Bookish Thoughts

This was my second time through Jane Eyre, and I liked it a whole lot better this time. Part of that is because I've grown as a person, and I understand the context of this book more now. But part of it is because I read The Eyre Affair , and it changed my mind about the ending. When I first read this book, I was upset that Eyre went back to Mr Rochester after everything. But then Fforde argues pretty effectively that any other ending would be unsatisfactory and anti-climactic. He made me appreciate Mr Rochester a bit more. So this time through I was rooting for them. And I was happy that they ended up together. I suppose my changing reaction is part of what makes this book such a classic.

Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre is a much longer book than I was expecting it to be. This is partially because I read it on my kindle and had no physical sense of how big the book was when I started it. It was also not at all what I expected. I'd just finished Pride and Prejudice and Little Women and for some reason I was expecting a similar story, which is part of why I started reading it But right off the bat I had to toss my expectations out the window. The opening chapters of the book reminded me strongly of the beginning of Harry Potter . Ten-year-old Jane is an orphan living with her uncle's widow. She suffers from an abusive cousin and a neglectful aunt and can never seem to please anyone. No one arrives to tell Jane that she actually has magical abilities, but she is whisked away to a boarding school for orphans where things get marginally better. And by better, I mean that no one beats her or locks her up, but they do still starve and freeze her...