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Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte. 1847.  300 pages. [Source: Own]

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.

Can a plain, orphan governess find true love and a happily ever after? Yes, if she's willing to speak her own mind, stay true to herself, and fight for the one she loves. Jane's journey to her happily ever after certainly wasn't easy or typical. 

I have many, many posts about Jane Eyre. But surprisingly, only two book reviews! I first reviewed it--for the blog--in September 2008. My second review is from December 2011. In 2012, I reviewed ten film adaptations of Jane Eyre. Each film got its own review, but I then wrote up a post analyzing them all.

It had been a few years since I'd last read Jane Eyre. After watching it so many times, I needed to take a break. But I knew that I would want to include the book in my year of rereading. It is just wonderful to revisit Jane Eyre again and again and again.

Do you love Jane Eyre too? Do you have a favorite scene? a least favorite scene? What is your favorite adaptation? What scenes do you find essential in an adaptation?

Some of my favorite quotes:

He had been looking two minutes at the fire, and I had been looking the same length of time at him, when, turning suddenly, he caught my gaze fastened on his physiognomy. “You examine me, Miss Eyre,” said he: “do you think me handsome?” I should, if I had deliberated, have replied to this question by something conventionally vague and polite; but the answer somehow slipped from my tongue before I was aware—“No, sir.” “Ah! By my word! there is something singular about you,” said he: “you have the air of a little nonnette; quaint, quiet, grave, and simple, as you sit with your hands before you, and your eyes generally bent on the carpet (except, by-the-bye, when they are directed piercingly to my face; as just now, for instance); and when one asks you a question, or makes a remark to which you are obliged to reply, you rap out a round rejoinder, which, if not blunt, is at least brusque. What do you mean by it?” “Sir, I was too plain; I beg your pardon. I ought to have replied that it was not easy to give an impromptu answer to a question about appearances; that tastes mostly differ; and that beauty is of little consequence, or something of that sort.” “You ought to have replied no such thing. Beauty of little consequence, indeed! And so, under pretence of softening the previous outrage, of stroking and soothing me into placidity, you stick a sly penknife under my ear! Go on: what fault do you find with me, pray? I suppose I have all my limbs and all my features like any other man?” “Mr. Rochester, allow me to disown my first answer: I intended no pointed repartee: it was only a blunder.” “Just so: I think so: and you shall be answerable for it. Criticise me: does my forehead not please you?” He lifted up the sable waves of hair which lay horizontally over his brow, and showed a solid enough mass of intellectual organs, but an abrupt deficiency where the suave sign of benevolence should have risen. “Now, ma’am, am I a fool?” “Far from it, sir. You would, perhaps, think me rude if I inquired in return whether you are a philanthropist?”

“You looked very much puzzled, Miss Eyre; and though you are not pretty any more than I am handsome, yet a puzzled air becomes you; besides, it is convenient, for it keeps those searching eyes of yours away from my physiognomy, and busies them with the worsted flowers of the rug; so puzzle on. Young lady, I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative to-night.” With this announcement he rose from his chair, and stood, leaning his arm on the marble mantelpiece: in that attitude his shape was seen plainly as well as his face; his unusual breadth of chest, disproportionate almost to his length of limb. I am sure most people would have thought him an ugly man; yet there was so much unconscious pride in his port; so much ease in his demeanour; such a look of complete indifference to his own external appearance; so haughty a reliance on the power of other qualities, intrinsic or adventitious, to atone for the lack of mere personal attractiveness, that, in looking at him, one inevitably shared the indifference, and, even in a blind, imperfect sense, put faith in the confidence. “I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative to-night,” he repeated, “and that is why I sent for you: the fire and the chandelier were not sufficient company for me; nor would Pilot have been, for none of these can talk. Adèle is a degree better, but still far below the mark; Mrs. Fairfax ditto; you, I am persuaded, can suit me if you will: you puzzled me the first evening I invited you down here. I have almost forgotten you since: other ideas have driven yours from my head; but to-night I am resolved to be at ease; to dismiss what importunes, and recall what pleases. It would please me now to draw you out—to learn more of you—therefore speak.” Instead of speaking, I smiled; and not a very complacent or submissive smile either. “Speak,” he urged. “What about, sir?” “Whatever you like. I leave both the choice of subject and the manner of treating it entirely to yourself.” Accordingly I sat and said nothing: “If he expects me to talk for the mere sake of talking and showing off, he will find he has addressed himself to the wrong person,” I thought. “You are dumb, Miss Eyre.” I was dumb still. He bent his head a little towards me, and with a single hasty glance seemed to dive into my eyes. “Stubborn?” he said, “and annoyed. Ah! it is consistent. I put my request in an absurd, almost insolent form. Miss Eyre, I beg your pardon. The fact is, once for all, I don’t wish to treat you like an inferior: that is” (correcting himself), “I claim only such superiority as must result from twenty years’ difference in age and a century’s advance in experience. This is legitimate, et j’y tiens, as Adèle would say; and it is by virtue of this superiority, and this alone, that I desire you to have the goodness to talk to me a little now, and divert my thoughts, which are galled with dwelling on one point—cankering as a rusty nail.” He had deigned an explanation, almost an apology, and I did not feel insensible to his condescension, and would not seem so. “I am willing to amuse you, if I can, sir—quite willing; but I cannot introduce a topic, because how do I know what will interest you? Ask me questions, and I will do my best to answer them.”  

