for good reason. One of the greatest writers who ever lived.

I probably could have gotten it for free on Kindle Unlimited, but it was good to also have a paperback version as well as a Kindle version for studying.

Great version of the book with annotations and context provided which are extremely useful. The norms of the time expected readers to know some French, as well as be familiar with Bible verses and maybe older language (or dialect). I am sad to say I didn't know most of these so an really grateful for the notes You could read without, but these really help with the flavour of the book and the full meeting of the dialogue, which in their style is full of implications and indirect and the notes certainly help with that My only complaint is that there are some spoilers - the writer had pointed out echoes of future chapters earlier in the book. If you have already read Jane Eyre these are great but if you have never read it or watched the shows, some surprises may be taken away.

Great book, a page turner

Good Book

I re-read this book many years after studying it at school. It’s a classic story of course and one of literature’s great stories, beautifully written from Jane’s perspective of life and love. It is essentially a female David Copperfield! Jane has a very rough start in life, but it doesn’t really last long. She is sent to an awful school but even there she makes supportive friends and eventually becomes a teacher there. But Jane is ambitious and wants to live her life so she gets a job as a governess at Thornfield. Here she meets the formidable man who ends up falling for our dimunutive heroine. Yep, that’s how life works! There’s the inevitable class conflict but whaddya know, it all works out in the end when, after a midnight flit, a chance encounter and yet another admirer, Jane ends up inheriting a fortune and gets the man of her dreams. It’s all a bit convenient and lucky. She lands on her feet plenty of times. Is that believable? Not really but I guess the author is indulging her fantasies and she has a real love for Jane and given the autobiographical slant that’s to be expected. My take away? - Who doesn’t dream of meeting up with our ex years later to find them blind and missing an arm! Delicious. If only real life mirrored art.

This classic, first published 160 years ago is sadly dated. I supposed it shoukd be accepted for the great work of fiction which it is, but my personal opinion is that it does not translate well into present times. There are Dickensian type characters which are interesting. But the style of writing is tiring. Some of the sentences must run into hundreds of words. Jane as a seven year old, loses her rag with her cold aunt, juts out her chin and gives the sort of speech which one would expect from some great thespian. Rochester, who tests Jane to determine whether she truly loves him, is married in innocence to a lunatic who is locked up in the attic. Married to a man like him it is hardly surprising she went off her head. He is so feudal that he thinks, never having heard of "for better for worse" that he can forget his first wife and marry very plain Jane. No doubt he thinks she will be grateful for his attention. However does he think he will get away with bigamy? Rochester made my blood boil. Jane leaves Rochester and makes her way into the great unknown to find alternative employment. Surprisingly enough, the people she ends up with are actually long lost cousins. Her very boring cousin proposes marriage to her with strings amounting to blackmail attached. Fortunately she has enough sense to ditch him in favour of the voice of Rochester calling to her on the wind and having suddenly discovered that she has inherited a fortune, makes her way back to Rochester. Now as luck would have it, Mrs Rochester (the crazy one} must have read Rebecca and does a Mrs Danvers, torching the house and is seen silouetted against the red skyline. Conveniently Jane arrives to find that the man of her fantasies is now a crippled widower who pines for her. Jane (and her considerable fortune which doubtless makes her more attractive, puts all to rights and makes an honest man of him, nursing him through his injuries and producing offspring. I apologise for knocking this great work of literature, but it serves only to show the style of work enjoyed by our ancestors, who happily waded through hundreds of pages. I gave this book three stars as it is considered an all time great - and my mother's favourite,(she read it many times). Frankly, it is easier to watch the movie. There are several versions. But I would not want to read the book again.