Favorite Author: Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte Bronte

(April 21, 1816 - March 31, 1855)

I must have been around 17 or 18 when I first read my all-time favorite classic, Jane Eyre.  I was immediately struck by the novel's masterful prose, its lyrical beauty, its enthralling passion. So, of course, I fell head over heels for Edward Rochester, in spite of his boorish, brooding personality.  Or perhaps because of it. 

I was much like Jane then -- rather shy, with my own private little world, into which I would escape when I felt threatened by the outside world.  Like her, I had a capacity for fierce passion, and not just the romantic kind.  However, I did not display it openly.  Again like Jane, I was a very private person.  Needless to say, I was not in any of the popular school cliques.

Bronte's lushly passionate novel consumed me for a very long time, and, indeed, has had a permanent influence on my life.  I wanted to be Jane Eyre.  Indeed, I felt that I really was.  I hated living in Miami, back then.  I wanted to fly away to the tempestuous English moors, to a mysterious mansion whose brooding owner would mesmerize me with his piercing eyes....

I read this book.  I lived this book. It became the food of my soul.  Some of my readers might think I'm overdoing my praise for this novel, but any who are unabashed romantics, like me, will smile as they read this, and understand.  Bronte has truly captured the essence of a woman's mind and heart. 

Born in Thornton, Yorkshire, England, she was the third of six children, whose father, Patrick Bronte, was an Irish Anglican clergyman.  In 1820, the family moved to the nearby town of Haworth, where Charlotte's mother, Maria Bronte (nee Branwell), died, in 1821. 

Two of Bronte's sisters died while attending the Clergy Daughters' School in Lancashire.  The infamous "Lowood" mentioned in Jane Eyre was patterned after this real school, which had deplorable living conditions for the students.

The remaining Bronte children -- Branwell, Emily, Anne, and Charlotte -- filled their time with writings related to their imaginary kingdoms, Angria and Gondal.  Later on, Emily and Anne would become authors in their own right. 

This is one of my several copies of the novel.

It was published by HarperTeen

on Feb. 1, 2011, 

and has the so-called "Twilight-inspired" cover.

Whatever or whoever was the inspiration for this cover, 
I think it's absolutely beautiful.

Click HERE for more information about this edition.

Bronte wrote several novels, but Jane Eyre is her undisputed masterpiece.  Published in 1847 under the pseudonym of Currer Bell, the novel was initially a bestseller.  Speculation arose as to whether the author was a man or a woman.  When it became known that Bronte was a female, the reviews then took a negative turn.  The novel was in some quarters criticized for its 'coarseness'.  A contemporary critic, Eliza Rigby, writing in Quarterly Review, penned the following ridiculous assertion: "Jane Eyre is throughout the personification of the unregenerate and undisciplined spirit..."

Time has vindicated Charlotte Bronte, for this novel is now a standard in any English Literature course.  Although her sister Emily's novel, Wuthering Heights, is considered superior by many critics, I totally disagree.  I much prefer Charlotte's novel, which to me is a courageous exposition of a woman's spiritual resilience.

Charlotte Bronte's other works include Shirley: A Tale (1849), Villete (1853), and The Professor: A Tale (1857).  A novella, The Green Dwarf: A Tale of the Perfect Tense, was published in 1833.  She also published poetry together with her sisters Emily and Anne in Poems by Currer, Acton and Ellis Bell (1846). 

For a bibliography of Charlotte Bronte's works, as well as a list of sites, click HERE.

Here are some additional Bronte websites:

The Victorian Web: Charlotte Bronte


The Bronte Parsonage Museum and Bronte Society


The Bronte Family


The Brussels Bronte Group

The Novel: History, Genres, and Personal Passion

To me, the phrase 'getting lost in a good book' refers specifically to entering the world of a fascinating novel.  After all, it's only in novels that a reader can experience an entire world, whether it's one existing only in the imagination of the author, or inspired by our 'everyday' world. 

The novel has a very definite history -- a fairly recent one, as a matter of fact.  In ancient times, there were other fictional styles, such as the epic poem.  The novel as it is known and enjoyed in our present time has been evolving for several centuries. 

