A while ago, I read a review of this new book by Lyndsay Faye which indicated that it was about a murderous governess who was a bit like Jane Eyre. While I am not a huge fan of Jane Eyre or the work of the Brontes in general (honestly, Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre and Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights are both tremendous jerks and their women were well shot of them), I already knew from Gods Of Gotham that Lyndsay Faye was a wonderful writer […]
When your husband tells you he killed someone, you might want to be a little nervous
Rebecca is one of those books I was always assumed I had read. I knew the basics of the plot, and of course the famous opening line, “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” When I realized I’d somehow missed reading it, I picked it up. It’s the perfect book to curl up with on a rainy Sunday with a cup of tea. While I didn’t love it as much as everyone else seems to, I certainly enjoyed it. While working as the […]
No. Just no.
You know how sometimes modern adaptations of our favorite classic novels turn out great, and quickly go up on the shelf alongside the original? Bridget Jones. Clueless. For Darkness Shows the Stars. And then there are some that aren’t great, but are ok, and that’s good enough, because it makes us think about how great the original was. Death Comes to Pemberley. Emma: A Modern Retelling. Of course, there are lots that are just lousy. But for some reason, that doesn’t stop me from reading […]
“Running, I soon realized, was the best way to stay ahead of fear.”
In her author’s note, Margot Livesey states quite plainly that the source of inspiration for this book “should be obvious.” It’s been long enough since I’ve read Jane Eyre that I didn’t get to play the details pedant, but The Flight of Gemma Hardy so closely matches the main events of its classic predecessor that my foggy memory had no trouble recalling parallel characters, locations, and plot points once re-imagined through Gemma’s steps. The set-up is familiar: Gemma is orphaned and raised by family members who […]
An original and innovative Jane Eyre adaptation
In recent years, I have looked less favorably upon Jane Eyre than when I first read it in high school. I think that is owing largely to being disillusioned with Mr. Rochester’s douchiness. But when The Chancellor told me that there was an adaptation featuring a half-Korean, half-American young woman, I was highly intrigued. Re Jane is the story of orphan Jane Re, a young woman straddling several cultures. After graduating from a smallish college and being rejected for a job at Lowood, a financial […]
This is Madness!
Antoinette Cosway, the main character of this novel, is the crazy woman in the attic in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Rhys imagines the life of Rochester’s first wife and the events that drove her to madness, demonstrating her knowledge and understanding of Jamaican/West Indies history and culture as well as the powerful socio-economic forces that influenced post-Emancipation development there. As Francis Wyndham writes in the introduction, …Rhys knew about the mad Creole heiresses in the early nineteenth century, whose dowries were only an additional burden […]