Besides, I know what sort of a mind I have placed in communication with my own: I know it is one not liable to take infection: it is a peculiar mind: it is a unique one. Happily I do not mean to harm it: but, if I did, it would not take harm from me. The more you and I converse, the better; for while I cannot blight you, you may refresh me.”

The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint: the friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to him. I felt at times as if he were my relation rather than my master: yet he was imperious sometimes still; but I did not mind that; I saw it was his way. So happy, so gratified did I become with this new interest added to life, that I ceased to pine after kindred: my thin crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the blanks of existence were filled up; my bodily health improved; I gathered flesh and strength. And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude, and many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the brightest fire. Yet I had not forgotten his faults; indeed, I could not, for he brought them frequently before me. He was proud, sardonic, harsh to inferiority of every description: in my secret soul I knew that his great kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity to many others. He was moody, too; unaccountably so; I more than once, when sent for to read to him, found him sitting in his library alone, with his head bent on his folded arms; and, when he looked up, a morose, almost a malignant, scowl blackened his features. But I believed that his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults of morality (I say former, for now he seemed corrected of them) had their source in some cruel cross of fate. I believed he was naturally a man of better tendencies, higher principles, and purer tastes than such as circumstances had developed, education instilled, or destiny encouraged. I thought there were excellent materials in him; though for the present they hung together somewhat spoiled and tangled. I cannot deny that I grieved for his grief, whatever that was, and would have given much to assuage it. Though I had now extinguished my candle and was laid down in bed, I could not sleep for thinking of his look when he paused in the avenue, and told how his destiny had risen up before him, and dared him to be happy at Thornfield. 

I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously arrived, green and strong! He made me love him without looking at me.

“He is not to them what he is to me,” I thought: “he is not of their kind. I believe he is of mine;—I am sure he is—I feel akin to him—I understand the language of his countenance and movements: though rank and wealth sever us widely, I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him. Did I say, a few days since, that I had nothing to do with him but to receive my salary at his hands? Did I forbid myself to think of him in any other light than as a paymaster? Blasphemy against nature! Every good, true, vigorous feeling I have gathers impulsively round him. I know I must conceal my sentiments: I must smother hope; I must remember that he cannot care much for me. For when I say that I am of his kind, I do not mean that I have his force to influence, and his spell to attract; I mean only that I have certain tastes and feelings in common with him.

© 2014 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Orion Poe and the Lost Explorer

by William Summerhouse

Shake-A-Leg Press                9/14/2014

9780-9860614-0-0

Age 8 to 12         284 pages

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“Eleven-year-old Orion Poe lives with his stodgy grandfather in eastern Maine, where nothing exciting ever happens. But then a series of strange events draws him into the mystery of the lost explorer and Orion is swept up in a whirlwind of adventure that takes him to the top of the world. To survive he must outwit a scheming treasure hunter, team up with a gang of flimps, and take on a tyrant with an anger management problem. Can Orion solve the mystery and get back home alive? And just what are flimps?”

Opening

“If you read what Mr. Lumpkin wrote in the newspaper about my adventure at the top of the world, you only got half the story.”

