a word on the Brontes; esp the novel Shirley

obviously there are more books to go; I have not read all the Bronte novels... but a couple of brief comments in general.

the prejudice towards other nationalities in the books are not to the Brontes' credit. I did not comment on them in the reviews because I dismissed them out of hand, but I don't want anyone to think I in any way agree with that nonsense.

I was greatly surprised to find that er the whole world seems to like Jane Eyre the best, and then Villete, which they consider to be a masterpiece, and they dismiss Shirley as badly-written due to the death of Emily during its completion.

wow. I wonder what planet they are all on... but then again, it's probably me, and I'm on Anuurn, or the earth of the Atevi, by default.

they seemed to think that naming it Shirley even though Shirley was not introduced until several chapters into the story was an indication that Charlotte had changed her focus (as if the book were intended at first to be "Caroline") midway through the writing. um, no. it seems obvious to me that she titled it Shirley and then made us really want to find out who this Shirley was by delaying her entrance. it piques the curiousity. Caroline is the foil. she is the Normal. she is the Typical nineteenth-century English female. and we get so caught up in Caroline that when Shirley does come into play, we can't help but at least temporarily believe that it isn't for the better. Shirley is the Atypical here.

yes, Caroline is (said to be) like Emily. but Charlotte is not a simpleton; she is not going to just write a book about her sister. she instead makes a statement by comparing the Typical with the Atypical, and what better foil for Shirley (a powerful, wealthy, independent woman unafraid to stand up for herself) than Caroline/Emily? Charlotte paints the Typical first so that we can truly appreciate the Atypical!

and what was this business about how the other readers seemed to be bothered when ~ "they were dragged out of matters of the heart and into the riots"? what are they talking about? Charlotte did an Excellent job of placing her characters into real history. every love story has a background, people. all those "matters of the heart" don't just float around in nothingness. and I think Charlotte described the action scenes in a very attention-getting way. no, the girls did not join the fray or anything (alas, that would have been interesting! but Shirley is no Pyanfar or Jago), but it was realistic and exciting. especially for the kind of novel it was.

Jane Eyre has real flaws to me. she just happens to fall ill outside of her long-lost cousins' house? she just happens to come into a fortune? Bertha just happens to commit suicide? Her blind husband just happens to partially regain his eyesight? or, moreso than that, he happens to be so wounded in the first place as to bring him down a notch into her economic class? to say nothing of St John! bah. (her father, Patrick Bronte, went to a seminary called St John's... I wonder---no, I hope, I believe, she was making more of a pointed reference to that and to religion in general... but god that St John was enough to kill it for me.)

Villette.... as I said, it doesn't even have an ending! that is a serious crime to me. ok, so Dead Souls didn't have an ending, but part of the manuscript was missing; and in any case, you KNOW what happens. in Villette, you don't. you can guess, but either way you guess would be equally valid. it's just very odd. it would have been much better if Charlotte had ended it right as Paul Emmanuel left on the voyage and Lucy was setting out on her new employment. we wouldn't have known for sure THEN either, but it would have been more artfully done than saying his ship was returning but did it run into storms or did it come safely into the harbor? well, I'll let you guess, dear reader. ... obnoxious.

and I understand about Lucy wanting to find a husband that would be a good life partner for her, but all her other heroines had that going on as well. it's not a new concept.

of course in all the books, the girl ends up married anyway (or, in Villette, engaged to be married). which is so beyond the current experience that it is hard for me to really be happy for them... Wuthering Heights, well, they had an abominable time of it, for sure, but, it ended with a marriage and a happily ever after.

so, basically, Shirley is the best :p and I need more sleep

The Professor, by Charlotte Bronte. rating = 3.

this is the first book that Charlotte Bronte ever wrote. it was submitted for publication at the same time as Emily's first book, Wuthering Heights, and Anne's first book, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. what a loss that Emily and Anne did not live long enough to write more than they did... sigh. Wuthering Heights as a first novel? I will forever think that is impressive. especially when you take into account that, as great a novelist as Charlotte became, her first book, The Professor, was refused for publication.

