Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
With the goal to end my dull spell of reading, I randomly picked up this classic book highly read by fans of English literature. Having read books by Jane Austen, I thought I’d enjoy reading this one immensely. But it was unwise to stereotype my expectations from English literature based on my account of only Jane Austen’s books. This book is the first one I picked up from Charlotte Brontë without any idea about the author’s style or the book’s plot.
On the whole, the book has a wonderful story. However it wasn’t engaging or easy to read. I had to will myself to read further and further. The novel’s style was just too dry to engage people in 2022. It definitely doesn’t reflect poorly on the author because the contemporary reads these days are very different than the time when this novel was written. Also, unless you’re a major of English literature or have been reading classic books published in 1840s by Dickens or Dumas, you wouldn’t know what to expect when picking up such a book. However the fact that the story told in the book still earns praises from people after about over a century and a half, that just goes to show that book has worthy material to read.
Because of the dry and detailed description of things, situations and thoughts which don’t always seem relevant to the story it gave me the impression that this is a horror story. Haha.. I know some people might find it hard to believe but the description of Jane’s time at Lowood, entry to Thornfield Hall, days and lives of people there working and living there was very long and bland. This gives your mind enough time to conjure your own story-line birthing some random dread and mystique. This idea of some impending spooky twist stayed with me until the time Mr. Rochester asked Jane to marry him. Funnily, along with Mrs. Fairfax warning Jane to be wary of Mr. Rochester I kept thinking the same.. That is, something sinister was about to happen. Well, the twist didn’t turn out to be the supernatural, gory horror but the shoe did drop with reveal of the fact that Mr. Rochester was already married when he set out to marry Jane. The book did become interesting to read because you’re now engaged to find out why did Mr. Rochester hide the truth about his wife. From this point on, you’ve read enough to know how to skim through the bland parts and still get the gist.
It’s very admirable of Charlotte Brontë to have written this story in 19th century where she created this character of Jane who walked away from prospect of marrying Mr. Rochester and spend life blissfully when she had no family or friends who’d object to such a union. That made the character respectable. It made you want to root for her, cheer for her and hope she gets a happy ending. Rest of the novel after Jane flees from Thornfield Hall reads more easily than earlier parts.
I’m not going to talk about the end of the book but leave it for the readers to find for themselves. Barring the initial struggle to continue reading this book, I’d recommend readers to persist and read to the end. Hope you enjoy it :)
PS - I watched the 2011 depiction of this story in the movie immediately after reading this novel. While reading the earlier parts of this book and having watched the trailer, I strongly felt that the movie would end up being much more worthwhile to watch rather than reading the book. However after reading the complete book, I felt that the movie was rushed and didn’t cover a lot of aspects and details. I’m afraid I’ll still hold on to my belief that reading books is always a much better experience than watching movies made from them.
View all my reviews