The first book to use the term 'novel' was Palace of  Pleasure well furnished with pleasant Histories and excellent Novelles, a volume of tales published in 1566 by William Painter, an English author who was also a clerk of the ordnance in the Tower of London.

The term 'novel' competed for a long time with the term 'romance'.  It eventually became the accepted word for longer prose fiction -- at least, in English and Spanish.  The Spanish word is 'novela', which is interesting, considering that the word 'novella' is used in English to denote a work that is too long to be a short story, but not long enough to be considered a full-length novel, which traditionally has come to contain at least 50,000 words.

Longer fictional narratives had appeared before the 18th century.  Examples include Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron (1351 - 1353), Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (c. 1469), considered to be the first English novel, and  Don Quixote (1605, 1615), also classified as a novel, by the Spanish Miguel de Cervantes.  For many scholars, however, it was the 18th century that gave birth to the modern novel.  The English printer Samuel Richardson published Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, circa 1740 to 1742. 

The growth of the middle class was the greatest factor contributing to the rise of the novel.  More people were not only able to read, but to purchase books, as well.   In England, this led to the flowering of great literature, with such classics as Henry Fielding's Tom Jones ((1749) and Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility (1811), and Pride and Prejudice (1813).   The 19th century was particularly rich in English masterpieces, with the publishing of Jane Eyre (1847), by Charlotte Bronte, Wuthering Heights (1847), by Emily Bronte, David Copperfield (1849 - 1850) and Great Expectations (1860 - 1861), by Charles Dickens, Vanity Fair (1848) by William Makepeace Thackeray,  Middlemarch (1871 - 1872) by George Eliot, and Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891) by Thomas Hardy.

Many great writers from various countries of the world, like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Doris Lessing, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Joseph Conrad, Leo Tolstoy, Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann, Fyodor Dostoyevski, Victor Hugo, and Marcel Proust have a firm place in the history of the novel.  These are writers of what is often termed literary fiction.  I have a passion for such fiction.  It not only totally enthralls me, but also carries me away into worlds that, while close to what we term 'reality', are not entirely real, because characters become immortalized in the reader's mind, and the plot's symbolic elements derive from the world of the archetypes.

The novel has evolved into many genres.  Besides that of literary fiction, I also greatly enjoy reading fantasy, science fiction, romance -- I especially like paranormal and historical romance -- Christian fiction, and young adult novels.  Some of these genres overlap.  As far as paranormal romance goes, I do prefer to read the young adult versions, since they are much cleaner.  (Obviously, I've never been a fan of D.H. Lawrence, who first started the fad for using profanity and graphic sex in novels.) 

Aside from The Twilight Saga, which I absolutely adore, I also love a particular book, not very widely known, which I read years ago, and have never forgotten.  Titled Tryst, it tells the story of a young girl, Sabrina, who falls in love with a ghost.  The book was written by American novelist Elswyth Thane,  and published in 1939. 

The fantasy and science fiction genres have contributed works as great as any in the literary fiction category.  Writers such as Robert Heinlein, whose Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) has long been a favorite of mine, and J.R.R. Tolkien, whose The Lord of the Rings trilogy (1954 - 1955) I consider one of my most precious treasures, have proven that novels in other genres can, and do, attain the literary stature of the more highly-regarded literary fiction, in spite of what many literary critics may say. 

Other important works in the science fiction and fantasy genres include Fahrenheit 451 (1951), by Ray Bradbury, Ender's Game (1985), by Orson Scott Card, and The Chronicles of Narnia (1949 - 1954), by C.S. Lewis.

In very recent years, the incredibly widespread popularity of The Twilight Saga, by Stephenie Meyer, and the Harry Potter books, by J.K. Rowling, has, quite literally (pun intended) put the young adult genre on the map.  While these books are disdained by most critics of 'high literature', it's undeniably true that they have touched the hearts and minds -- not to mention the souls -- of millions of readers.  They have also ignited an increased love of reading among teens and young adults.

