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A review by claudiaswisher
Becoming Jane Eyre by Sheila Kohler
4.0
Disclaimer: I am a HUGE Jane Eyre fan. My mother and I read it together, we loved it. Mom spent lots of time in Haworth,England at the church, the graveyard, the museums. We love Jane.
This book was a wonderful treat. 'What if...' fiction always intrigues me, and this has the added advantage of being based on the facts of the Brontes' lives. From Charlotte's accompanying her father for surgery to her sad, premature death, we are allowed into the minds of the remarkable women who hid their identity from the world, and all published books that are still important today.
I knew the bare-bones of the stories of Jane and Cathy and Agnes Grey, but Kohler adds such lovely tidbits...and such sad characterizations of the men in their lives.
Dreams, conflicts, rivalries...they're all here. Support that only sisters can give, and meanness only sisters can dish.
The narrative was quite complicated, slipping in and out of present tense, in the limited POV of everyone in the family except Branwell, and even slipping into future at the end. This gave such a reflective feel to the story. One reviewer complained that there was little action...of course! There was almost no action in the lives of these amazing young women. The action was locked in their imaginations...they had the ability to take their quiet lives and create, invent, deep lives and characters who still resonate.
What sad, sad lives they led...losing mother, sisters, brother...losing loved ones. Charlotte outlived all her siblings, and died just as she was about to become a mother herself.
There were passages that brought me to tears, because I knew my mother would have nodded in recognition. She once told me of sitting in the church, looking out at the moors, and suddenly understanding where the sisters' dark, brooding, complicated stories came from.
My mother would have loved this book...I love it for the both of us.
This book was a wonderful treat. 'What if...' fiction always intrigues me, and this has the added advantage of being based on the facts of the Brontes' lives. From Charlotte's accompanying her father for surgery to her sad, premature death, we are allowed into the minds of the remarkable women who hid their identity from the world, and all published books that are still important today.
I knew the bare-bones of the stories of Jane and Cathy and Agnes Grey, but Kohler adds such lovely tidbits...and such sad characterizations of the men in their lives.
Dreams, conflicts, rivalries...they're all here. Support that only sisters can give, and meanness only sisters can dish.
The narrative was quite complicated, slipping in and out of present tense, in the limited POV of everyone in the family except Branwell, and even slipping into future at the end. This gave such a reflective feel to the story. One reviewer complained that there was little action...of course! There was almost no action in the lives of these amazing young women. The action was locked in their imaginations...they had the ability to take their quiet lives and create, invent, deep lives and characters who still resonate.
What sad, sad lives they led...losing mother, sisters, brother...losing loved ones. Charlotte outlived all her siblings, and died just as she was about to become a mother herself.
There were passages that brought me to tears, because I knew my mother would have nodded in recognition. She once told me of sitting in the church, looking out at the moors, and suddenly understanding where the sisters' dark, brooding, complicated stories came from.
My mother would have loved this book...I love it for the both of us.