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Mr. Rochester
by Sarah Shoemaker
medium-paced
I found Mr Rochester to be an enjoyable, satisfying read, true in both style and substance to Jane Eyre. We first meet Mr Rochester as an eight year old boy and follow him through his unconventioanl schooling and his time spent learning the ropes of business in an English woollen mill, through his years in Jamaica and his ill-fated marriage, to his return to England and the events we are all familiar with thanks to Charlotte Brontë, this time told through his eyes not Jane’s.
Shoemaker does a great job at creating a credible backstory for Rochester. His absent yet controlling father, his favoured, callous older brother, and his lack of a mother all played key roles. We come to see and understand him as a man seeking love, belonging and a sense of home. Seeing how he was manipulated into his marriage with Bertha, and how it is with good intentions and a possibly misplaced and misguided sense of loyalty and duty that he keeps her locked up at home rather than placing her in an institution also aids our understanding of this tortured character.
Understanding how Rochester’s character came to be formed is one thing and this book does make him a fairly sympathetic character. But I still couldn’t bring myself to approve of many of his actions with regards to Jane such as teasing and manipulating by pretending he planned to marry Blanche Ingram, and attempting to marry her he was while still married to Bertha. He may have been despairing but his actions were unworthy of them both.
Retellings and spin-offs from beloved classics can be hard to get right. This one hit the mark for me.
Shoemaker does a great job at creating a credible backstory for Rochester. His absent yet controlling father, his favoured, callous older brother, and his lack of a mother all played key roles. We come to see and understand him as a man seeking love, belonging and a sense of home. Seeing how he was manipulated into his marriage with Bertha, and how it is with good intentions and a possibly misplaced and misguided sense of loyalty and duty that he keeps her locked up at home rather than placing her in an institution also aids our understanding of this tortured character.
Understanding how Rochester’s character came to be formed is one thing and this book does make him a fairly sympathetic character. But I still couldn’t bring myself to approve of many of his actions with regards to Jane such as teasing and manipulating by pretending he planned to marry Blanche Ingram, and attempting to marry her he was while still married to Bertha. He may have been despairing but his actions were unworthy of them both.
Retellings and spin-offs from beloved classics can be hard to get right. This one hit the mark for me.