In Christian fiction, which I am admittedly least familiar with -- a situation I fully intend to remedy -- I can point to two great classics, written by the American minister/novelist Lloyd C. Douglas.  The first is Magnificent Obsession, published in 1929; the second, The Robe, published in 1942.  It's a historical novel about the crucifixion of Jesus.  Suffice it to say that the movie version, starring Richard Burton, does not do it justice at all, since it distorts the character of the protagonist, Marcellus, so that it's a mere caricature of the original in the book.

Although I do sometimes read short-story anthologies, it is novels, with their greater length, that I most enjoy.  As I stated above, a novel can completely absorb the reader in a fictional world, and characters have more room to develop.  The experience of being so totally immersed in a novel that one suddenly looks up, dazed, realizing that there's a world out there, beyond the pages of the book, and that hours have somehow passed in the blink of an eye, is a delightfully disconcerting one!  It's also a stimulating, yet, in a way, relaxing experience for the human brain. 

I am surrounded by books at home.  In fact, no one can currently sit on our living room couch, because it's loaded with stacks and stacks of books!  There are also five floor-to-ceiling shelves in the living room, plus three in our bedroom, plus my night table.... (My husband's night table is taken up with one of his several laptops.)  I don't know how many of the books I own are novels, but I would venture to say that a large proportion of them are.  So I am, and happily so, totally surrounded by other worlds, other realities, which I can enter by simply opening the gates of one of these novels, and beginning the journey with the turn of a page...

I wonder if the delight of the novel is known in other parts of our vast universe.  Do other intelligent species enjoy the wonders of this beautiful art form?  If such a species indeed exists (are you out there, Mr. Spock?), I believe they must, sooner or later, develop something that closely resembles the novel.  Any being endowed with human-like intelligence cannot fail to invent and develop fiction, and especially, the longer form of narrative.  It is, after all, fiction that makes 'the real world' more tolerable, more meaningful, and, ultimately, more humane.

Twilight-Inspired Book Covers for Classics? Why not?

There is a series of five classics -- four novels and one play --

with covers that were supposedly inspired

by those of The Twilight Saga.

They have been produced by Harper Teen,

and are meant to attract young adults to

the perennial classics of English Literature.

Some people are not very happy about these covers.

They somehow consider it insulting

that time-honored classics should have to be promoted

under the Twilight banner.

I honestly don't see what all the fuss is about.

These covers are absolutely

gorgeous!

So here they are -- "The Twilight Classics"!

 

 

 



 

 

These covers are quite beautiful!!  

I can't say it enough!

The colors are indeed similar to those in 

The Twilight Saga's four volumes,

except for the rather obvious fact that 

the color green is not much in evidence

on the Twilight covers. 

If the same artist designed these,

as well as the Twilight ones, 

then it stands to reason that there would be 

some similarity of style.  

Well, there's nothing wrong with that!

If the publishers wanted a "similar look"

when they commissioned the covers for the classic novels, 

with the purpose of attracting a teen audience, 

I for one think this is a wonderful idea!

After all, these five books are love stories,

with the sole exception of Wuthering Heights,

which is really a tale of misplaced revenge. 

(The only thing I love about this book is the cover...)

Does putting such covers on these classics

mean that Twilight is on an equal literary footing with them?

Well, that's a loaded question...

If one looks at the writing style in which the listed classics were written,

and compare them with Twilight, 

obviously not.

However, if one looks at the dynamics of the plots

of these books, and the Twilight books,

one can't help but notice that the characters and events 

in all of them evoke some very, very similar

emotions.  They all touch the heart.  They all provide

that powerful catharsis present in all 

great literature, the grand drama that stirs the 

emotions, thus changing the reader forever.

These books all possess that elusive quality

that makes them timeless.

Is The Twilight Saga already a timeless classic?

Without a doubt.

So I am very pleased and happy that these five classic

novels have been designed in this style.

Whether or not it's similar to that

of the Twilight books, it's still quite fitting.

Love, after all, has always been linked to the color red,

especially in such flowers as roses or tulips.

Of course, I am collecting them all, not only

for the covers, but for what is contained

within each book.

The only one I'm missing at this point is

Sense and Sensibility,

but it won't be for long... it's in my Amazon 

Wish List, waiting for me to bring it home! 

Favorite Author: Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse

July 2, 1877 - August 9, 1962

Along with Tolkien, Hesse was one of my favorite authors during my college years.  (In fact, both of them still are.) 