The Professor was only published after Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre etc, more as a favor to her public who were by then curious what her first novel was about.

it IS a nice book; I do recommend it. but it is obviously her first book, and the pacing is off, and the storytelling needs work, and some things seem rather odd. she uses many of the same themes in her other, successful novels, which means that there is substance here, but she handles it much better in her later works. this is also the only novel where Charlotte writes from the perspective of a man. when she writes as a woman, it is so much more natural and she can do more with it, comfortably and fluently.

favorite quotes:

how dreadful to find a lump of wax and wood laid in my bosom, a half-idiot clasped in my arms, and to remember that I had made of this my equal---nay, my idol---to know that I must pass the rest of my dreary life with a creature incapable of understanding what I said, of appreciating what I thought, or of sympathising with what I felt! (1106)

I went to bed, but somoething feverish and fiery had got into my veins which prevented me from sleeping much that night. (1108)

God knows I am not by nature vindictive; I would not hurt a man because I can no longer trust or like him; but neither my reason nor feelings are of the vacillating order---they are not of that sand-like sort where impressions, if soon made, are as soon effaced. Once convinced that my friend's disposition is incompatible with my own, once assured that he is indelibly stained with certain defects obnoxious to my principles, and I dissolve the connection . (1108-Charlotte is perhaps an INFJ? lol)

Fate! thou hast done thy worst, and now thou standest before me resting thy hand on thy blunted blade. Ay; I see thine eye confront mine and demand why I still live, why I still hope. Pagan demon, I credit not thine onmipotence, and so cannot succumb to they power. (1118)

"Down, stupid tormentors," cried she; "the man has done his duty; you shall not bait him thus by thoughts of what might have been; he relinquished a temporary and contingent good to avoid a permanent and certain evil; he did well. Let him reflect now, and when your blinding dust and deafening hum subside, he will discover a path." (1149)

(and yes this now completes my reading of the omnibus Charlotte and Emily Bronte: the complete novels. I want to see The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and Agnes Gray, etc, but that might have to wait a while...)

Villette, Charlotte Bronte. rating = 3.5

bah I'm having to type this again. let's hope Netscape doesn't close on me for every passing plane... it puts me out of countenance; it's disconcerting and disheartening to try and reweave all the tangents again.

first I must (since I haven't done so before now) throw out there that it is very nice to be aware of small changes that have taken place in the English language between now and Bronte's time. otherwise one might be confounded when somewhat puritanical characters publicly speak of "making love" etc. the changes are not so great as between now and Shakespeare's time (wherefore art thou Romeo = why are you Romeo? not where are you, Romeo? and silly = innocent and deserving of compassion, not a dingbat; and wit = knowledge, not just clever funny sayings) but they can throw you off if you are unaware.

second I say that it is also very nice to be aware of events in Bronte's life, as much of her work is either autobiographical or at least stems from direct experience. in Villette, a young (English) country girl makes her way to the Continent, to live in the city as a teacher. I knew before hand that Charlotte herself attended and later taught at a school in Belgium for a number of years, and her few visits to London did include watching an Opera, and I was already interested in what she would write of that.

third... I like Shirley better; Shirley was more well-rounded and seamless. Villette is engaging but seems quite disjointed. the main character, Lucy Snowe, does not tell all about her life, and only the interesting bits are relayed, with some gaps in between, and even then I know there are interesting bits that she just never revealed. what happened exactly in the past, in her childhood, to which she often and vaguely refers? I guess we just won't know, as she never says. it's none of our business yet she will taunt us with it. in terms of the basic story, it is as if Lucy is just being mischievous for not telling us certain things and keeping us in suspense, or not letting on that she knows something that the reader (or, indeed, the other characters) would expect her to mention. and (I'm not sure I can forgive her for it) , there is no ending. she takes you right up to the ending, and then says oh it looks like it might not happen after all, but I will just stop here so that the reader can imagine it whichever way they choose. bah!

