I loved this novel. I didn’t think I would as so many people complain about the classics, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m glad I didn’t have to read Jane Eyre in High School, I probably would have completely misjudged (also known as misunderstood) and resisted the intelligence and beauty of the novel. Now that I’ve read it, it’s made me want to read the rest of the Brontë’s works as I thoroughly enjoyed Wuthering Heights and this novel.
“No reflection was to be allowed now: not one glance was to be cast back; not even one forward. Not one thought was to be given either to the past or the future. The first was a page so heavenly sweet–so deadly sad–that to read one line of it would dissolve my courage and break down my energy. The last was an awful blank: something like the world when the deluge was gone by.”
I believe the quote above truly signifies the essence of this novel. It’s a coming of age proto-feminist novel written well before its time and I truly loved the elegance as well as the seemingly ostentatious fictional aspects of the novel. At times I almost felt like it should have been two separate novels and perhaps it was serialization and that’s why it lends itself so well to potentially multiple volumes, but I don’t know. Even though they were writing quite a few years after Jane Austen, I can’t help but compare the Brontë sisters with Jane Austen. I know the Brontë’s write in the Gothic style and Austen was more of a romantic fiction writer and perhaps it’s just they are all lumped into the British Classics, but I think there’s more to it.
I love Jane Austen. There’s something about knowing her history and the time period in which she was writing that just makes her that much greater. She was so far ahead of her time and wrote about issues that are still pertinent today, if not in the exact manner.