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A review by artemismatchalatte
Becoming Jane Eyre by Sheila Kohler
4.0
I took a long time to read this book. It took me some time to get into. The first third of the book was incredibly slow for me but once I got to about page 80 I read the rest of this book in a day.
This is a story of the legendary literary family, the Bronte sisters. It mainly focuses on Charlotte and what led up to her writing Jane Eyre. After reading this book, it is very clear to me that Jane Eyre was almost an autobiography since most of the characters in the book are directly related to people she knew and events that happened in her life.
I was more interested in the pieces with Emily and Anne; who don’t enter the novel as characters until several chapters in. There are some small parts in the middle which are from their prospectives. Honestly, I preferred Wuthering Heights to Jane Eyre but I was still drawn in by both novels that I still was interested in reading this book. Though I have yet to read anything by Anne Bronte, I intend to read one of her novels soon since this novel really only wanted to read her books more. Anne seems to get less literary cred than her older sisters, Charlotte and Emily, and I wanted to see why. Even Charlotte herself in this novel puts Anne’s work down when comparing them all to each other. I’m not sure if that’s fair. Though she also seemed (somewhat understandably) bitter that her sister’s two novels got picked up before hers for publication.
This story is about many aspects of family; sticking together through unbelievably hard times, as well as realistic and sympathetic portrayals of sibling rivalry between the sisters and their work. They have to take turns caring for their ailing preacher father and their mad, alcoholic brother, Branwell. They turned to their craft to try make money after they had jobs as governesses to wealthy families.
Charlotte has the longest career out of her sisters since she survives all of her siblings; none of whom ever marry. But even she dies rather young, in childbirth, with her first child. This book seems to show how difficult the lives of the Brontes were and from this tough existence, came some of the best writing of the 19th century, if not all of English literature.
I gave this book 4 stars. If you are interested in the Bronte sisters, Victorian lit, biographies, women writers, or the stories behind novels, I would suggest this book for you. There were parts where the pacing was a little off for me but I also read this book at an odd pace so that could have been me rather than the text itself.
This is a story of the legendary literary family, the Bronte sisters. It mainly focuses on Charlotte and what led up to her writing Jane Eyre. After reading this book, it is very clear to me that Jane Eyre was almost an autobiography since most of the characters in the book are directly related to people she knew and events that happened in her life.
I was more interested in the pieces with Emily and Anne; who don’t enter the novel as characters until several chapters in. There are some small parts in the middle which are from their prospectives. Honestly, I preferred Wuthering Heights to Jane Eyre but I was still drawn in by both novels that I still was interested in reading this book. Though I have yet to read anything by Anne Bronte, I intend to read one of her novels soon since this novel really only wanted to read her books more. Anne seems to get less literary cred than her older sisters, Charlotte and Emily, and I wanted to see why. Even Charlotte herself in this novel puts Anne’s work down when comparing them all to each other. I’m not sure if that’s fair. Though she also seemed (somewhat understandably) bitter that her sister’s two novels got picked up before hers for publication.
This story is about many aspects of family; sticking together through unbelievably hard times, as well as realistic and sympathetic portrayals of sibling rivalry between the sisters and their work. They have to take turns caring for their ailing preacher father and their mad, alcoholic brother, Branwell. They turned to their craft to try make money after they had jobs as governesses to wealthy families.
Charlotte has the longest career out of her sisters since she survives all of her siblings; none of whom ever marry. But even she dies rather young, in childbirth, with her first child. This book seems to show how difficult the lives of the Brontes were and from this tough existence, came some of the best writing of the 19th century, if not all of English literature.
I gave this book 4 stars. If you are interested in the Bronte sisters, Victorian lit, biographies, women writers, or the stories behind novels, I would suggest this book for you. There were parts where the pacing was a little off for me but I also read this book at an odd pace so that could have been me rather than the text itself.