I do forgive her for it, because I know what she was going through at this time of her life, but I know she could have done better and that disappoints me. I can forgive the author, but I don't think I can forgive the work.

I still say you should read it though; it is still engaging in its own way. Bronte not at her best is better than many others. I am puzzled by the main character, but also by a Mr. Paul Emmanuel. and the first time I saw the name Dr. John, I did a double-take, thinking that St. John had wormed his way back in there somehow! no, I guess he's in India or somewhere, not France, thank God. Bronte turned her talent more towards describing the people in this story, and there was not near as much about nature or weather. the people were interesting, but again just not as interesting (to me) as (or maybe just more at odds with me than) the characters of Shirley.

the story does have a ghost, though. as well as some very witty passages (esp the exchanges between Dr. John and his mother, and esp the turban). and a most awesome quote!

quotes:

so peril, loneliness, an uncertain future, are not oppressive evils, so long as the frame is healthy and the faculties are employed; so long, especially, as Liberty lends us her wings and Hope guides us by her star. (800)

got all the above except the wings; Liberty must be off lunching with Human Justice (1000)... I've tried substituting a cape, but with mixed results.

Wise, firm, faithless; secret, crafty, passionless; watchful and inscrutable; acute and insensate---withal perfectly decorous---what more could be desired? (811)

that could almost be discussing the Guild

"Shall I do?" was her question.

"Do?" said I. "There are different ways of doing; and, by my word, I don't understand yours." (818)

not a living thing save herself was in the room, except indeed some gold fish in a glass globe, some flowers in pots, and a broad July sunbeam. (827)

"Who is inthe wrong, then, Lucy?"

"Me---Dr. John---me; and a great abstraction on whose wide shoulders I like to lay the mountains of blame they were sculpted to bear: me and Fate."

" 'Me' must take better care in future..." (874)

here is the most awesome quote:

No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amarnth bloom and the golden fruitage of Paradise. (912)

yes, indeed my friends, Happiness is no potato!

I should give it a 4 just for that quote!

Shirley, Charlotte Bronte. rating = 5

it really isn't about Shirley at all. first we meet three curates, and then the rector, and then the miller, Robert Moore, and then eventually we get around to Caroline, the rector's niece and Moore's cousin. just when we think that Caroline and Robert are becoming close, oops, reality. no time for whims. then enters Shirley, finally, and she brings other people in with her as well. just when you think you've gotten everybody figured out, something new becomes obvious, and the relationships between the characters shift. again. everything, though, is superbly realistic (if sometimes a bit convenient), and all is based and firmly set in historical context.

I don't know; is it just me? I thoroughly enjoyed this book. much more than Wuthering Heights, and more than Jane Eyre too. I wish I had read Shirley, oh, a decade or two ago...

I especially like how the reader has no idea who "Shirley" even is until about? halfway through the book. and, back in Bronte's time, one would assume Shirley to be a man, so that would come as a surprise as well. a brilliant stroke.

there are so many view points and little stories within the story; the tale really comes alive. I can picture this place, which apparently even by Bronte's day was much changed. the social commentary is interesting without being too preachy, as different characters have different ways of seeing things. it rather balances out. Charlotte knows how to write... I wonder, since Wuthering Heights was Emily's first attempt at a novel, how very superb SHE would have become as well. both of them are very inventive in how they spin their yarns.

Charlotte does seem to write very long sentences. she also seems to discuss more about the fine points of nature, both mother nature and the nature of the characters... in contrast to Emily. this is mostly why I prefer her of the two, I suppose.

I definitely liked the ending of Shirley (romantic as it is) over that of Jane Eyre. I like how the endings suited the characters... as this story isn't just about one person, but several. actually, a whole slew of them ;) it is slightly eyebrow-raising when people turn out to be/ end up related to each other... I think though that Charlotte pokes fun at that a bit herself, when Robert teases Caroline that Shirley's mysterious lover must be none other than Caroline's uncle, and that they will soon be married, and Shirley will be her aunt.

here are some favorite quotes. the page numbers are from the omnibus I'm reading Charlotte and Emily Bronte: The Complete Novels.

