Last night I completed Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel Jane Eyre. As a child, I moved around quite a bit, especially in high school. Going to three different high schools has left some large gaps in my literature education, and many of the books one would ordinarily have read in high school I admit I have never read. No matter — I’m not sure I would have been ready for this one in high school, anyway.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the story, Jane Eyre stars the eponymous heroine Jane Eyre, who when orphaned by her parents at an early age goes to live with her cruel Aunt Reed until she is unceremoniously sent away to a harsh boarding school called Lowood. Jane eventually becomes a teacher at Lowood until a beloved mentor leaves the school to marry, at which time Jane decides to leave as well. She advertises for a position of governess and is hired by Mrs. Fairfax of Thornfield Hall, the housekeeper for one of literature’s great Byronic heroes, Edward Fairfax Rochester. Mr. Rochester falls in love with Jane, but he harbors a dark secret in his attic that nearly proves the undoing of both his and Jane’s chance at love and happiness.

Although I liked the novel, I didn’t find it difficult to put down, and indeed, one reason why it took me so long to finish is that for long stretches, I wasn’t really into reading it. However, overall I enjoyed Brontë’s writing style. I found her characters believable, with the exception of the children in the early part of the novel — who talked like no children I’ve ever heard. I admired Jane for standing fiercely by her convictions and valuing herself even when she thought no one else did. It is easy to see why so many literary admirers have borrowed Jane Eyre for inspiration, and I did enjoy the book in its entirety, if not the slower parts. I was inspired to read it after the characters in Diane Setterfield’s novel The Thirteenth Tale (my review here) admired it profusely in one of my favorite passages in the book. My daughter Sarah is reading this book right now, and Iwill be interested to get her take on it.

I am anxious to see how well this novel translated to the screen in one of its many movie adaptations. I am going to start with the 1944 production starring Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles, and I am anxious to read Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea if for no other reason than to see a little more of enigmatic Bertha Mason.

As I predicted, I did not finish my R.I.P. Challenge by Halloween, but I am soldiering forth at any rate, and I hope to finish it by Christmas.

[tags]jane eyre, charlotte brontë, book review, literature[/tags]

Continuing my quest to finish all the summer reading my students have to do, I finished Brave New World this morning. I usually like dystopian novels, but I didn’t like this one, which is somewhat ironic considering it is one of the two “gold-standards” of dystopian novels (the other being, of course, 1984). It’s been a long time since I have read anything that gave me bad dreams, but even putting that aside, I didn’t like the novel for other reasons.

First of all, I found it somewhat problematic that Huxley’s society would repress family and childbirth by manufacturing children in “hatcheries,” but at the same time encourage promiscuity. It would make more sense to me that the World State would repress sex altogether and punish people caught having sex. Huxley explains this objection away through the words of his character Mustapha Mond, the World Controller for Western Europe, who says that encouraging promiscuity is necessary because “[y]ou can’t have a lasting civilization without plenty of pleasant vices.”

I also found it hard to believe that the World State would allow dissenters to continue an existence in exile. What if they decided to band together and overthrow the World State? Doesn’t dissent represent too much of a threat to allow it to continue?

Another issue that bothered me was the fact that 70% of the women were sterilized in “utero” (for lack of a better term), and the other 30% were made to use contraception. Where did they get the human ova? Did they require the women who could have children to donate their ova, or did they extract them from fetuses, and if so, why not sterilize all the women after extracting the ova, eliminating the need for contraception drills? I can’t remember that Huxley mentioned where all those eggs came from.

Also, as much as I understood that this society prized consumerism and mass production to the point that they even manufactured people (the description of the hatchery was, to me, the most disturbing part of the novel), I still found the, for lack of a better word, worship of Henry Ford to be hard to buy completely. It does help explain why the society as a whole is uninterested in history, if you take Ford’s assertion that “History is bunk” at face value.

I think the novel explores some important issues, including exactly where we might be headed when we make consumerism and pleasure-seeking the point of our lives and don’t worry about learning. Huxley’s vision of equality isn’t really far from the truth with the exception that the government doesn’t actively introduce toxins to fetuses to subjugate certain groups. We are probably at the stage when we might indeed be able to mass produce people as the novel depicts — I wonder what Huxley would make of in-vitro fertilization and cloning (and please understand I don’t criticize people who use in-vitro to have children; the principles behind the creation of children in the novel and with in-vitro are similar, however).

I can easily see that my students might have trouble with this novel, particularly catching all the references and making connections, and for that reason, I should probably choose this one to study prior to assessment (as I have explained, students are assessed over two novels without benefit of class study). It would certainly provide fodder for discussion, and I already have the beginnings of a good assessment rolling around my head. I don’t think students would have the same difficulties with The Picture of Dorian Gray, but I haven’t read The Return of the Native yet, so I’ll delay making a decision until I’ve read that one.

After having finished Brave New World, I’ll say I’m glad I read it because it is one of those novels that literate folks, especially English teachers, should have read, but if I hadn’t had to read it for school, I’m not sure I’d have finished it.

In case you’re interested, the books I still need to read to prepare for school are The Return of the Native, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (the latter two I began last summer, but never finished). If I have time, I will re-read The Bean Trees. If I keep up the pace I have been, even with the release of the new Harry Potter book, I should still finish all right.

[tags]literature, book, review, aldous huxley, brave new world[/tags]

I studied Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance of Being Earnest in my college British literature course.  I thought it was hilarious.  I particularly love Lady Bracknell’s lines.  An especial favorite is “To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness,” delivered, of course, to Jack.  No doubt about it, Oscar Wilde had rare wit.  Many of his most quotable witticisms appear in The Picture of Dorian Gray, out of the mouth of Lord Henry Wotton.  I’m sure that when most people read this novel, they feel they see Wilde most clearly in Lord Henry.  He is much given to epigrams, and he has a sharp wit, but Wilde claimed that Lord Henry was only his public image; he said he was actually much more like the artist, Basil Hallward, and that he desired to be more like Dorian Gray.  It might make sense to take Wilde at his word in this case, as, like Basil, he was an artist, and perhaps, also like Basil, he was less secure with himself than he appeared to be.

Upon finishing this novel, my first thought was that Anne Rice owes a debt to Oscar Wilde.  Lestat reminds me very much of Dorian Gray in his desire for beauty, his appreciation for the pleasures of life, and his self-loathing.  To be sure, the homoeroticism of The Picture of Dorian Gray certainly reminded me of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles.  Interestingly enough, in trying to discover if any other readers had made this connection through a quick Google search, I discovered actor Stuart Townsend played both characters — Lestat in Queen of the Damned and Dorian Gray in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

I did enjoy the book.  I think it had a clever plot, and I especially loved the device of the painting that reflected the soul of its subject, but I think parts of it might be too talky for my students, which is one reason I’m not sure if it is the one I’ll pick to study in class with them.  Our students read three books over the summer, and the British literature class I’m teaching beginning in August had to read The Picture of Dorian Gray, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy.  Students are assessed over their understanding of two of the books without benefit of classroom discussion.  I haven’t read either of the latter books yet, so I think I’ll wait and see which one has the most fodder for classroom discussion.  Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts if you have read them.

[tags]literature, picture of dorian gray, oscar wilde, review, book[/tags]