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4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
“sorry i nearly killed you but i actually don’t care if you forgive me”- Gilbert at one point
Un libro rompedor para la época, que sigue estando de actualidad, desgraciadamente. Muy bien escrito y con una trama muy moderna, que atrapa desde el principio.
Debería ser tan conocido (o más) que otros libros de sus hermanas.
Debería ser tan conocido (o más) que otros libros de sus hermanas.
Another entry from 2020's Core 24...and another masterpiece I wish I'd known earlier.
Despite the clumsy structure of this novel (the narrative of the male protagonist sandwiches the preliminary, cautionary tale of Anne Huntington, the eponymous "tenant") the psychological truth and the sheer modernity of the story make it gripping and timely.
It's hard to believe that Anne Bronte is sometimes seen as an also-ran to her two more famous sisters. In ways, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is much more readable and its characters much more relatable than those of Wuthering Heights, and Helen's love interest, the sensible, salt-of-the-earth gentleman farmer, Gilbert Markham, is a much more appealing leading man than Mr. Rocherster in Jane Eyre.
In many ways also, Anne Bronte's attention to character and to her insightful descriptions of the social whirl reminded me greatly of Jane Austen (though few of Austen's characters have the dark sides of the Grass-dale Manor set.) And, while the plight of Helen at the tender mercies of her husband are harrowing-- reading this, I gave thanks for all the benefits of the women's rights movement--the happy ending was gratifying. It was also surprising and enlightening to see Anne Bronte's juxtaposition of Arthur Huntington's idea of fatherhood with Gilbert Markham's. The kindness of the latter versus the depravity of the former shows that Bronte champions what we like to think of as a modern view of fatherhood--nurturing and stable--as opposed to Huntington's view of his son as a possession that he can do with as he pleases, even to the point of destruction. I wonder if this is in part a knock at Patrick Bronte, for his part in the dissolution of her brother Branwell?
I am so glad to have picked up this book and so sorry that I did not do so much sooner. The pilgrimage to Haworth that I intend to take one day will be just as much in tribute to the youngest of the Brontes as it will be to her older sisters.
Despite the clumsy structure of this novel (the narrative of the male protagonist sandwiches the preliminary, cautionary tale of Anne Huntington, the eponymous "tenant") the psychological truth and the sheer modernity of the story make it gripping and timely.
It's hard to believe that Anne Bronte is sometimes seen as an also-ran to her two more famous sisters. In ways, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is much more readable and its characters much more relatable than those of Wuthering Heights, and Helen's love interest, the sensible, salt-of-the-earth gentleman farmer, Gilbert Markham, is a much more appealing leading man than Mr. Rocherster in Jane Eyre.
In many ways also, Anne Bronte's attention to character and to her insightful descriptions of the social whirl reminded me greatly of Jane Austen (though few of Austen's characters have the dark sides of the Grass-dale Manor set.) And, while the plight of Helen at the tender mercies of her husband are harrowing-- reading this, I gave thanks for all the benefits of the women's rights movement--the happy ending was gratifying. It was also surprising and enlightening to see Anne Bronte's juxtaposition of Arthur Huntington's idea of fatherhood with Gilbert Markham's. The kindness of the latter versus the depravity of the former shows that Bronte champions what we like to think of as a modern view of fatherhood--nurturing and stable--as opposed to Huntington's view of his son as a possession that he can do with as he pleases, even to the point of destruction. I wonder if this is in part a knock at Patrick Bronte, for his part in the dissolution of her brother Branwell?
I am so glad to have picked up this book and so sorry that I did not do so much sooner. The pilgrimage to Haworth that I intend to take one day will be just as much in tribute to the youngest of the Brontes as it will be to her older sisters.
And then, at the age of 53, it occurs to you you've never read and know almost nothing about the third Bronte sister even though you've been carting an old orange Penguin classic edition of one of her two novels from habitation to habitation for years...
Picking it up, you remember why: The title and cover painting recall a thrilling female Gothic story with a scary, Byronic hero-villain and an abandoned old (don't forget crumbling!) manor on the moors... and then the blurb on the back dashes all of your hopes. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall isn't Gothic at all; this novel's horrors are real.
But this winter I braved it anyway and have been happily rewarded. It may well be the smoothest read of the three Bronte sister's big novels--although it's been some time since I last read the sisters from Yorkshire and was just in the mood/inundated with Victorian prose at the moment. Interestingly, both the mixing of male and female narrative voices as well as the Chinese Box form of the narrative (exactly like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in fact, a series of letters recounting a narrative with a written MS in the middle as a kind of flashback) worked fine for me and my casual reader and reality-checker were well satisfied at the author's level of craft--that is to say, I found the artistic techniques to blend smoothly with the reality of the narrative presented. Although interesting, the form didn't get in the way of the story and both the male and the female voice were perfectly convincing, again to yours truly. Brava Ms. Bronte!
In terms of content (and moral instruction) I took my medicine without much trouble. The novel, as the blurb on the back makes evidently clear, is rather didactic--it calls out a social evil (or perhaps a couple of social evils) in a slightly melodramatic, narrative manner. The worst of that is the religious framing of the topic of alcoholic moral dissolution. I say this because I'm not a believer and so I don't naturally associate morals with religion but rather hypocritical moralism--what religions are really all about, in my humble and unpopular opinion.
