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A review by rosemarieshort
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
5.0
I can safely say that this is one of the novels which fuelled my romanticism. The idea, borne in my teenage years, like a seed in germination, slowly grew fat on a diet of Bronte, Austen and Gaskell- blossoming into full grown whimsy come adulthood.
I'm not sure whether Jane Eyre set a precedent when it was written. What with Mr Rochester being at first the most hatefully romantic, then the most hatefully insane, quickly followed by (oddly and surprisingly) the not hateful at all and incredibly romantic, hero in all of literature. He must have sparked a hundred thousand of Mills and Boon's fearsome, almost but not quite enticing, anti-heroes (and therefore their unfortunate, swooning maidens) into creation. However Jane Eyre is no swooning (thank God) maiden but a very practical, plain and clever young lady. And the novel is simply wonderful, because of this fact.
Some of my favourite quotes are found here; with the best being the simplistic beginning to one chapter, 'Reader; I married him' - impacting more than hundreds of words possibly could with just four. The beautifully written and very famous string quote - said with such manly gruffness as to befit the character of Rochester perfectly, is another classic and favourite.I am, I must say, in love just as much with Bronte's writing as I am with her characters. In fact apart from the two mains the rest, for me, seemed to fade into obscurity. Rochester and Jane are so vibrant, so real and so different to the norm (yet so completely right together) that anything but their love story seems to fall into shadow. A slightly weakness, perhaps, but it's hardly Bronte's fault that she created one of the most entrancing matches of all literary history, putting all other characters into the category of "necessary but unimportant".
Whilst I'll always see Rochester as a battily brusque Ciaran Hinds, stalking about and booming his lines to the tiny form of a quietly intense Samantha Morton as Jane Eyre, the novel is a joy and a literary gift which nothing since can hope to eclipse. Highly recommended.
I'm not sure whether Jane Eyre set a precedent when it was written. What with Mr Rochester being at first the most hatefully romantic, then the most hatefully insane, quickly followed by (oddly and surprisingly) the not hateful at all and incredibly romantic, hero in all of literature. He must have sparked a hundred thousand of Mills and Boon's fearsome, almost but not quite enticing, anti-heroes (and therefore their unfortunate, swooning maidens) into creation. However Jane Eyre is no swooning (thank God) maiden but a very practical, plain and clever young lady. And the novel is simply wonderful, because of this fact.
Some of my favourite quotes are found here; with the best being the simplistic beginning to one chapter, 'Reader; I married him' - impacting more than hundreds of words possibly could with just four. The beautifully written and very famous string quote - said with such manly gruffness as to befit the character of Rochester perfectly, is another classic and favourite.I am, I must say, in love just as much with Bronte's writing as I am with her characters. In fact apart from the two mains the rest, for me, seemed to fade into obscurity. Rochester and Jane are so vibrant, so real and so different to the norm (yet so completely right together) that anything but their love story seems to fall into shadow. A slightly weakness, perhaps, but it's hardly Bronte's fault that she created one of the most entrancing matches of all literary history, putting all other characters into the category of "necessary but unimportant".
Whilst I'll always see Rochester as a battily brusque Ciaran Hinds, stalking about and booming his lines to the tiny form of a quietly intense Samantha Morton as Jane Eyre, the novel is a joy and a literary gift which nothing since can hope to eclipse. Highly recommended.