Becoming Jane Eyre

Becoming Jane Eyre is a beautiful story of how Charlotte Bronte wrote her masterpiece, Jane Eyre. Charlotte is alone with her invalid father in Manchester when she is compelled to begin writing her second novel. She flashes back to different experiences in her life including her time as a governess and time spent as a student and teacher in Brussels. The tragedies and passions in her life find themselves transformed into a fictional tale with just enough truth behind it to become a very original novel. After Charlotte and her father return to Manchester, she finishes Jane Eyre. Charlotte is more than a bit saddened when her first novel, The Professor, is rejected, while her sisters' novels, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey are accepted for publication. Ironically, Jane Eyre is printed by a different publisher before her sisters' novels and it is the fame of Jane Eyre that propelled the sales of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey. Sadly the happiness of Charlotte's newfound fame is offset by numerous family tragedies. I enjoyed this novel immensely. I especially loved the scenes of sisterly bonds and friction when the three Bronte sisters are working on their novels and awaiting publication. To have so much talent under one roof is just amazing. The love and yet the jealousy of each sister and their talent is written very believably. The only part of this book that I did not enjoy was that it ended so soon. The main focuses of the novel are the writing, publication, and first flush of fame with Jane Eyre. The novel then skips to the end of Charlotte Bronte's life. I wish there would have been more details in this last portion of the book, but I also realize that the main focus was on the creation of Jane Eyre. I really enjoyed the "Penguin Readers Guide to Becoming Jane Eyre" at the end of the book. The Reader's Guide included an enlightening interview with Sheila Kohler as well as a book club questionnaire. I was thrilled to see that Kohler used Lyndall Gordon's biography of Charlotte Bronte (Charlotte Bronte: A Passionate Life) as an inspiration for Becoming Jane Eyre. A Passionate Life is my favorite Bronte biography. Overall Becoming Jane Eyre is a fascinating look into the creative process that Charlotte Bronte may have used to write her masterpiece. I highly recommend it to all Bronte lovers!

In fact, I found Becoming Jane Eyre a real page-turner, and couldn't stop until I had finished. Kohler just gets better and better. It's so richly imagined, so moving, so clever in it structure and winks to the reader (I mean this in the best, British sense of that word clever), and such a natural fit for this novelist. As if, through Kohler's enchanting prose, one's whole fictional sense blossomed among these girls and their love of the magic and redemption of story telling.

"For who would want to read something by an obscure parson's daughter, living in a remote region of Yorkshire? And what could she have written about? What can she possibly know, having lived so much of her life alone, sheltered, protected in this cramped parsonage, with nothing around her but barren moors, her spinster sisters, her spinster aunt, an elderly ignorant servant, a delinquent brother...She has lived all her life either at home, at girls' schools, or as a governess with small children, shut up in various nurseries like a nun. What does she know about the human heart, about love?" Much it turns out. The "she" is Charlotte Bronte, nursing an autocratic father who is recovering from an operation to correct his blindness. In 1846, Charlotte is already a spinster, as are her two sisters, Emily and Anne. Because they are impoverished, the Bronte sisters have to earn their way as teachers and governesses. Despite the harshness of their circumstances, all three harbor dreams of being published. Although their novels have been rejected numerous times, the Bronte sisters persevere - none more determined than Charlotte. She is a saddened and bitter woman, having been disappointed in unrequited love for a married French professor and humiliated as a governess. Charlotte comes home to care for a blind father who has never valued her or her sisters, preferring instead her talented but dissolute brother, Bramwell. And in that darkened room by her father's bedside, Charlotte channels all her rage, love, and hurt to paper. "In their rejection letter, the editors have asked for an exceptional incident. She will give them one--no: many of them. She will give them mystery...She will write out of rage at injustice and arrogance, the religious humbugs, the exploiters. "She works on the first scene, writing rapidly, seeing it all vividly, the shadowy picture emerging fast from the darkness of her mind, this shadowy room....This new story of an orphan develops with a kind of urgency she has never known before. She has read and written so much from such a young age. She knows the child's position in this alien family will yield a steady stream of pathos. She knows how to create suspense by putting a fragile creature in immediate jeopardy and by making her fight back with spirit and justice." Thus, Sheila Kohler imagines what events in Charlotte's life might have shaped what will become one the most beloved stories of all time, Jane Eyre. In this fictionalized account, Charlotte Bronte emerges from the shadow of her famous novel, fleshed out as a passionate, independent woman - much like Jane - and like Jane, also haunted by tragedies. I found the depiction of the three Bronte sisters (who have always been lumped together in my mind) to be wonderful; their interactions and family dynamic to be real. Like real sisters, they have jealousies, but stand stoicly together under life's burdens. Kohler illuminates some of Emily and Anne's inner lives and what

I approached this book with skepticism as I didn't like the title (and still don't) and I'm leery and weary of books spinning off the brilliance of the Brontes and Austen. (If I see one more book continuing the story of Darcy and Elizabeth, I'll scream.) But as a total Brit. Lit. fan, I found the premise of this book engaging enough to give it a try, though I was expecting to throw in the towel before getting 20 pages in. How surprised I was to find this tale told in sparkling prose with a deep respect for the Brontes that kept me turning pages fervently until the end. I positively devoured this book in a few hours. The author's fictional voice of Charlotte Bronte charmed me utterly. I'm ashamed to admit that although I'm familiar with most of the "major" facts about the Bronte family, I've never read an entire scholarly biography of any of them. This book filled in the framework and made it warm and human. It made me feel as if I had gained a true understanding of what Charlotte and her family and situation were like. Of course, this is a work of fiction, but I felt that the author took very few liberties and stuck to the facts as they are known and generally accepted. She didn't throw in any wild surprises to make Bronte's life more interesting. Rather she told her story in a voice that seemed sincere and authentic and fleshed out the facts with real emotion. I think this is a very well done book that any Jane Eyre or Bronte fan will be glad to have read.

Kohler, Sheila. "Becoming Jane Eyre", Penguin, 2010. The Bronte Sisters Amos Lassen As a high schooler I read Jane Eyre and quite honestly it didn't speak to me. As a graduate student studying feminist literary criticism, I read "Jane Eyre" once again and I was taught to read as a woman and I saw an entirely different book. I was amazed at the power of Charlotte Bronte's language and I fell in love with Jane. I have since read works by and about the other Brontes and now comes along "Becoming Jane Eyre", a wonderful story of the Bronte sisters and the writing of the classic "Jane Eyre". Set in 1846 in Yorkshire we meet a family whose surname could have been disaster. There was no luck. The mother and two of the children have died and the father is poor and sick and suffering from his familial losses. A son, Branwell, is in the process of destroying himself with alcohol and drugs and his three remaining daughters are facing spinsterhood. There is no money but there is talent and each of the girls goes on to be a literary force. Charlotte Bronte is the center of the story as is her writing of the classic book. She may have been poor but she knew she had to face the world and she does so with both perseverance and determination. "Becoming Jane Eyre" not only looks at the literary Brontes but also at the universal themes of gender, class and poverty. Here is a look into a time that was and was not good but we have three women who manage to rise above it all. Charlotte Bronte is both author and heroine and we learn a great deal about her as we do of Jane. Kohler's writing is sublime and her characters are real--she gives us women we have heard of but never really got a chance to know. This is also one of those books that tug at you and I could not stop reading it until I closed the covers.