Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
"You too have suffered, I suppose."
"I suffered much, at first."
"When was that?"
"Two years ago; and two years hence you will be as calm as I am now-- and far, far happier, I trust, for you are a man, and free to act as you please."
As many, many people have remarked before me, this is no Jane Eyre, but it is an exceptionally well-written novel that places Anne Brontë among not only among the premier novelists of her day, but also among the striking visionaries (along with her sister Charlotte) who were communally asserting that women had independent minds and wants, and deserved to be written in literature as they existed in real life. I love Jane Eyre, so I may be very biased on this point, but I can see that Anne is trying to imitate the full, intimate nature of Jane's mind in the character of Helen, but only fails by conveying her to us at a narrative distance too far to deliver the same impact. But I know that reading reviews about classic literature can be overwhelming (and often unhelpful if you don't know the other works with which the reviewer is analyzing and comparing the present one), so I'll instead give a basic list of positives and negatives about this admittedly long and ambitious novel.
Likes:
The fleshed-out web of characters makes the story seem more real and avoids the sort of tunnel vision that 19th-century British novels often succumb to because of isolated social situations.
As a heroine, Helen strikes a near-perfect balance of playing out her patient and loving character but still being reasonable in her limits. She seems very real (in being a woman of her time and station in life). It's also clear that Anne put a lot of thought into how someone as traumatized as Helen would behave henceforth around strangers.
Although the dialogue struggles sometimes, Anne is a wonderful writer. Surprisingly, she seems more comfortable writing from Gilbert's point of view than Helen's, despite the latter having much more of her personality as well as obviously sharing more similar experiences.
Dislikes:
Because the narrative jumps around, it is rather difficult to keep up with the characters (Who is who, who is related to who, where each person lives and what their occupations are, etc.) especially when we return to the present at the end of the novel.
The second volume, which is entirely taken up by Helen's diary, is far too long and pulls us out of the present for too long for us to return without feeling out of place and confused.
Gilbert, despite supposedly being the patient hero, can be very dramatic and irritating (when he flings himself over the wall and has a fit on the ground, I had to put the book down and stare into the distance for a minute).
General comments:
This is not a light read. Although nothing conventionally triggering actually occurs, one of the characters is so deplorable that you may still want to look up the content warnings.
This is not a love story. Romance is a part of it, but if you are looking for something more like Jane Eyre, steer toward Jane Austen and not the other Brontë sisters. The "romance" in this story has about three pages of payoff at the very end out of the 383 pages in my edition.
If you think the first volume is dragging so much that you might not finish the novel, I would say you could skip to the second volume (where Helen's diary is introduced) and not miss much of anything other than the romance mildly building.
TL;DR: A great classic, but not exactly pleasure reading, and I would recommend you start with Jane Eyre if you're venturing into Brontë literature! :)
"I suffered much, at first."
"When was that?"
"Two years ago; and two years hence you will be as calm as I am now-- and far, far happier, I trust, for you are a man, and free to act as you please."
As many, many people have remarked before me, this is no Jane Eyre, but it is an exceptionally well-written novel that places Anne Brontë among not only among the premier novelists of her day, but also among the striking visionaries (along with her sister Charlotte) who were communally asserting that women had independent minds and wants, and deserved to be written in literature as they existed in real life. I love Jane Eyre, so I may be very biased on this point, but I can see that Anne is trying to imitate the full, intimate nature of Jane's mind in the character of Helen, but only fails by conveying her to us at a narrative distance too far to deliver the same impact. But I know that reading reviews about classic literature can be overwhelming (and often unhelpful if you don't know the other works with which the reviewer is analyzing and comparing the present one), so I'll instead give a basic list of positives and negatives about this admittedly long and ambitious novel.
Likes:
The fleshed-out web of characters makes the story seem more real and avoids the sort of tunnel vision that 19th-century British novels often succumb to because of isolated social situations.
As a heroine, Helen strikes a near-perfect balance of playing out her patient and loving character but still being reasonable in her limits. She seems very real (in being a woman of her time and station in life). It's also clear that Anne put a lot of thought into how someone as traumatized as Helen would behave henceforth around strangers.
Although the dialogue struggles sometimes, Anne is a wonderful writer. Surprisingly, she seems more comfortable writing from Gilbert's point of view than Helen's, despite the latter having much more of her personality as well as obviously sharing more similar experiences.
Dislikes:
Because the narrative jumps around, it is rather difficult to keep up with the characters (Who is who, who is related to who, where each person lives and what their occupations are, etc.) especially when we return to the present at the end of the novel.
The second volume, which is entirely taken up by Helen's diary, is far too long and pulls us out of the present for too long for us to return without feeling out of place and confused.
Gilbert, despite supposedly being the patient hero, can be very dramatic and irritating (when he flings himself over the wall and has a fit on the ground, I had to put the book down and stare into the distance for a minute).
General comments:
This is not a light read. Although nothing conventionally triggering actually occurs, one of the characters is so deplorable that you may still want to look up the content warnings.
