bookish_5280 's review for:

Учитель by Charlotte Brontë

2.5

slow-paced

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Having adored Jane Eyre, I was extraordinarily impatient to finally get to read another Charlotte Bronte book. Unfortunately, this one was a major disappointment to me. Although I found solace in the simple yet sumptuous writing style that I loved so much in Jane Eyre, virtually every other aspect of The Professor left me entirely unaffected. I didn't enjoy the student-teacher nature of the romance, although it is quite interesting to learn why Charlotte wrote so many novels with a domineering male lead and a female lead in a more submissive role. In a lot of ways, both Jane Eyre and the Professor were just fantasies for Charlotte's own unrequited love for a married Belgian schoolmaster, which turned her mid and late twenties into torment. And while there were several instances when Charlotte's emerging feminism peeked through (one of the reasons I love Jane Eyre so much more is because the feminist and subversive/rebellious themes are much more strongly written) such as when Frances insists on continuing her professional career despite marriage, many of the plot points and emotions seemed predictable and hence the narrative felt emotionally manipulative and fake. I am glad that I read it, but I much prefer Charlotte's later works and Anne's novels.