The best of this is that the somewhat Christian spin on dissolution was rather a slight motif and in no way waters down or gets in the way of the actual narrative presentation of the protagonist's husband's chemical and moral dissolution and its effects upon himself, her, her child, or their friends. It's a well drawn portrait of a selfish and privileged man overindulging until he's lost in selfish pleasures and addictions he doesn't even notice anymore and its restraint is remarkable. Frankly, in the end, Mr. Huntigdon is really much more true to life than the far more romantic (and romanticized--even over-romanticized) Heathcliff or Rochester--perhaps because based on the dissolution of Anne's own brother, Bramwell.
Best of all, the mixed voices of the narrative were very much what Russian post-Formalist literary critic M. M. Bakhtin had in mind, I believe, when he formulated his theory that the best novels are dialectic in nature. We do see/hear several viewpoints and philosophies argued/displayed in both deed and effect in the narrative and we're not really manipulated much as readers to moralize upon them as so many of these types or narratives ask us to do. So score there. I found neither of the two protagonists likable--Helen is far too priggish to be likable and Huntingdon too self-centered morally loose (obviously) to be respected so of course these flawed characterizations, while perhaps slightly damaging the big feminist point some critics insist on assigning to this novel (not without reason, but it is a story/novel/narrative too, I hasten to add) it helped me to read without condescending to the moral. In the end I was torn between wanting the narrator, Markham, to get the girl or not. But often people we like end up with others whose worth we fail to see and their happiness is in no way mitigated by our doubts. Live and let live, I say.
Which reminds me, I was always a bit on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next in this novel--no mean trick for a realistic narrative without the melodramatic goings-on of Gothic romances. Good stuff!
Picking it up, you remember why: The title and cover painting recall a thrilling female Gothic story with a scary, Byronic hero-villain and an abandoned old (don't forget crumbling!) manor on the moors... and then the blurb on the back dashes all of your hopes. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall isn't Gothic at all; this novel's horrors are real.
But this winter I braved it anyway and have been happily rewarded. It may well be the smoothest read of the three Bronte sister's big novels--although it's been some time since I last read the sisters from Yorkshire and was just in the mood/inundated with Victorian prose at the moment. Interestingly, both the mixing of male and female narrative voices as well as the Chinese Box form of the narrative (exactly like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in fact, a series of letters recounting a narrative with a written MS in the middle as a kind of flashback) worked fine for me and my casual reader and reality-checker were well satisfied at the author's level of craft--that is to say, I found the artistic techniques to blend smoothly with the reality of the narrative presented. Although interesting, the form didn't get in the way of the story and both the male and the female voice were perfectly convincing, again to yours truly. Brava Ms. Bronte!
In terms of content (and moral instruction) I took my medicine without much trouble. The novel, as the blurb on the back makes evidently clear, is rather didactic--it calls out a social evil (or perhaps a couple of social evils) in a slightly melodramatic, narrative manner. The worst of that is the religious framing of the topic of alcoholic moral dissolution. I say this because I'm not a believer and so I don't naturally associate morals with religion but rather hypocritical moralism--what religions are really all about, in my humble and unpopular opinion.
The best of this is that the somewhat Christian spin on dissolution was rather a slight motif and in no way waters down or gets in the way of the actual narrative presentation of the protagonist's husband's chemical and moral dissolution and its effects upon himself, her, her child, or their friends. It's a well drawn portrait of a selfish and privileged man overindulging until he's lost in selfish pleasures and addictions he doesn't even notice anymore and its restraint is remarkable. Frankly, in the end, Mr. Huntigdon is really much more true to life than the far more romantic (and romanticized--even over-romanticized) Heathcliff or Rochester--perhaps because based on the dissolution of Anne's own brother, Bramwell.
Best of all, the mixed voices of the narrative were very much what Russian post-Formalist literary critic M. M. Bakhtin had in mind, I believe, when he formulated his theory that the best novels are dialectic in nature. We do see/hear several viewpoints and philosophies argued/displayed in both deed and effect in the narrative and we're not really manipulated much as readers to moralize upon them as so many of these types or narratives ask us to do. So score there. I found neither of the two protagonists likable--Helen is far too priggish to be likable and Huntingdon too self-centered morally loose (obviously) to be respected so of course these flawed characterizations, while perhaps slightly damaging the big feminist point some critics insist on assigning to this novel (not without reason, but it is a story/novel/narrative too, I hasten to add) it helped me to read without condescending to the moral. In the end I was torn between wanting the narrator, Markham, to get the girl or not. But often people we like end up with others whose worth we fail to see and their happiness is in no way mitigated by our doubts. Live and let live, I say.
Which reminds me, I was always a bit on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next in this novel--no mean trick for a realistic narrative without the melodramatic goings-on of Gothic romances. Good stuff!
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
agnes grey you would have loved coming of age movies. and if you love coming of age movies you might love agnes grey!
I liked most of this book a lot but some of it dragged out, especially in the middle. The format was a little odd. It was supposed to be a letter (or letters?) written by the main character to someone else, but in order to get the point of view of the other main character in there, he supposedly copied her entire diary into the letter. He much have had a lot of time on his hands! Anyway, it was interesting to see the changes in Helen from all she went through. I wish I had a dollar for every time the words "intimated" and "wrath" appeared in the book.
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book is a classic for a reason. Especially for the time and place written. It is a story with an early feminist touch, with empowerment after abuse. I highly recommend this.