This is not a love story. Romance is a part of it, but if you are looking for something more like Jane Eyre, steer toward Jane Austen and not the other Brontë sisters. The "romance" in this story has about three pages of payoff at the very end out of the 383 pages in my edition.
If you think the first volume is dragging so much that you might not finish the novel, I would say you could skip to the second volume (where Helen's diary is introduced) and not miss much of anything other than the romance mildly building.
TL;DR: A great classic, but not exactly pleasure reading, and I would recommend you start with Jane Eyre if you're venturing into Brontë literature! :)
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
i would like to thank anne bronte for writing this feminist manifesto..
we can see how little humanity has advanced in terms of women's rights if you read this book. but the progress we made is still remarkable. here's to more divorces and less suffering under your abusive husbands for the greater cause of reaching Heaven. <3
we can see how little humanity has advanced in terms of women's rights if you read this book. but the progress we made is still remarkable. here's to more divorces and less suffering under your abusive husbands for the greater cause of reaching Heaven. <3
I loooooved this book. I feel like classics usually try to sugar coat what is actually going on in the story by just vaguely alluding to it, but in this story the cheating and the vices are talked about in depth. This is an interesting read because it reads so modern, even though it was published in 1848. So many things in it are so relatable, especially how the men behave el oh el. Also something I thought was so interesting is that Anne snuck in an unconventional take on Christianity (ESPECIALLY at the time) into the book through Helen’s dialogue and thoughts. All in all a great book and an easy to read classic. Honestly I think it’s just as good as Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre, just less fanatically romantic.
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
There is much to like here, but I also found quite a bit to disappoint me. Ever since I read Agnes Grey a few years ago, and really liked it, I looked forward to reading this, the book that Charlotte "wished had never been written" (viii). I was of course intrigued by the way people refer to this book as perhaps the most obviously feminist of Brontë novels, and the fact that Agnes Grey had seemed so different, to me, from the works of Anne's sisters (in a way I liked, no less) might have given me certain expectations.
But although I really enjoyed the experience of reading this book - I really just love being wrapped up in a long, possibly dark, 19th-century English novel - there was a lot here that I found strange.
At first I thought the book did a great job at giving us an unreliable narrator in Gilbert Markham. He is a wily little gossip and seems to love a good time, love to judge, have a temper that gets in his way, and more. His commentary on his family members and neighbors early in the book makes him not at all likable, but the interesting thing was that he never improved. We are supposed to see him changed by the things he learns about the realities of life for so many, and instead he seems just as obsessive and obnoxious as any other male character in the book, perhaps even more so.
Helen is not much better. While admirable, and to an extent understandable, she never really came alive for me. She was a stiff little silhouette, supposed to be shaped, I think, by so many others' opinions of her, but I did not find it quite successful. I did like that she was not a complete angel, and that she was paranoid quick to judge; in those ways she felt accurate.
At this point, my review will get deeper into spoiler territory, but as this is a classic I am not going to mark it.
As the book moved along I was surprised by the long diary excerpt in the middle. This felt a bit longer than necessary, but more importantly, so jarring in the pace of the book that it was like reading a different book. I am really curious about the reasons Brontë had for framing the novel in this way, first with the letters to an unimportant character, and then with the diary. But the journal entries were also confusing because I could not believe the bond between Helen and Markham. I was waiting for something exciting to unfold about her background, about her being tied to another man, or something interesting, that it was such a letdown to have the mystery just be her brother and a slightly random misconception of the characters.
By the end I was so disappointed that Helen ended up with Markham, who was so single-minded and prone to violence I did not think it much of an improvement for her.
BUT, on the other hand, I did enjoy and appreciate the bigger picture here - the portrait of what life could really be like for women if they happened to end up with a bad husband. And it was a book that kept me coming back, because I wanted to see what happened, and how the story would resolve.
On a related note, I have to add that while I really like the Penguin Clothbound Classics, that they are nicely printed and it's a sort of old-fashioned treat to crack into one when I do most of my reading in ebook form, I am always perplexed at best, and frustrated at worst, by the footnotes. What is their goal? Half of them offer some interesting, relevant information on the author's experience or what could have inspires this stretch of text, or words for old things that we might not know (different types of carriages, anyone?), or various drafts and comparisons of various versions of the text, and the rest are inane, insipid comments - or, in the case of this book, telling you any time 3+ words in a row were directly copied from the Bible. It is the most anticlimactic thing to see a footnote, turn to read it, and see, for "a few words of course," that the footnote has decided we need to be informed that that means "a few commonplace words." Who do they think is reading these books?
But although I really enjoyed the experience of reading this book - I really just love being wrapped up in a long, possibly dark, 19th-century English novel - there was a lot here that I found strange.
At first I thought the book did a great job at giving us an unreliable narrator in Gilbert Markham. He is a wily little gossip and seems to love a good time, love to judge, have a temper that gets in his way, and more. His commentary on his family members and neighbors early in the book makes him not at all likable, but the interesting thing was that he never improved. We are supposed to see him changed by the things he learns about the realities of life for so many, and instead he seems just as obsessive and obnoxious as any other male character in the book, perhaps even more so.
