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A review by amelia990
John Eyre: A Tale of Darkness and Shadow by Mimi Matthews
3.5
This book has left me conflicted. There are things I really liked and things I really did not.
Let's start with the "this just did not work for me" stuff. It was hard for me to become invested in any plot line because we jumped between the past plotline in Bertha's letters and journal and the current plot line with John. Every time it jumped, it pulled me out of the story. Epistolary stories are already hard to read; flipping between that style and regular fiction did not work for me. I think the story would have worked better had Bertha's writings been provided to us at the time John receives them. (Honestly, we are smart and live in 2023; we know what a vampire is without the journal). The other issue is the...well, vampire. I have no issue with the vampire per se. I actually have a lot of thoughts on the vampire in a positive manner. My issue was more - if someone has read Dracula, this is just way too similar. There was a way to pay homage without having literally the same story details as those between Jonathan and Dracula. I know Matthews can do homage - she has other stories where she does it brilliantly. I don't know if she didn't feel comfortable enough with the horror that she clung to Stoker too much or she had no idea how to write a vampire story.
The things that I liked, and what really saves the book, are the discussions of gender and how Matthews uses the gender reversal in John Eyre to critique both Bronte and the Victorian world. Bronte's Rochester is a jerk with a lot of power and privilege. By casting the role as a woman, however, the character reads very different - Bertha /doesn't/ have power. Legally, she belongs to her husband, even if she is wealthy and has this big house and these servants and what-not. Her locking up her (admittedly much more dangerous) spouse is an act of survival - both for herself and for the two boys. Bronte's Rochester's act of locking up his spouse was selfish. Similarly, Jane's passivity grates on me because she already has no power as a penniless, orphaned woman; when John behaves in a more passive manner, it makes him read as a kind, thoughtful man. John lives in a society where he has power purely because he's a man; he isn't helpless the way Jane is. I also appreciate Rochester as the villain (mainly because I find him villainous in both works). The symbolism there is [chef's kiss].
Let's start with the "this just did not work for me" stuff. It was hard for me to become invested in any plot line because we jumped between the past plotline in Bertha's letters and journal and the current plot line with John. Every time it jumped, it pulled me out of the story. Epistolary stories are already hard to read; flipping between that style and regular fiction did not work for me. I think the story would have worked better had Bertha's writings been provided to us at the time John receives them. (Honestly, we are smart and live in 2023; we know what a vampire is without the journal). The other issue is the...well, vampire. I have no issue with the vampire per se. I actually have a lot of thoughts on the vampire in a positive manner. My issue was more - if someone has read Dracula, this is just way too similar. There was a way to pay homage without having literally the same story details as those between Jonathan and Dracula. I know Matthews can do homage - she has other stories where she does it brilliantly. I don't know if she didn't feel comfortable enough with the horror that she clung to Stoker too much or she had no idea how to write a vampire story.
The things that I liked, and what really saves the book, are the discussions of gender and how Matthews uses the gender reversal in John Eyre to critique both Bronte and the Victorian world. Bronte's Rochester is a jerk with a lot of power and privilege. By casting the role as a woman, however, the character reads very different - Bertha /doesn't/ have power. Legally, she belongs to her husband, even if she is wealthy and has this big house and these servants and what-not. Her locking up her (admittedly much more dangerous) spouse is an act of survival - both for herself and for the two boys. Bronte's Rochester's act of locking up his spouse was selfish. Similarly, Jane's passivity grates on me because she already has no power as a penniless, orphaned woman; when John behaves in a more passive manner, it makes him read as a kind, thoughtful man. John lives in a society where he has power purely because he's a man; he isn't helpless the way Jane is. I also appreciate Rochester as the villain (mainly because I find him villainous in both works). The symbolism there is [chef's kiss].