Customer Reviews

Becoming Jane Eyre: A Novel (Penguin Original)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Halfway through Sheila Kohler's biographical novel Becoming Jane Eyre, I decided to reread the Charlotte Bronte original novel on which Kohler's book is at least partially based. Side by side I read Kohler and Bronte to get a better sense of Kohler's achievement with her novel. This was a good decision on my part because I was able to learn much about Charlotte Bronte in Kohler's novel that helped me appreciate Charlotte's achievement with Jane Eyre, surely one of the most popular of Victorian novels.

Kohler shows us how Charlotte Bronte's life contributed to her art, first with the unsuccessful first novel The Professor, and then with the very popular Jane Eyre. Additionally, we learn about Charlotte Bronte's family: father, son Branwell, and sisters Emily and Anne. All three sisters spend the lonely hours in their father's parsonage on the moors writing novels. They send them to various publishers only to be politely rejected, until Emily's Wuthering Heights - a great novel - and Anne's Agnes Gray find a publisher willing to print the books if the girls send fifty pounds to underwrite the project. This modest success of her sisters motivates Charlotte to finish Jane Eyre and it immediately becomes highly successful, changing Charlotte's life forever.

I asked myself several times during the reading of Becoming Jane Eyre about the potential audience for such a book and concluded that it will be for all those people interested in learning more about Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, and the Bronte family. I think this audience will not be disappointed in Kohler's work. The Bronte children lived short, mostly unhappy lives - Branwell, Emily, and Anne were dead by their late twenties or early thirties. Charlotte did not live much longer, but as Kohler points out toward the end of her novel, Charlotte did marry happily, even if it lasted less than a year.

Any reader of this review, who decides to read Becoming Jane Eyre and has not read Charlotte Bronte's great original creation, will almost certainly get a copy and not be disappointed with the story of one of the great heroines of Victorian literature. In Becoming Jane Eyre the reader learns that Jane's creator was herself a heroine and one of the important novelists of Victorian England.

I approached this book with skepticism as I didn't like the title (and still don't) and I'm leery and weary of books spinning off the brilliance of the Brontes and Austen. (If I see one more book continuing the story of Darcy and Elizabeth, I'll scream.) But as a total Brit. Lit. fan, I found the premise of this book engaging enough to give it a try, though I was expecting to throw in the towel before getting 20 pages in. How surprised I was to find this tale told in sparkling prose with a deep respect for the Brontes that kept me turning pages fervently until the end. I positively devoured this book in a few hours. The author's fictional voice of Charlotte Bronte charmed me utterly. I'm ashamed to admit that although I'm familiar with most of the "major" facts about the Bronte family, I've never read an entire scholarly biography of any of them. This book filled in the framework and made it warm and human. It made me feel as if I had gained a true understanding of what Charlotte and her family and situation were like. Of course, this is a work of fiction, but I felt that the author took very few liberties and stuck to the facts as they are known and generally accepted. She didn't throw in any wild surprises to make Bronte's life more interesting. Rather she told her story in a voice that seemed sincere and authentic and fleshed out the facts with real emotion. I think this is a very well done book that any Jane Eyre or Bronte fan will be glad to have read.

I should start out by saying that I am not a die-hard Jane Eyre fan. As a teenager, I went through my Bronte phase, reading Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights with a wistful desire for a dark and brooding hero (I think most young book-centric girls do, while their not-so-book savvy friends have a horses-are-wonderful phase). But 19th century literature is rarely my first reading choice.

However, there's something about Jane Eyre that inspires people to explore the moor-filled worlds of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte. At least two of the books borne from Jane Eyre have inspired me, though in very different ways. First is Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair (which I heartily recommend as giggle-worthy for anyone as over-educated as I -- really, DO indulge in it). The other is Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, which I read in college. It significantly influenced my own writing (it describes the life of Rochester's mad wife and how she came to be that way -- without ever quite shouting, "I'm the other half of Jane Eyre!") because it taught me to look at a story (real life or otherwise) from different people's viewpoints. And of course there's Kate Bush's song, "Wuthering Heights" (it's on The Whole Story) to complete the mood. (Really, with all those references you'd think I was seriously into the Brontes.)

