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A review by rachelgertrude
Becoming Jane Eyre by Sheila Kohler
4.0
I read this book in an airport, expecting that it would be standard, light and frothy airport fare. Strangely, it took me right to early Victorian London, so that I looked up from the book and had to remember I wasn't there. This book is Charlotte Bronte in glimpses, in word snapshots. It is such a "quiet" book, quiet like those women who are mad but are hiding all of the anger behind a frozen smile. It is like sitting in a very quiet room, and hearing the rustle of people's skirts as they walk, or the sound of the wind outside, and looking at the faces of your family every now and then as you read or write. But in all of this silence, you can hear all around an intense whispering of words which are only alive on the unspoken page.
Refreshing to me was Kohler's ability to create an atmosphere that never hinted by any means to be other than Bronte's time. I remember watching Somewhere in Time, where the guy is able to visit the past by a sort of mind manipulation, but if on his journey to the past, he sees any reminder of the present, he will instantly be recalled to his own time. In the end, he finds a penny in his pocket from the present day, and it ruins everything.
It seems like many historical fiction writers can't help but throw a 2012 penny into their picture of the past, either overemphasizing famous names and news stories of the time, or trying too hard to write dialogue of the past but making silly mistakes by throwing in modern colloquialisms. How did Kohler avoid doing this? I don't know!
I felt that she painted the real Charlotte somehow. Today we remember Charlotte Bronte for her moral courage, for her emotional honesty, for her passionate intensity. But we forget some of the things about Charlotte Bronte's nature that probably perplexed those around her: her pride and inability to accept criticism clearheadedly, the manner in which her intense emotions probably frightened people off: the fact that until she was recognized for her work, she was obscure and treated so. I am glad that Kohler included these things, and made Charlotte's life and struggles real.
Refreshing to me was Kohler's ability to create an atmosphere that never hinted by any means to be other than Bronte's time. I remember watching Somewhere in Time, where the guy is able to visit the past by a sort of mind manipulation, but if on his journey to the past, he sees any reminder of the present, he will instantly be recalled to his own time. In the end, he finds a penny in his pocket from the present day, and it ruins everything.
It seems like many historical fiction writers can't help but throw a 2012 penny into their picture of the past, either overemphasizing famous names and news stories of the time, or trying too hard to write dialogue of the past but making silly mistakes by throwing in modern colloquialisms. How did Kohler avoid doing this? I don't know!
I felt that she painted the real Charlotte somehow. Today we remember Charlotte Bronte for her moral courage, for her emotional honesty, for her passionate intensity. But we forget some of the things about Charlotte Bronte's nature that probably perplexed those around her: her pride and inability to accept criticism clearheadedly, the manner in which her intense emotions probably frightened people off: the fact that until she was recognized for her work, she was obscure and treated so. I am glad that Kohler included these things, and made Charlotte's life and struggles real.