Very dizzy poet declaims the modern novel

So the dizziness has returned with a vengeance . The meds are  no longer working it seems. Of course I’ve over done it . Going out , even teaching a bit . I was warned about this but didn’t listen so I’m housebound again.  Which is inconvenient because I have a  reading  engagement and a host of fun things to do. So dear reader you can guess my mood

At the same time I ‘ve stopped writing half way through a poem. I am in one of my can’t be bothered , can’t think of anything  frames of mind , so I just stop.

Having discoursed on ‘Jane Eyre’ for ages at my game gals book club ( we all now view Mr Rochester severely and feel he needs counselling for anger management and manipulation)  we are now reading ‘Angel ‘by Elizabeth Taylor  ( No not that one) .

 I must have read it in my twenties because I went through a series of such writers including Elizabeth Bowen and Rosamund Lehman all of who were very fine writers .

Their is prose elegant and exquisite and their narratives unusual . They write I suppose of a lost world that seems some what genteel now which may be why they are out of fashion. What irks me is the shabby  prize winning novels I read  that lack the  expert craftsmanship of these writers . Yet they have been forgotten. They are rather like those classic black and white movies a few of us still watch and love.

When I compare ‘When god was a rabbit’ ( my second book club’s selection) to the genuine emotion wrought in ‘The End of the Affair’ by Elizabeth Bowen …I do feel  most of these award wining novels have been dumbed down , their narratives opportunistic and ridiculous in places .  not every child suffers abuse in childhood, Ms Winman ..When the writer needs to explain her so called themes in a preface as far as I am concerned she had failed.  Onwards then with’ Angel’.

Bad Mr Rochester

I continue to read Jane Eyre. As an old bird now , I am struck by Mr Rochester's temper that teeters on the verge of actual violence towards women when he doesn't get his  own way. He drags Jane up to view his wife , then when she tries to leave him she has to use eye contact to stop him either raping or beating her.  CB tries to palliate his violence by presenting it as passion and a result of his past but it doesn't wash in the 21st century.

I found the scene where JE is destitute and reduced to begging one of the riveting episodes in the novel which is something I would have over looked as a teenager. So much so that the phone went and I was really disorientated for the moment.

I'm really seeing the 'Romantics' influence on CB particularly in the actions of Rochester who is given to flinging himself on sofas and crying.' Blimey' I thought' he's behaving like Frankenstein'.

Reader: I no longer love him......

I ‘m re- reading Jane Eyre for my book club. I studied it at O’ level and loved it then in fact it became my favourite book. I used to be able to quote passages of it and of course I was in love with Mr Rochester.

I think I’ve read it once since and somehow , I don’t know why,  but other novels have pushed it out of the way. There was a sense that I grew out of it.

 I ‘ve never had the urge to teach it and haven’t got a clue what its themes are except the gothic features.

In a way I’m reading it as a grown up and a cynical one at that. I do love the way it gallops along . Film versions have tended to distort my memory of certain scenes, for example Helen Burns is not made to stand out in the rain as  a punishment.

I’m picking up on the feminist sections of the novel. There is a lengthy paragraph in which Jane or indeed Charlotte complains about the social seclusion of females this is  also evinced in Jane’s desperate need to travel and see the world.

However this is rather contradicted by her use of ‘ My master ‘  when referring to Rochester to denote her love for him but also  as an awareness of her social status with regard to him.

I actually like the character of Jane , her passion and her courage at standing  by her principals. But Mr Rochester, well half way though and I am not in love with him any more. In fact he is very difficult to make out. Going on the hints about his past I find his courtship of Jane confusing , the tormenting with Blanches Ingram and the quizzing to find if Jane loves him. It may well be that he is as shy and unsure of her feelings and treading a fine line .

I find the gothic elements a bit clunky. I know Jane is naïve but it is convenient that she is from a generation of biddable women and of course she is unworldly and very young. Today most girls’ curiosity would have had them up that passage and into the room and none of your nonsense.

In a sense it is a very gothic novel dealing with horrendous sins of the past that lead to extreme behaviour and serious psychological scars. The novel gets away with its screams in the night and the mysterious Grace Poole   because CB has set the novel both inside and outside the real world , Thornfield being so isolated.