As a result of that background, I was attracted to Sheila Kohler's Becoming Jane Eyre when I saw it in my Amazon Vine selections. I'm glad I read it -- but once was enough.

I like the historical novel, as my knowledge of the Bronte's own history was minimal. I enjoyed the author's exploration of what it means to write, to invent a story, to re-interpret one's daily events into the heroine's experiences (perhaps having her say what one does not dare). Kohler writes well, and she certainly kept me turning pages. I turned them slowly, because this is a quiet read without a lot of derring-do and action scenes (not something you care about, probably, if you're into Jane Eyre), but I certainly kept going.

A few things were a little irksome. I wish the author had stayed in one person's head (presumably Charlotte's) rather than changing viewpoint characters so often. Perhaps I would have enjoyed that more if I was "into" the Bronte family history; then, maybe, the servant's observations about the father-and-daughter relationship would have been enlightening. And while I did like the glimpse into "a writer's life" (that is, the creative process), I rather wished for a better (fictional) enlightenment about Charlotte's moments of writing brilliance. For example, her turning away from the story and writing, "Reader, I married him" is one of the most powerful moments in 19th century fiction, yet Kohler puts most of her attention on plot development.

I also found the ending disappointing, because so many important events are wrapped up in a few chapters. Granted, the story is about *becoming* Jane Eyre (or rather becoming the author of a best-selling book) and those "what came after" events occur once she achieved the goal, but it felt like a cheat. After all those interminable details about writing and being a governess and coping with their brother and so on -- to summarize the sisters' deaths in a few pages? That didn't work for me.

However, I did like the book overall. Like, not love. If you're REALLY into Jane Eyre or any of the Bronte sisters, this is a no-question purchase. If Jane Eyre was an assignment you vaguely recall from a school Required Reading List, I think your enjoyment of this novel will match your appreciation of the Bronte's work (for good or ill). That is, if you remember that you liked the book when you read it, you'll like this too. If it was an "Eww do I HAVE to?!" chore, you won't like this book either.

The author indeed does manage to work in sufficient details of the lives of the Bronte's to make clear connections with characters and situations in Jane Eyre (and some of the poetry), but overall it is a flimsy narrative. Many a tragedy or case of unrequited love are referenced, yet there is no passion in the book - more a sense of resignation and of being dutiful (including one quite clear illustration of what a drag it would have been to close one's eyes and think of England.)

Though I shall admit that the Bronte writings are not favourites of mine (I know them more through 'duty' as a student of literature than pleasure - and therefore may have met the approval of Charlotte's father), passion is a key element in, for example, both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. There are incidents referred to in this book which are sad, indeed miserable, but no note of passion is stricken. I did not feel the Bronte sisters were captured well, and the connections with (for example) Charlotte's experience of seeing her sister die at a dreadful school and a similar (immediately recognisable) incident involving Jane Eyre and schoolmate Helen are contrived and brief. Would that we got to see as much of Charlotte's budding literary fire as we do of papa's bedpan.

I did give the product three stars because I believe it could be a passable 'read' for a long and stormy afternoon, and that those who either love the Bronte's or who are just becoming familiar with their work could find the connections between life and work interesting.

Becoming Jane Eyre is a beautiful story of how Charlotte Bronte wrote her masterpiece, Jane Eyre. Charlotte is alone with her invalid father in Manchester when she is compelled to begin writing her second novel. She flashes back to different experiences in her life including her time as a governess and time spent as a student and teacher in Brussels. The tragedies and passions in her life find themselves transformed into a fictional tale with just enough truth behind it to become a very original novel. After Charlotte and her father return to Manchester, she finishes Jane Eyre.

Charlotte is more than a bit saddened when her first novel, The Professor, is rejected, while her sisters' novels, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey are accepted for publication. Ironically, Jane Eyre is printed by a different publisher before her sisters' novels and it is the fame of Jane Eyre that propelled the sales of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey. Sadly the happiness of Charlotte's newfound fame is offset by numerous family tragedies.

I enjoyed this novel immensely. I especially loved the scenes of sisterly bonds and friction when the three Bronte sisters are working on their novels and awaiting publication. To have so much talent under one roof is just amazing. The love and yet the jealousy of each sister and their talent is written very believably.

