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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
For my full review: http://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/2018/05/review-mr-rochester-sarah-shoemaker.html
I approach spin-offs with a healthy amount of caution but yet somehow, no matter how many times I am disappointed, I do keep on trying. Every so often, you do get a Wild Sargasso Sea or a Longbourn. The story of Jane Eyre has been expanded from every possible or conceivable angle. Mrs Fairfax got her turn in Thornfield Hall, Jane herself became serial killer in Jane Steele and even a kidnap victim in The Eyre Affair. What would Sarah Shoemaker do with this attempt, a retelling of the story from the perspective of Mr Rochester himself? Was it time for Mr R to take on centre stage? What could he possibly have to say?
Shoemaker launches us straight into the story with very little preamble; the eight year-old Edward Fairfax Rochester wanders the corridors of Thornfield, ignored by his father and bullied by his elder brother, his only friends are the servants. His mother passed away in childbirth and although the child likes to look upon her portrait, when his father notices this, it is removed. Then the day comes when, almost without warning, young Edward is packed off to school. We are clearly intended to notice parallels between the sufferings of the infant Rochester and his future bride, with great emphasis on how his early life is lacking in love, but yet somehow it fails to convince.
Edward's father and brother travel to Jamaica to review their property there, years pass and Edward becomes close to his school-fellows Carrot and Touch. Then at twelve, he is uprooted from the school and sent to assist in the management of a factory under Mr Wilson. Once Mr Wilson falls ill and the factory has to be sold, the now-adult Edward finally sees his father again and learns that his own fortune, both financial and marital, must be sought in Jamaica.
I was reminded strongly of Ronald Frame's Havisham here, particularly the difficulties in constructing a novel based on a story already so familiar. In Havisham, the reader watches as Catherine plans her wedding and believes herself to be about to marry the man she loves. We not only know better but it is impossible for us to be surprised when it all goes wrong. In the same way, as Edward arrives in Jamaica and is introduced to the Mason family, we can hardly feel astonished when it transpires that the beautiful Bertha Antoinetta has a past. We all know that this is heading towards the attic of Thornfield Hall.
I couldn't help but think that it was a bold move on Shoemaker's part to write a novel justifying Mr Rochester's position. In the wake of the #Metoo and #TimesUp accusations, attempting to defend a man who imprisoned one woman and attempted to marry another under false pretences is hardly fashionable and even if you accept his explanation, Mr Rochester remains pretty problematic. He is a man who attempted to court Jane Eyre's jealousy by flirting outrageously with Blanche Ingram under her nose. He admits that he travelled round Europe using women for sex. Even back in the 1960s, Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea makes the case that he is culpable for his wife's descent into madness. Can Shoemaker make us feel a genuine sympathy for him?
I found Shoemaker's Rochester a difficult character to connect with. Interestingly, the most effective part of the novel was the pre-Jamaica section, which exists independent of Jane Eyre. His boyhood connections are full of affection and there was pathos in how he longed for his Thornfield home, only for his father to tell him roughly that Thornfield is for his brother Rowland, not for him and that Edward will have to make his own way in the world. There was some real creative potential there for conflict since we know that Rowland will die prematurely and allow Edward to inherit, but somehow Shoemaker never seems able to grasp the nettle.
One of the novel's main structural weaknesses is Shoemaker's tendency to dispose of characters offstage. It is unsurprising that so many of those she has being close to Edward in childhood have to be killed off, since they cannot impinge on the later story which crosses over with Jane Eyre. The early death of one of Edward's school-fellows is even handled quite skillfully, allowing for a real sense of loss. That this becomes a pattern feels unfortunate with so many hanging threads inevitably leading to a frayed narrative. The novel really needed some kind of confrontation between Edward and his father and yet we never got it. We also never found out what exactly was the cause of Grace Poole's sorrows. And given that Shoemaker is trying to put a positive spin on some of Rochester's more questionable behaviour, the idea that as a teenager he tried to force himself on a young factory-worker was a surprising choice.
