Book 909: The Professor – Charlotte Brontë

I’m actually making an effort to clear my TBR shelves whether it’s my physical bookshelf or my Kindle, so there are going to be some random books showing up over the next few months.

This is the penultimate complete work of the Brontë sisters that remained on my TBR list. The final book remaining is Charlotte’s Shirley which I’ll probably cross off at some point this year too. I do have a book of poetry by Emily that I want to read too, but I have a hard time finding the motivation to read poetry in general.

Going into this, I had few expectations. I knew it was shopped around at the same time Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Anne’s Agnes Grey, but it was rejected. I can see why it was rejected as it didn’t the gothic gut-punch of Wuthering Heights or the forward-looking happily ever after of Agnes Grey. It was just sort of run of the mill and I kept waiting for the gothic horror (from the friend Hunsden) or the death of the student (Frances) or just something, but nope it just sort of plods along.

Two parts stood out to me, the first was what I have to assume was Charlotte’s views on children:

Human beings—human children especially—seldom deny themselves the pleasure of exercising a power which they are conscious of possessing, even though that power consist only in a capacity to make others wretched; a pupil whose sensations are duller than those of his instructor, while his nerves are tougher and his bodily strength perhaps greater, has an immense advantage over that instructor, and he will generally use it relentlessly, because the very young, very healthy, very thoughtless, know neither how to sympathize nor how to spare. (Loc. 1,813)

I don’t disagree with them, but do wonder if her thoughts changed after having finally married Arthur Bell Nicholls and becoming pregnant, or just getting older and writing other novels first.

And the second is about a woman’s place when it comes to authorship:

. . . she rather needs keeping down than bringing forward; and then I think, monsieur—it appears to me that ambition, LITERARY ambition especially, is not a feeling to be cherished in the mind of a woman . . . (Loc. 2,092)

This line, when taken out of context, seems to be the antithesis of Charlotte and her sisters. They knew they had a gift and were hellbent on sharing it with the world, regardless of what society thought. I can’t help but think this has a little bit of their father, Patrick, in it. When read in context it’s Charlotte defending women’s right to write and have imagination and she really could’ve taken it further.

The story itself was a take-it-or-leave-it affair with WAY too much prologue leading into the action of the story. I seriously wonder why she even bothered with the first couple of chapters where we met William’s dick of a brother other than to awkwardly try and build more empathy for Williams’ plight as he flees England penniless.

Recommendation: If you’re a completionist and want to finish out the Brontë oeuvre then by all means read this, but if not there are much better classics out there. I will say I was a little surprised at the numerous mentions to homoeroticism early on and what I thought were numerous nods to a same-sex attracted character, but it wasn’t enough to really engage me. The story dragged on longer than it needed to and the payoff wasn’t worth it in the end. Emily and Anne wrote better books, as did Charlotte when it comes to Jane Eyre, so it’s not surprising that this one is often left behind.

Opening Line: “The other day, in looking over my papers, I found in my desk the following copy of a letter, sent by me a year since to an old school acquaintance:—”

Closing Line: “Now, Monsieur and Madame, if you don’t come to tea, Victor and I will begin without you. Papa, come!” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)

Additional Quotes from The Professor
“There was a fearful dismay in this suggestion of my excited imagination, and if I had allowed myself time to dwell upon it, I should no doubt have cut there and then, rushed back to my chamber, and bolted myself in; but whenever a danger or a horror is veiled with uncertainty, the primary wish of the mind is to ascertain first the naked truth, reserving the expedient of flight for the moment when its dread anticipation shall be realized. I turned the door-handle, and in an instant had crossed the fatal threshold, closed the door behind me, and stood in the presence of Madame Pelet.” (Loc. 978)

“Our likings are regulated by our circumstances. The artist prefers a hilly country because it is picturesque; the engineer a flat one because it is convenient; the man of pleasure likes what he calls ‘a fine woman’—she suits him; the fashionable young gentleman admires the fashionable young lady—she is of his kind; the toil-worn, fagged, probably irritable tutor, blind almost to beauty, insensible to airs and graces, glories chiefly in certain mental qualities: application, love of knowledge, natural capacity, docility, truthfulness, gratefulness, are the charms that attract his notice and win his regard.” (Loc. 1,662)

“Novelists should never allow themselves to weary of the study of real life. If they observed this duty conscientiously, they would give us fewer pictures chequered with vivid contrasts of light and shade; they would seldom elevate their heroes and heroines to the heights of rapture—still seldomer sink them to the depths of despair; for if we rarely taste the fulness of joy in this life, we yet more rarely savour the acrid bitterness of hopeless anguish; unless, indeed, we have plunged like beasts into sensual indulgence, abused, strained, stimulated, again overstrained, and, at last, destroyed our faculties for enjoyment; then, truly, we may find ourselves without support, robbed of hope.” (Loc. 2,203)

“Monsieur, if a wife’s nature loathes that of the man she is wedded to, marriage must be slavery. Against slavery all right thinkers revolt, and though torture be the price of resistance, torture must be dared: though the only road to freedom lie through the gates of death, those gates must be passed; for freedom is indispensable.” (Loc. 3,550)