The only part of this book that I did not enjoy was that it ended so soon. The main focuses of the novel are the writing, publication, and first flush of fame with Jane Eyre. The novel then skips to the end of Charlotte Bronte's life. I wish there would have been more details in this last portion of the book, but I also realize that the main focus was on the creation of Jane Eyre.

I really enjoyed the "Penguin Readers Guide to Becoming Jane Eyre" at the end of the book. The Reader's Guide included an enlightening interview with Sheila Kohler as well as a book club questionnaire. I was thrilled to see that Kohler used Lyndall Gordon's biography of Charlotte Bronte (Charlotte Bronte: A Passionate Life) as an inspiration for Becoming Jane Eyre. A Passionate Life is my favorite Bronte biography.

Overall Becoming Jane Eyre is a fascinating look into the creative process that Charlotte Bronte may have used to write her masterpiece. I highly recommend it to all Bronte lovers!

In fact, I found Becoming Jane Eyre a real page-turner, and couldn't stop until I had finished. Kohler just gets better and better. It's so richly imagined, so moving, so clever in it structure and winks to the reader (I mean this in the best, British sense of that word clever), and such a natural fit for this novelist. As if, through Kohler's enchanting prose, one's whole fictional sense blossomed among these girls and their love of the magic and redemption of story telling.

Becoming Jane Eyre by Sheila Kohler is a well-written, insightful and clever historical novel. It begins in 1846, with frequent references or flashbacks to important events in the life of Charlotte Bronte that influenced the writing of Jane Eyre. However, Kohler's work highlights the period of time when Bronte wrote her classic novel and saw it reach acclaim upon its publication. Kohler was very successful in using descriptions of sight, touch and smell to create setting and mood while, at the same time, focusing on her characters as she makes them come more and more alive. Charlotte Bronte was especially well-drawn as a complex woman who deserves considerable respect and admiration for overcoming many limitations. The narrow lives and opportunities of Victorian women and the importance of money and class haunted the Bronte sisters throughout their lives. The deaths of their mother and their two elder sisters as well as the descent into alcoholism and drug addiction of their only brother also weighed heavily on Charlotte, Emily and Anne, but especially on Charlotte as the eldest surviving child. Despite the publication of novels by all three of the sisters, with Emily's Wuthering Heights also achieving special notice, the last sections of Becoming Jane Eyre were dark and tragic. Yet at this touching and dramatic time, I felt Kohler's writing became weaker as she made, for me, overly fanciful and distracting leaps from the point of view of one character to another. Overall, though, Kohler's novel is not merely a special treat for fans of historical fiction or of Jane Eyre but is a compelling work of literature in itself.

Given my love for the Brontes -- Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favorites -- I decided to try one of the recent flurry of Bronte spin-offs, and settled on Becoming Jane Eyre by Sheila Kohler.

Alas, this book was a total disappointment, and I really can't recommend it for anyone. It is almost totally lacking in every area. The Bronte family comes across as flat characters, and there is no action, conflict or resolution to motivate the plot and move it along. Instead, this book is really just a tepid retelling of the already well-known facts of the Bronte sisters' lives. It centers on the years when they were producing their famous works and first being published, with frequent flashbacks to earlier periods. The book uses the first person present tense -- which I find annoying but recognize that is merely a matter of taste. It is also told from several points of view, although most frequently Charlotte's.

For someone who hasn't read the Brontes' works, the book will most likely be a complete puzzle. The book feebly fleshes out the Brontes' lives in order to provide a weak sort of backstory for how Charlotte, Emily and Anne found inspiration for their works. Someone who hasn't read those works will not make the connections and will be totally lost. But even for someone such as myself who has read the Brontes' works -- and who loves them -- this book is a dull yawner. Kohler doesn't use any imagination or breathe any fresh life into the Brontes' lives.

There are some scenes early in the book that seem to be attempts to add "color" to their story; instead they are simply vulgar passages that fall decidedly flat. These are the passages that talk about the details of Charlottes' parents' wedding night, her father's nurse masturbating, her father defecating into a bedpan, and Charlotte's own bowels being obstructed and then moving. Did I really need or want to know any of that? What did any of it add to the story? Happily these were all short passages because, even then, they were WTMI. On the other hand, Kohler glossed over the deaths of Branwell, Emily and Anne with barely a sentence, despite the fact that these were undoubtedly crucial times in Charlotte's life.