Mr Rochester is an obvious piece of fan fiction in the most positive sense of the term - Shoemaker clearly knows Jane Eyre thoroughly and is a huge admirer of the novel. She is imagining the inner life of the book's hero without any attempt to query his behaviour. The bland way in which Bertha is referred to as 'mad' dismisses any attempt to truly explore what is happening to her - what are the 'childish games' she is playing? What is driving her? Shoemaker passes over it without a glimmer of curiousity. There is a flatness to how Rochester appears to plod through the events of the novel, particularly in the section once he meets Jane Eyre. Even the episode where he dresses up as a gypsy woman feels insipid - it is difficult to reconcile Shoemaker's apparently so ordinary creation with such a strange trick. I thought of how EL James has lately been retelling Fifty Shades from the perspective of Mr Grey and how the success of this has been limited because the whole point of that character has been the mystery they held for the heroine. Mr Rochester is an infinitely more nuanced and complex character than anyone out of the Fifty Shades factory but he does share that purpose. He is the man who Jane Eyre marries, she famously marries him rather than vice versa. Attempting to spin the focus was always going to be mired in difficulty.
There are occasional glimpses within Mr Rochester of what could have offered an intriguing perspective. I enjoyed the idea of Mr Rochester coming close to freeing himself from marriage in the days leading up to his infamous wedding. The suggestion of a sinister motivation for Edward's father pushing him towards marriage with Bertha also held promise, but unfortunately it was under-explored. Most successful was perhaps the episode where Rochester claims Adele, recognising that if he does not do so, the child will end up being forced early into selling herself. That did have the ring of truth about it, even if it is not something Charlotte Brontë could ever have addressed directly herself.
I am currently reading Juliet Barker's The Brontës, probably the most comprehensive biography of the family ever written, and I have just read a chapter critiquing Charlotte Brontë's early juvenilia. For much of her teens and twenties, she was fascinated and indeed almost transfixed by her creation the Duke of Zamorna, a clear early fore-runner for Mr Rochester. However, Barker notes that her writing only really gained maturity when she moved away from him and began writing from the female perspective. These dark and compelling male anti-heroes may have a death-grip over our imaginations, but in truth they are best appreciated from afar rather than up close. In attempting to uncover their secrets, they lose their true appeal - so it was for Charlotte Brontë herself and so it appears to be for Sarah Shoemaker too.
I approach spin-offs with a healthy amount of caution but yet somehow, no matter how many times I am disappointed, I do keep on trying. Every so often, you do get a Wild Sargasso Sea or a Longbourn. The story of Jane Eyre has been expanded from every possible or conceivable angle. Mrs Fairfax got her turn in Thornfield Hall, Jane herself became serial killer in Jane Steele and even a kidnap victim in The Eyre Affair. What would Sarah Shoemaker do with this attempt, a retelling of the story from the perspective of Mr Rochester himself? Was it time for Mr R to take on centre stage? What could he possibly have to say?
Shoemaker launches us straight into the story with very little preamble; the eight year-old Edward Fairfax Rochester wanders the corridors of Thornfield, ignored by his father and bullied by his elder brother, his only friends are the servants. His mother passed away in childbirth and although the child likes to look upon her portrait, when his father notices this, it is removed. Then the day comes when, almost without warning, young Edward is packed off to school. We are clearly intended to notice parallels between the sufferings of the infant Rochester and his future bride, with great emphasis on how his early life is lacking in love, but yet somehow it fails to convince.
Edward's father and brother travel to Jamaica to review their property there, years pass and Edward becomes close to his school-fellows Carrot and Touch. Then at twelve, he is uprooted from the school and sent to assist in the management of a factory under Mr Wilson. Once Mr Wilson falls ill and the factory has to be sold, the now-adult Edward finally sees his father again and learns that his own fortune, both financial and marital, must be sought in Jamaica.