I read several of Hesse's books in quick succession, immediately becoming obsessed with them.  Moreover, they struck me as peculiarly strange.  As a lifelong fan of the fantastic and unusual, I felt quite pleased, while recognizing, at the same time, that Hesse's brand of fantasy was not quite of the fairy tale variety.  Instead, his works deal with such existential issues as the spiritual/psychological search for meaning, deriving their characters and plots from archetypal myths.  The reason for this is Hesse's close affiliation with the great Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Gustav Jung, whose seminal work on the unconscious mind and its affinity for myths gave birth to his famous theories of the archetypes, as well as the collective unconscious, which have proved to be highly accurate depictions of the workings of the human psyche.

Born in Germany, Hesse later moved to Switzerland, becoming a Swiss citizen in 1923.  He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946.

As a young man, he read Goethe, Schiller, and other German Romantics such as Holderlin and Novalis. He also read several texts on Greek mythology.  He thus began his writing career as a poet, although he would later write several novels.  He was also influenced by Hindu and Buddhist philosophy to some extent, as is apparent from one of his most popular novels, Siddhartha, which was very influential during the 1960's counter-culture movement in the United States.

Hesse also produced several paintings and drawings, but is known primarily as a writer.

Here are some notable quotes from this great author:

“You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.”

“In each individual the spirit is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Savior is crucified.”

“It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is.”

These are my favorite Hesse books.

This novel, first published in 1930, beautifully depicts the

tension and conflict between the flesh and the spirit.

It tells the story of two medieval men,

named in the title, one of whom is a contemplative,

content with the spiritual life,

while the other is a restless artist,

 whose quest is of another type: that of art and the emotions.

 Also known as The Glass Bead Game,
this utterly fascinating novel

chronicles the life of Joseph Knecht, a young musician

who is chosen to reside in Castalia,

a fictional European province reserved strictly
for the life of the mind.

The Castalian Order is a quasi-monastic group of men who devote themselves to playing The Glass Bead Game,
mastery of which requires

years of study in music, mathematics, and cultural history.

My only quibble with this plot is that women are not included

in this intellectual utopia!

The novel was first published in 1943.

This is the story of Siddhartha, the son of a Brahmin,

whose search for enlightenment

takes place during the time of Gautama Buddha

(most likely between the fourth and seventh centuries, BC).

In order to write this profound novel, Hesse

immersed himself in the study of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy.

The book was first published in 1922.



Book Review: Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights
Author: Emily Bronte
Trade paperback
448 pages
Published by Harper Teen (Reprint edition), October 6, 2009
Genre: Classic, Gothic fiction



Reviewer's Notes:  This review was originally posted on Amazon, on February 19, 2010.  I've decided to post it here as well, with some slight modifications, which I made for the purpose of clarifying and highlighting some points.  

This is yet another book I both like and dislike.  I don't think I will ever be able to love it!  The most I can say in favor of it is that I love the cover of this particular edition, which is the Twilight edition, since this is one of the books mentioned by Bella in The Twilight Saga.  In fact, Stephenie Meyer even points out that Bella's copy is dog-eared.  Well, I can't for the life of me imagine why it would be...



When it was first published, Wuthering Heights elicited strong criticism. Although Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre also received its share of negative criticism, it was not as markedly disliked as her sister's book. As time went by, the pendulum swung in the opposite direction, and it was Emily's book that eventually came to be hailed as superior to Charlotte's, particularly as the 20th century got under way.

I have read the book three times. It was part of a high school English Lit assignment. To be quite honest, I could barely stomach the book back then. It was too strange, wild, and terrifying to me. The second time I read it, several years ago, I was much older. Thus, I was able to appreciate its masterful prose style and brilliant characterizations. In fact, it was these two factors that kept me reading until the very end. The same thing happened a few months ago. Once more I was hypnotized by this horrible tale of people whose lives went so very wrong. It was one character in particular who exerted a rather puzzling pull on me - Heathcliff. I read almost against my will, hoping against hope that I would be able to find some good quality in him. Of course, I vaguely remembered the plot from the second reading, so I knew that I would not find any such thing.