I did sense hints that Sheila Kohler can write well; unfortunately this book is not a vehicle that showcases whatever talent she may have. This book is completely lacking in feeling or emotion, and felt to me almost like reading a Wikipedia article. The best thing I can say about it is that it is a short, quick read. If you are a fan of the Brontes and want to read a novel about them, I say skip this one and try something else.

"For who would want to read something by an obscure parson's daughter, living in a remote region of Yorkshire? And what could she have written about? What can she possibly know, having lived so much of her life alone, sheltered, protected in this cramped parsonage, with nothing around her but barren moors, her spinster sisters, her spinster aunt, an elderly ignorant servant, a delinquent brother...She has lived all her life either at home, at girls' schools, or as a governess with small children, shut up in various nurseries like a nun. What does she know about the human heart, about love?"

Much it turns out.

The "she" is Charlotte Bronte, nursing an autocratic father who is recovering from an operation to correct his blindness. In 1846, Charlotte is already a spinster, as are her two sisters, Emily and Anne. Because they are impoverished, the Bronte sisters have to earn their way as teachers and governesses. Despite the harshness of their circumstances, all three harbor dreams of being published. Although their novels have been rejected numerous times, the Bronte sisters persevere - none more determined than Charlotte.

She is a saddened and bitter woman, having been disappointed in unrequited love for a married French professor and humiliated as a governess. Charlotte comes home to care for a blind father who has never valued her or her sisters, preferring instead her talented but dissolute brother, Bramwell. And in that darkened room by her father's bedside, Charlotte channels all her rage, love, and hurt to paper.

"In their rejection letter, the editors have asked for an exceptional incident. She will give them one--no: many of them. She will give them mystery...She will write out of rage at injustice and arrogance, the religious humbugs, the exploiters.

"She works on the first scene, writing rapidly, seeing it all vividly, the shadowy picture emerging fast from the darkness of her mind, this shadowy room....This new story of an orphan develops with a kind of urgency she has never known before. She has read and written so much from such a young age. She knows the child's position in this alien family will yield a steady stream of pathos. She knows how to create suspense by putting a fragile creature in immediate jeopardy and by making her fight back with spirit and justice."

Thus, Sheila Kohler imagines what events in Charlotte's life might have shaped what will become one the most beloved stories of all time, Jane Eyre. In this fictionalized account, Charlotte Bronte emerges from the shadow of her famous novel, fleshed out as a passionate, independent woman - much like Jane - and like Jane, also haunted by tragedies.

I found the depiction of the three Bronte sisters (who have always been lumped together in my mind) to be wonderful; their interactions and family dynamic to be real. Like real sisters, they have jealousies, but stand stoicly together under life's burdens. Kohler illuminates some of Emily and Anne's inner lives and what led up to their own masterpieces, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey, but the bulk of Becoming Jane Eyre is told from Charlotte's point of view.

It is easy to forget, with the enormous popularity of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, how the notion of women writing novels back in those days was considered preposterous, even scandalous. Against the prejudices of their own time, their numerous rejections and misfortunes, how glad I am that the Brontes had the strength and conviction to persevere!

Becoming Jane Eyre succeeds not in mimicking Jane Eyre, but in giving the reader a beautifully rendered inner portrait of its creator. So wonderfully done that I must read the original again!

BECOMING JANE EYRE is a compelling novel even for the reader who has never heard of the Brontes. And for those who have, and those who have read JANE EYRE, the power of this superb work is all the greater. Sheila Kohler writes with luminescent precision and authenticity of detail, her style so absorbing and graceful that I was able to read BECOMING JANE EYRE in barely more than a single sitting. Her characterizations, which brilliantly blend imagination and biography, provide a startling intimacy for the reader, a definite sense of being inside the minds of the characters she so astutely portrays. This is a novel of such clairvoyant depth that it approaches spending actual time with the Brontes. I wholeheartedly recommend it!