I was reminded strongly of Ronald Frame's Havisham here, particularly the difficulties in constructing a novel based on a story already so familiar. In Havisham, the reader watches as Catherine plans her wedding and believes herself to be about to marry the man she loves. We not only know better but it is impossible for us to be surprised when it all goes wrong. In the same way, as Edward arrives in Jamaica and is introduced to the Mason family, we can hardly feel astonished when it transpires that the beautiful Bertha Antoinetta has a past. We all know that this is heading towards the attic of Thornfield Hall.
I couldn't help but think that it was a bold move on Shoemaker's part to write a novel justifying Mr Rochester's position. In the wake of the #Metoo and #TimesUp accusations, attempting to defend a man who imprisoned one woman and attempted to marry another under false pretences is hardly fashionable and even if you accept his explanation, Mr Rochester remains pretty problematic. He is a man who attempted to court Jane Eyre's jealousy by flirting outrageously with Blanche Ingram under her nose. He admits that he travelled round Europe using women for sex. Even back in the 1960s, Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea makes the case that he is culpable for his wife's descent into madness. Can Shoemaker make us feel a genuine sympathy for him?
I found Shoemaker's Rochester a difficult character to connect with. Interestingly, the most effective part of the novel was the pre-Jamaica section, which exists independent of Jane Eyre. His boyhood connections are full of affection and there was pathos in how he longed for his Thornfield home, only for his father to tell him roughly that Thornfield is for his brother Rowland, not for him and that Edward will have to make his own way in the world. There was some real creative potential there for conflict since we know that Rowland will die prematurely and allow Edward to inherit, but somehow Shoemaker never seems able to grasp the nettle.
One of the novel's main structural weaknesses is Shoemaker's tendency to dispose of characters offstage. It is unsurprising that so many of those she has being close to Edward in childhood have to be killed off, since they cannot impinge on the later story which crosses over with Jane Eyre. The early death of one of Edward's school-fellows is even handled quite skillfully, allowing for a real sense of loss. That this becomes a pattern feels unfortunate with so many hanging threads inevitably leading to a frayed narrative. The novel really needed some kind of confrontation between Edward and his father and yet we never got it. We also never found out what exactly was the cause of Grace Poole's sorrows. And given that Shoemaker is trying to put a positive spin on some of Rochester's more questionable behaviour, the idea that as a teenager he tried to force himself on a young factory-worker was a surprising choice.
Mr Rochester is an obvious piece of fan fiction in the most positive sense of the term - Shoemaker clearly knows Jane Eyre thoroughly and is a huge admirer of the novel. She is imagining the inner life of the book's hero without any attempt to query his behaviour. The bland way in which Bertha is referred to as 'mad' dismisses any attempt to truly explore what is happening to her - what are the 'childish games' she is playing? What is driving her? Shoemaker passes over it without a glimmer of curiousity. There is a flatness to how Rochester appears to plod through the events of the novel, particularly in the section once he meets Jane Eyre. Even the episode where he dresses up as a gypsy woman feels insipid - it is difficult to reconcile Shoemaker's apparently so ordinary creation with such a strange trick. I thought of how EL James has lately been retelling Fifty Shades from the perspective of Mr Grey and how the success of this has been limited because the whole point of that character has been the mystery they held for the heroine. Mr Rochester is an infinitely more nuanced and complex character than anyone out of the Fifty Shades factory but he does share that purpose. He is the man who Jane Eyre marries, she famously marries him rather than vice versa. Attempting to spin the focus was always going to be mired in difficulty.
There are occasional glimpses within Mr Rochester of what could have offered an intriguing perspective. I enjoyed the idea of Mr Rochester coming close to freeing himself from marriage in the days leading up to his infamous wedding. The suggestion of a sinister motivation for Edward's father pushing him towards marriage with Bertha also held promise, but unfortunately it was under-explored. Most successful was perhaps the episode where Rochester claims Adele, recognising that if he does not do so, the child will end up being forced early into selling herself. That did have the ring of truth about it, even if it is not something Charlotte Brontë could ever have addressed directly herself.