The Story

Orion Poe finds a man thrown to the shores of Maine by a nor’easter who turns out to have been running from New Britain, a community at the top of the world. He leaves Orion with a map dated 1847 and written by John Franklin, an explorer looking for the Northwest Passage but disappeared with over 130 men and 2 tall ships. Franklin and his crew were never found.

A John Franklin is the governor of New Britain and a tyrant bent on total control of the inhabitants. He comes searching for the man who Orion found, murders him, and then ransacks Orion’s home looking for the knapsack Orion now has. After taking the map to a professor, the professor and Orion take off on an adventure to find the reason the man washed up on a Maine shore, what he was running from, but mostly, was the map pointing to the lost whereabouts of Franklin and his crew?

Review

Based on the real John Franklin and crew who disappeared and never heard from again, Orion Poe and the Lot Explorer crashes history with adventure in a story difficult to put down. At first, the tall ship looking for the washed up man seemed to be a ghost ship, and it was in its own way, but also a real ship from the 1800’s traveling the current seas. Once at the top of the Canadian Arctic, time stopped for Franklin and his crew and he wanted no one to find out. This once amicable group now lived in tyranny and fear. With the professor and Orion making their way up       to the arctic, Franklin’s fears become a reality.

I liked the high seas fighting that occurs and that the real travel times are observed. Orion doesn’t make it to New Britain over night but must face the rough unforgiving sea first. Once there, Orion spends time in the new city and we learn how they could pull off living in such an extreme environment and what year they believe it is: 2013 or 1847. There is also a darker side to this community where the entire group of cast offs are placed. Here a group of courageous kids is quietly fighting the tyranny of New Britain. This side story become important and is some of the best writing.

The edition I received has the author name of William Fourth. I am not sure why this was changed or when, but the real author name is William Summerhouse and many of the books list him as the author. I’m curious as to the change. Throughout the writing is crisp and clean. While reading, it felt like I was right there alongside Orion. Orion Poe and the Lost Explorer, book 1 in the Orion Poe Adventure Series, is Summerhouses debut and it will be rather difficult for him to exceed the story of Orion. Wonderful first start by a promising young writer. Good fun for kids who love fantasy, historical fiction, and most importantly, the mash up of the two genres.

ORION POE AND THE LOST EXPLORER. Text copyright © 2013 by William Summerhouse. Book copyright © 2013 by Shake-A-Leg Press.

Buy Orion Poe and the Lost Explorer at Amazon—B&N—your local bookstore.

Learn more about Orion Poe and the Lost Explorer HERE.

Book Giveaway! Enter to win HERE.

Meet the author, William Summerhouse, at his website:   http://www.willsummerhouse.com/

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Filed under: 6 Stars TOP BOOK, Books for Boys, Children's Books, Debut Author, Historical Fiction, Library Donated Books, Middle Grade, Series, Top 10 of 2014 Tagged: 1847, Arctic, children's book reviews, exploer John Franklin, Northwest Passage, Shake-a-Leg Press, William Fourth, William Summerhouse

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Dombey and Son. Charles Dickens. 1846-1848. 880 pages.


DOMBEY sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great arm-chair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were analogous to that of a muffin, and it was essential to toast him brown while he was very new. Dombey was about eight-and-forty years of age. Son about eight-and-forty minutes. Dombey was rather bald, rather red, and though a handsome well-made man, too stern and pompous in appearance, to be prepossessing. Son was very bald, and very red, and though (of course) an undeniably fine infant, somewhat crushed and spotty in his general effect, as yet. On the brow of Dombey, Time and his brother Care had set some marks, as on a tree that was to come down in good time--remorseless twins they are for striding through their human forests, notching as they go--while the countenance of Son was crossed and recrossed with a thousand little creases, which the same deceitful Time would take delight in smoothing out and wearing away with the flat part of his scythe, as a preparation of the surface for his deeper operations.

I definitely enjoyed reading Charles Dickens' Dombey and Son. While I can't say that it's my new favorite Dickens novel, we had a lovely time together. Reading Dickens requires a time commitment, for the most part. While it's true that Oliver Twist is a quick and relatively easy read, the same can't exactly be said for Dickens' other novels. (Of course, excusing The Christmas Carol which is so easy to read it almost doesn't feel like a proper Dickens novel.) I don't mind committing my time, energy, effort to Dickens because I know that in the end it will prove worth it. He may take a couple of hundred pages to get going strong, but by the end, every little detail will come together and magic will happen. Such was the case with Dombey and Son.