This book, in its entirety, is really about Heathclif. It's about how the abuse he suffered at the hands of his benefactor's son, Hindley Earnshaw, twisted him into a demonic caricature of a human being. As such , it is definitely not a pleasant read. However, it does serve as a testament to Emily Bronte's genius. That such a hideous creature sprang from this young woman's imagination is nearly unbelievable, considering her background. Something dark and cruel stirred in the nether recesses of her mind. M. L. Von Franz, a Jungian analyst writing in Man and His Symbols, edited by Carl Jung, mentions Heathcliff, describing him as Emily Bronte's animus; this is the masculine part of a woman's psyche, according to Jung. The animus can be evil or good. Heathcliff is demonic indeed. Bronte brings him to life with great vividness, and this undeniably displays her great talent for making a character truly live in a reader's mind.

Therein lies the rub. Heathcliff is so repulsive, so utterly demonic, and so overpowering, that he makes the book sheer torture to read. His influence is seen on every page. The one redeeming quality he might have possessed, his love for Cathy, turns into a monstrous, sick obsession toward the end of the book.

While I can admire the powerful way the author delineates character, as well as her obvious command of writing style, I simply cannot say that this book is one of my favorites. I find it especially strange to see it referred to as a love story, and tagged as "romance" on Amazon. There is little to none of that in this novel. The supposed love story between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw is sketchy at best. They are separated for three years, due to her stubbornness, as well as his pride. When he suddenly reappears, determined to see her, she is already married to another man, one whom Heathcliff despises as a weakling, due to his passionless nature. Yet it is that very man who treats Catherine with kindness, catering to her every whim. Had she, instead, chosen Heathcliff, things might have been very different. Such a tumultuous relationship could very well have ended in tragedy. Had Bronte taken the story in this direction, the book could, indeed, be classified as "a dark romance". As it stands, however, it certainly cannot, nor should it be.

Catherine Earnshaw herself is not a wholly pleasant character, either, although she never descends to the depths of depravity Heathcliff does. She is, however, a very self-centered creature; her sole reason for marrying Linton is so that she won't be brought below her station by marrying Heathcliff. She attempts to rationalize her decision by claiming that she can use Linton's money to "help" Heathcliff, but this is a rather flimsy excuse.

Through Heathcliff, this also becomes a tale of family dysfunction, and of how that dysfunction poisons anyone who comes into contact with that family, whose most disturbed representative, Heathcliff, engages in a very elaborate plan of revenge throughout the latter part of the book.

Allthough, again, the writing is brilliant, the book does have one major creative flaw, and that is the plotting. Characters are killed off when they are no longer necessary. Now, I do agree that a writer has to include sad and unhappy events in a novel, even if he or she is writing within the parameters of the modern romance genre. However, having characters die every few pages or so is just too contrived. Even Cathy's death is contrived. It's designed to make Heathcliff even more of a monster than he already is. Besides, there is no clear explanation for her death. True, she had gotten herself into a state of near hysteria due to auto-suggestion, but this is hardly enough to cause anyone's death; at least, not as suddenly as hers comes about. It's just not believable. Furthermore, the reader finds out, after her demise, that she was pregnant! She very conveniently gives birth, too, before she inexplicably departs from this world. This seems to be a rather forced way of increasing the pathos.

Other reviewers have objected to the narration-within-a-narration technique Bronte uses. Actually, I found this quite intriguing. This is one of the elements about the book that actually maintained my interest. Nelly Dean turns out to be a very shrewd, highly perceptive observer, with an especially keen eye for nuanced detail.

I was glad that poor Hareton got a chance at love with Catherine Linton. That was another element about the book that I liked. Still, their union is also a bit too contrived, since they happen to be cousins.

All in all, although I do recognize the greatness of Emily Bronte as a writer, I have to say that I consider her sister's novel, Jane Eyre, far superior, with a more polished plot structure.  Furthermore, Charlotte Bronte's story is, indeed, a love story.  Although the relationship between Jane and Rochester is just as tumultuous as that between Heathcliff and Cathy, it is satisfactorily resolved as a tale of romance, instead of degenerating into one of twisted, perverted evil. 


MY RATING: