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A review by camilleviva
Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye
4.0
I was a bit hesitant when I picked this book up, because the description says it’s a “retelling of Jane Eyre.” I wasn’t sure if I liked the idea of simply changing one variable--making Jane evil--and then retelling a classic, even if it’s a classic that I love. But Jane Steele is much more complex than a purely evil caricature of the original Jane, or "a predator in the guise of a slender young woman," and this is definitely not merely a retelling of Jane Eyre.
I would probably classify this book as a Victorian novel that is written for a modern reader. Of course, thrillers like "Gone Girl"seem to appeal more to the modern reader than long Victorian novels with the heavy realism of the plight of the unfortunate...But somehow Lindsay Faye has managed to create a modern, “Victorian thriller” that has war, plot twists, intrigue, murder, passionate love, female war heroes, and more. And all the while, she retains familiar Victorian themes of transcendence between class and cultural boundaries, the inner workings of the mind, and discourses of nostalgia, craving, and belonging.
This is also definitely more of a derivative of Jane Eyre than a retelling. Jane Steele is particularly self-conscious about the similarities between her own life and her favourite literary heroine Jane Eyre’s. As an orphan and an outcast, I think that Jane Steel clings to her favourite novel, Jane Eyre, as a way of navigating a cruel and lonely Victorian world. And while she draws parallels between herself and Jane Eyre to make sense of her world, she's also cognizant that she’s not exactly cut from the same cloth as Jane Eyre is.
While the plot is really exciting and twisty, this book also has thematic depth; on a deeper level it’s about what happens when Jane Steele internalizes society’s negative perception of her as an “other.” The way that society's perceptions of Jane shape her own self-image as a murderess reminded me a lot of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (and specifically how Victor Frankenstein's monster is not inherently good or evil at the outset, but internalizes society’s treatment of him as a monster), but I would only draw this comparison on a thematic level.
I would probably classify this book as a Victorian novel that is written for a modern reader. Of course, thrillers like "Gone Girl"seem to appeal more to the modern reader than long Victorian novels with the heavy realism of the plight of the unfortunate...But somehow Lindsay Faye has managed to create a modern, “Victorian thriller” that has war, plot twists, intrigue, murder, passionate love, female war heroes, and more. And all the while, she retains familiar Victorian themes of transcendence between class and cultural boundaries, the inner workings of the mind, and discourses of nostalgia, craving, and belonging.
This is also definitely more of a derivative of Jane Eyre than a retelling. Jane Steele is particularly self-conscious about the similarities between her own life and her favourite literary heroine Jane Eyre’s. As an orphan and an outcast, I think that Jane Steel clings to her favourite novel, Jane Eyre, as a way of navigating a cruel and lonely Victorian world. And while she draws parallels between herself and Jane Eyre to make sense of her world, she's also cognizant that she’s not exactly cut from the same cloth as Jane Eyre is.
While the plot is really exciting and twisty, this book also has thematic depth; on a deeper level it’s about what happens when Jane Steele internalizes society’s negative perception of her as an “other.” The way that society's perceptions of Jane shape her own self-image as a murderess reminded me a lot of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (and specifically how Victor Frankenstein's monster is not inherently good or evil at the outset, but internalizes society’s treatment of him as a monster), but I would only draw this comparison on a thematic level.