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marziesreads 's review for:
Manga Classics: Jane Eyre
by Crystal S. Chan, Charlotte Brontë
This book was received from Net Galley in exchange for a fair review.
I was always a reader from early childhood and when I was 7 years old my zest for a good story exceeded my stamina for reading long, dense books. It was at this precise moment, 15₵ in hand, that I discovered my first Classics Illustrated comic book, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. And thus began a love affair. In the ensuing year, I devoured every single Classics Illustrated comic book I could find. Every penny of allowance money went to this great cause. Eventually, after reading the Classics Illustrated Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, I picked up the actual book from my parents' library and at the age of almost 9, dictionary by my side, mother working as my consultant (how do you even pronounce Eyre, anyway, I asked first), read the book. I then started going back and reading some of the other books from which the comics had been adapted. Sometimes, I found the books daunting. A Tale of Two Cities, a fantastic story set against the French Revolution (which captured my imagination greatly because like Tudor England, there was so much beheading going on) was dense and sometimes I lost the trail of the story. That was a common experience with Dickens, with Emily Brontë and other authors, especially Shakespeare. I was a child, trying to read long, unillustrated often dense and socially complex books. But the taste of these classics left by Classics Illustrated comics, the concepts of the magnificent stories, from actual plot to world building, whetted my appetite for great literature.
And so it was with great interest that I received Jane Eyre adapted by Stacy King (and it would be so grand if this Goodreads listing said just that, instead of BY Stacy King) to a manga presentation. I love the idea and especially I love that it is in true manga format, read from the back forwards, from right to left, all of which might make a young reader pause to think about other ways of writing (literal writing) and other cultures. We all know that Jane Eyre is a great, good book, even though I always mentally berate Jane for still loving Mr. Rochester after all that went down. If this manga gets one more child to be thrilled at a great classic story and to hold that story in their mind and heart, it's a success. The only negative thing I have to say is that seeing Japanese manga imagery for these staid Victorian gothic characters felt dissonant somehow. But I got over it!
I was always a reader from early childhood and when I was 7 years old my zest for a good story exceeded my stamina for reading long, dense books. It was at this precise moment, 15₵ in hand, that I discovered my first Classics Illustrated comic book, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. And thus began a love affair. In the ensuing year, I devoured every single Classics Illustrated comic book I could find. Every penny of allowance money went to this great cause. Eventually, after reading the Classics Illustrated Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, I picked up the actual book from my parents' library and at the age of almost 9, dictionary by my side, mother working as my consultant (how do you even pronounce Eyre, anyway, I asked first), read the book. I then started going back and reading some of the other books from which the comics had been adapted. Sometimes, I found the books daunting. A Tale of Two Cities, a fantastic story set against the French Revolution (which captured my imagination greatly because like Tudor England, there was so much beheading going on) was dense and sometimes I lost the trail of the story. That was a common experience with Dickens, with Emily Brontë and other authors, especially Shakespeare. I was a child, trying to read long, unillustrated often dense and socially complex books. But the taste of these classics left by Classics Illustrated comics, the concepts of the magnificent stories, from actual plot to world building, whetted my appetite for great literature.
And so it was with great interest that I received Jane Eyre adapted by Stacy King (and it would be so grand if this Goodreads listing said just that, instead of BY Stacy King) to a manga presentation. I love the idea and especially I love that it is in true manga format, read from the back forwards, from right to left, all of which might make a young reader pause to think about other ways of writing (literal writing) and other cultures. We all know that Jane Eyre is a great, good book, even though I always mentally berate Jane for still loving Mr. Rochester after all that went down. If this manga gets one more child to be thrilled at a great classic story and to hold that story in their mind and heart, it's a success. The only negative thing I have to say is that seeing Japanese manga imagery for these staid Victorian gothic characters felt dissonant somehow. But I got over it!