I am currently reading Juliet Barker's The Brontës, probably the most comprehensive biography of the family ever written, and I have just read a chapter critiquing Charlotte Brontë's early juvenilia. For much of her teens and twenties, she was fascinated and indeed almost transfixed by her creation the Duke of Zamorna, a clear early fore-runner for Mr Rochester. However, Barker notes that her writing only really gained maturity when she moved away from him and began writing from the female perspective. These dark and compelling male anti-heroes may have a death-grip over our imaginations, but in truth they are best appreciated from afar rather than up close. In attempting to uncover their secrets, they lose their true appeal - so it was for Charlotte Brontë herself and so it appears to be for Sarah Shoemaker too.
3.5/4
Lo leí porque he estado intentado leer cosas agradables y fáciles, además que la semana pasada había terminado de releer Jane Eyre y pues porque no jaja.
Me agrado mas de lo que esperaba. Se nota mucho que la autora hizo una detallada investigación en relación a la época, además esta escrito de una forma amigable y llevadera.
Lo leí porque he estado intentado leer cosas agradables y fáciles, además que la semana pasada había terminado de releer Jane Eyre y pues porque no jaja.
Me agrado mas de lo que esperaba. Se nota mucho que la autora hizo una detallada investigación en relación a la época, además esta escrito de una forma amigable y llevadera.
medium-paced
I found Mr Rochester to be an enjoyable, satisfying read, true in both style and substance to Jane Eyre. We first meet Mr Rochester as an eight year old boy and follow him through his unconventioanl schooling and his time spent learning the ropes of business in an English woollen mill, through his years in Jamaica and his ill-fated marriage, to his return to England and the events we are all familiar with thanks to Charlotte Brontë, this time told through his eyes not Jane’s.
Shoemaker does a great job at creating a credible backstory for Rochester. His absent yet controlling father, his favoured, callous older brother, and his lack of a mother all played key roles. We come to see and understand him as a man seeking love, belonging and a sense of home. Seeing how he was manipulated into his marriage with Bertha, and how it is with good intentions and a possibly misplaced and misguided sense of loyalty and duty that he keeps her locked up at home rather than placing her in an institution also aids our understanding of this tortured character.
Understanding how Rochester’s character came to be formed is one thing and this book does make him a fairly sympathetic character. But I still couldn’t bring myself to approve of many of his actions with regards to Jane such as teasing and manipulating by pretending he planned to marry Blanche Ingram, and attempting to marry her he was while still married to Bertha. He may have been despairing but his actions were unworthy of them both.
Retellings and spin-offs from beloved classics can be hard to get right. This one hit the mark for me.
Shoemaker does a great job at creating a credible backstory for Rochester. His absent yet controlling father, his favoured, callous older brother, and his lack of a mother all played key roles. We come to see and understand him as a man seeking love, belonging and a sense of home. Seeing how he was manipulated into his marriage with Bertha, and how it is with good intentions and a possibly misplaced and misguided sense of loyalty and duty that he keeps her locked up at home rather than placing her in an institution also aids our understanding of this tortured character.
Understanding how Rochester’s character came to be formed is one thing and this book does make him a fairly sympathetic character. But I still couldn’t bring myself to approve of many of his actions with regards to Jane such as teasing and manipulating by pretending he planned to marry Blanche Ingram, and attempting to marry her he was while still married to Bertha. He may have been despairing but his actions were unworthy of them both.
Retellings and spin-offs from beloved classics can be hard to get right. This one hit the mark for me.
I loved the first half of this book before he meets Jane but then it really went downhill for me. I would have given it three stars but I rounded up because the author was constrained by the telling of Jane Eyre's story. I so wish she had just made it an original sorry and not tried to connect it. But then again imagining his life before he met Jane is how she came up with this fantastic tale.