Helen is not much better. While admirable, and to an extent understandable, she never really came alive for me. She was a stiff little silhouette, supposed to be shaped, I think, by so many others' opinions of her, but I did not find it quite successful. I did like that she was not a complete angel, and that she was paranoid quick to judge; in those ways she felt accurate.
At this point, my review will get deeper into spoiler territory, but as this is a classic I am not going to mark it.
As the book moved along I was surprised by the long diary excerpt in the middle. This felt a bit longer than necessary, but more importantly, so jarring in the pace of the book that it was like reading a different book. I am really curious about the reasons Brontë had for framing the novel in this way, first with the letters to an unimportant character, and then with the diary. But the journal entries were also confusing because I could not believe the bond between Helen and Markham. I was waiting for something exciting to unfold about her background, about her being tied to another man, or something interesting, that it was such a letdown to have the mystery just be her brother and a slightly random misconception of the characters.
By the end I was so disappointed that Helen ended up with Markham, who was so single-minded and prone to violence I did not think it much of an improvement for her.
BUT, on the other hand, I did enjoy and appreciate the bigger picture here - the portrait of what life could really be like for women if they happened to end up with a bad husband. And it was a book that kept me coming back, because I wanted to see what happened, and how the story would resolve.
On a related note, I have to add that while I really like the Penguin Clothbound Classics, that they are nicely printed and it's a sort of old-fashioned treat to crack into one when I do most of my reading in ebook form, I am always perplexed at best, and frustrated at worst, by the footnotes. What is their goal? Half of them offer some interesting, relevant information on the author's experience or what could have inspires this stretch of text, or words for old things that we might not know (different types of carriages, anyone?), or various drafts and comparisons of various versions of the text, and the rest are inane, insipid comments - or, in the case of this book, telling you any time 3+ words in a row were directly copied from the Bible. It is the most anticlimactic thing to see a footnote, turn to read it, and see, for "a few words of course," that the footnote has decided we need to be informed that that means "a few commonplace words." Who do they think is reading these books?
i think perhaps another of my favourite books/stories ever! - Anne Brontë i was not familiar with your game !
what a beautiful, harrowing and surprisingly modern story. (and really easy to read for a classic omg)
modern because this story of abusive and narcissist men is something still so present today.
on a more unserious note, i genuinely love helen and gilbert so much - like what a diva gilbert was for racing and travelling through day and night just to see if the rumour that helen had married was true or not.
and yes helen was more forgiving when her asshole abusive husband died but i literally fucking cheered
what a beautiful, harrowing and surprisingly modern story. (and really easy to read for a classic omg)
modern because this story of abusive and narcissist men is something still so present today.
on a more unserious note, i genuinely love helen and gilbert so much - like what a diva gilbert was for racing and travelling through day and night just to see if the rumour that helen had married was true or not.
and yes helen was more forgiving when her asshole abusive husband died but i literally fucking cheered
This was my first by Brontë sisters and I totally loved it. It was so interesting to see how many modern problems were already present then and we still didn't find the solution as a society. Loved Helen, she's such a strong and compasionate woman.
This book is well written and very interesting. This book covers a woman who flees her abusive husband and moves back to her homestead with her son to live life quietly, and of course the neighbor guy falls for her. The part I loved the best was when we were reading her diary. The rest of the book is narrated by Gilbert (neighbor) and I wished we knew more of what was going through Helen's head. This book is a great example of the sweeping Gothic novel (minus death, crazy wives, ghosts, and fire), but I would have loved it more if it was Helen's POV.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A good through read. Sometimes it dragged on but it was overall very captivating.
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Nonostante sia stato pubblicato nel 1848, il secondo romanzo di Anne Brontë si presenta molto attuale - e più interessante del primo, "Agnes Grey".
La rappresentazione della condizione della donna in una società sempre pronta a renderla il nemico è qualcosa di assolutamente attuale, e le considerazioni dei personaggi sorprendentemente all'avanguardia nonostante i tempi.
Detto questo, il personaggio di Helen è uno dei migliori che abbia letto: Anne ha fatto un lavoro magistrale nella descrizione delle sue pene e delle sue disavventure, e ha costruito scene piene di pathos. Il romanzo più bello dell'anno forse.
La rappresentazione della condizione della donna in una società sempre pronta a renderla il nemico è qualcosa di assolutamente attuale, e le considerazioni dei personaggi sorprendentemente all'avanguardia nonostante i tempi.
Detto questo, il personaggio di Helen è uno dei migliori che abbia letto: Anne ha fatto un lavoro magistrale nella descrizione delle sue pene e delle sue disavventure, e ha costruito scene piene di pathos. Il romanzo più bello dell'anno forse.
Oh my gosh, this book. Can someone please hand me a tissue while I’m listening romantic music and rethinking everything I’ve read. I LOVE YOU ANNE BRONTË.