How do I feel about Paul Dombey? If I had to choose just one word it would be infuriating. He's so proud, arrogant, narrow-minded, egotistical, pompous, cold-hearted, and cruel. He should not be allowed anywhere near women or children. It's no surprise that his first wife didn't "try" very hard to live. True, I'm speaking in jest for the most part, but Mrs. Chick, Dombey's sister, is not. The opening chapters provide ample opportunities for her to chastise her sister-in-law for dying. And Mrs. Chick does feel it was a weakness in her character that she allowed herself to die.

Dombey has a newborn son, named Paul, of course, what did you expect? He also has a daughter, Florence. It is in his relationship with Florence that the man's true weakness is revealed. For he is a horribly neglectful, sometimes cruel Father who takes great pride in the fact that his daughter is a nobody. That is in his eyes he has no daughter, a girl-child is of no conceivable use to him, so she just doesn't exist to him. He doesn't want anyone around him to act as if she exists either. She's not to be mentioned certainly, and not to be loved either, at least not in a way that's visible to him. For if he sees that someone else is loving and kind to him, it makes him who has no feelings (supposedly) feel guilty for not being a decent human being.

Florence is the heroine of this novel. She may be a little too good to be true--she's practically flawless. But she's good at providing contrast for every other character in the novel. Because without a doubt almost everyone else who plays a role in this thick novel is very flawed and very human. If Florence has a fault it is in being too kind, too

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Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte. 1847.  300 pages.

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.

I know not everyone sees value in rereading books. But. I just can't help it. If I love a book once, I'm going to want to revisit it. Again and again and again. After all, if I never wanted to read it again...ever...could I even really say I loved it? Or loved, loved, loved it?

Jane Eyre was a pleasure to reread. It really was. From the first page to the last, it kept me satisfied. There was so much to savor, so much to slowly absorb. I didn't rush this one. I didn't want to rush this one. I wanted to enjoy every moment of this one. Because books as wonderful as Jane Eyre just aren't that easy to find.

Though Jane Eyre has been adapted to films many times, I don't think it's a novel that adapts particularly well. The novel is told in first person. We see EVERYTHING through Jane's eyes. It is a very personal connection the reader has to make with Jane if the novel is to be appreciated and loved. If you don't come to love Jane, if you don't come to understand Jane, if you don't come to see the world through Jane's eyes, if you don't see Mr. Rochester as Jane does, if you don't LOVE him as Jane does, then you're not getting the full experience.

I was disappointed with the 2011 adaptation. Especially with Mr. Rochester. Why? Well, if you didn't already LOVE Mr. Rochester, then you would have no real reason--other than appearance, perhaps?--to love him. By taking the words out of his mouth, by eliminating almost all of his dialogue with Jane, by eliminating the oh-so-crucial gypsy scene, viewers see only a slightly teasing Mr. Rochester with a very deep, very dark secret. We see him only at his very, very worst, for the most part. And the scene after Jane knows the truth, well, it just seems so far removed from anything in the book. It was seeking out that scene in the book, it was wanting to know how the *real* Mr. Rochester treated Jane after the big shocking reveal, that led me to reread the book.

The BBC production (from early 1980s) starring Timothy Dalton and Zelah Clarke is a much, much, much better adaptation. In my opinion. I loved, loved, loved how Jane's relationship with Mr. Rochester developed. I loved their scenes together. I loved the dialogue. I loved how we really got to know both characters through the episodes. (It is over five hours long!) Everything that I loved about the book (almost everything) was present in this adaptation. It just felt right!!!

Do you have a favorite adaptation of Jane Eyre?


My original review.

© 2011 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews Display Comments Add a Comment

This Day in World History - Each evening that weather permitted, Maria (pronounced Mah-RYE-uh) Mitchell mounted the stairs to the roof of her family’s Nantucket home to sweep the sky with a telescope looking for a comet. Mitchell—who had been taught mathematics and astronomy by her father—began the practice in 1836. Eleven years later, on October 1, 1847, her long labors finally paid off. When she saw the comet, she quickly summoned her father, who agreed with her conclusion.

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