"Against legitimacy is arrayed usurpation: against modest, single-minded, righteous , and brave resistance to encroachment, is arrayed boastful, double-tongued, selfish, and treacherous ambition to possess. God defend the right!"

"God often defends the powerful." (462)

"I mean to say nothing: but I can think what I please, you know, Mr. Helstone, both about France and England; and about revolutions, and regicides, and restorations in general; and about the divine right of kings, which you often stickle for in your sermons, and about the duty of non-resistance, and the sanity of war, and---" (463)

imagination discussed (sarcastically, I do hope) on 467.

"You seem a fine fellow," said Moore, quite coolly and drily; "you don't care for showing me that you are a double-dyed hypocrite, that your trade is fraud: you expect indeed to make me laugh at the cleverness with which you play your coarsely farcical part, while at the same time you think you are deceiving the men behind you." (511)

from the beginning of Chapter Ten on 528 to "Long may it be ere England really becomes a nation of shop-keepers!" on 529--- sounds way too much like modern capitalist America.

"...other people solve it by saying, 'Your place is to do good to others, to be helpful whenever help is wanted.' That is right in some measure, and a very convenient doctrine for the people who hold it; but I perceive that certain sets of human beings are very apt to maintain that other sets should give up their lives to them and their service, and then they requite them by praise: they call them devoted and virtuous. Is this enough? Is it to live? Is there not a terrible hollowness, mockery, want, craving, in that existence which is given away to others, for want of something of your own to bestow it on? I suspect there is. Does virtue lie in abnegation of self? I do not believe it. Undue humility makes tyranny; weak concession creates selfishness. .... Each human being has his share of rights. I suspect it would conduce to happiness and welfare of all, if each knew his allotment, and held to it as tenaciously as a martyr to his creed." (532)

"...I know certain lonely, quite untrodden glades, carpeted green. I know groups of trees that ravish the eye with their perfect, picture-like effects: rude oak, delicate birch, glossy beech, clustered in contrast; and ash trees stately as Saul, standing isolated, and superannuated wood-giants clad in bright shrouds of ivy. Miss Keeldar, I could guide you." (550)

"Obtrusiveness is a crime; forwardness is a crime; and both disgust: but love!--- no purest angel need blush to love! And when I see or hear either man or woman couple shame with love, I know their minds are coarse, their associations debased. Many who think themselves refinded ladies and gentlemen, and on whose lips the word 'vulgarity' is forever hovering, cannot mention 'love' without betraying their own innate and imbecile degradation: it is a low feeling in their estimation, connected only with low ideas for them."

"You describe three-fourths of the world, Caroline." (603)

"Shirley, you chatter so, I can't fasten you: be still. And after all, authors' heroines are almost as good as authoress's heroes." (620)

"Say, Mr. Yorke!" was the answer, the speaker meantime walking fast from wall to wall of the oak-parlour. "Say? I have a great deal to say, if I could get it out in lucid order which I never can do." (628)

"My consolation is, indeed, that God hears many a groan, and compassionates much grief which man stops his ears against, or frowns on with impotent contempt. I say impotent, for I observe that to such grievances as society cannot readily cure, it usually forbids utterance, on the pain of its scorn: this scorn being only a tinselled cloak to its deformed weakness. People hate to be reminded of ills they are unable or unwilling to remedy: such reminder, in forcing on them a sense of their own incapacity, or a more painful sense of an obligation to make some unpleasant effort, troubles their ease and shakes their self-complacency." (639)

I intend to finish the rest of the omnibus I'm reading before I compare the Bronte novels too much or discuss much else about them... I want to read Anne's The Tenant as well, if I can... I don't have it but it might be available to read online... anyway, I'm trying for just first impressions in these entries here.

ok ok and THEN I'll write something about Deliverer...