Signing, illustrated.
I can do without days like this one. What I know to try when a computer disputes me is pathetic, but it does take a little while to run through. Rather like running through my pathetic repertoire of things to try to make hellhounds eat. Also, there’s the adrenaline factor. Crashing off the internet when you’re trying to organise and then post your nightly blog provokes a rather substantial fury spike, which is slow to drain away again.*
Especially when hellhounds decide not to eat their supper.
At least there weren’t any bats.
I’m still very, very short of sleep and very, very, VERY grateful that I HAVE PHOTOS FOR TONIGHT. These are Vikki’s; I’ll put some of Cathy’s up tomorrow.
Grim.
The Nice Man had asked me if I’d do a reading or a Q&A or a presentation of any kind and I said that I’d be happy to do a Q&A as a lead in to the getting out of the favourite fountain pen. The very first question was whether I was going to write a sequel to SUNSHINE. I’m out of practise. I did not immediately laugh lightly and answer some other question, which is what, when I’m in practise, I do, when someone says something punishable by instant death. I could hear the Blog Contingent going very still on the other side of the audience** and then Ajlr, BLESSHERATHOUSANDTIMES, not only asked a question, but asked an interesting question about what it’s like being a writer writing about a lot of different imaginary countries, and do they feel different–the answer to which is yes, they do. I dream about them, and I always know which one I’m in before I see the pegasus or the sashed, bridleless riders or the guy with the long teeth.
talking
I was sufficiently unnerved by Question One that I spent most of the rest of the evening talking to the floor. This is something else I’m better at not doing when I’m in practise being an author in public. Make eye contact! I don’t want to make eye contact!
The relentless march of the grocer's apostrophe.
A very nice poster. Although there may be something just a little bit WRONG with the top line.
Yes! The famous dwarven whatsit!
Cathy got a more comprehensive shot of it which I’ll post tomorrow. And I apologise for my look of total disbelief, but . . .
Not so random members of the audience.
One intrepid photographer and one smiling bull terrier. Oh . . . well, the last time I saw that pink feather boa a bull terrier was wearing it.***
Intrepid photographer and hellgoddess.
And book. And chocolate.# And a lovely pink knitted bag courtesy Mrs Redboots. The cables are bits of (ringing methods) Kent and Cambridge. Cathy and I were trying to figure out which was which. This should be embarrassingly easy, but somehow it isn’t, when it’s pink knitting.
Asssembly line.
That’s asssssembly line. At the end I signed all the stock that was left.## The Nice Man pulled it off the table in stacks, opened each to the title page, I scrawled, and my official Penguin minder was waiting to slap on the ‘signed by the author’ sticker### and put the completed trophy in the book cart.
More photos tomorrow. I’m going to bed. But first let me just say THANK YOU VERY MUCH to everyone who came to Forbidden Planet last night and bought book(s), both blog readers and–er–non-blog-readers, and friends and readers known and unknown, and who generally made this not one of those occasions when I go home declaring I’m giving up this writing scam and getting a job stocking shelves at Sainsbury’s. It was good energy last night, you guys. Thanks.
* * *
* It turns out to have been the exchange. It was peculiar that both Peter and I were off the air—we’re at opposite ends of this tiny town but we’re also on different servers. I did of course ring Computer Men today, who were booked solid, it being a Friday and all, but being angelic, one might almost say seraphic, as they are^, Raphael did his remote-meddling trick after I’d wasted forty-five minutes on the phone to my server who clearly had no more clue than I did.^^ Meanwhile I’d gone off for my Friday cup of t—I mean, my music lesson, with Oisin, and he was off the air too. He was busy swearing at his server^^^ who did, however, have more of a clue than mine did, and then BT finally got its finger out, and Raphael twisted the pipe cleaners back together and . . .
^ Hey. I wonder if either of them sings?
^^ When I rang Raphael back he was positively testy. He rarely gets testy, except when other computer professionals are being morons.
^^^ Relatively speaking. Oisin does not swear the way I swear. You can still hear what he’s not saying.
** As one of them commented drily later, Not a blog reader.
*** Anyone who came to my last London signing will remember this clearly. PS: Her t shirt says Doctor Pooh.
# Several people gave me chocolate. I have no idea why.
## One of the things Forbidden Planet gets enormous points from this author for is that they made a real effort to rake in a good selection of my backlist. This is good anyway and enormously in their favour when I’m mostly as rare as hen’s teeth and reliably eating hellhounds over here. And it’s a good thing, not a bad thing, that they had a lot of stock left over to sign. It means they think they can sell it.^ I hope they’re right.
^ They do have several stores to share the burden.
### Very carefully designed to have glue that peels OFF again.
AJLR HAS HER BEES!!!!!!!*
On Tuesday, this arrived in my inbox from Ajlr:
To share the excitement, message below just received from our bee tutor. We’ll have our own bees in 48 hours! :) :) :)
Think of us on Thursday evening, driving around with a box full of bees…
Hi
I understand all went well at the weekend and . . . I’ve just looked at the nucleus and the queen is laying to the point that the little box is brim full of bees.
So if you would like to come and collect it, it’s yours. You will need to come late evening when they have stopped flying and we can seal the entrance and strap it closed for travelling. . . .
I suggest you take it to the apiary and put it where you are going to have the hive and let the bees get orientated for a couple of days. Then at the weekend or early next week you can move it to one side, put the hive in its place and transfer the occupied frames over. . . .
I replied in suitably modest, restrained hellgoddess manner:
YAAAAAY. Okay, I’m stoked. :):):)
Do I get to mention it on the blog? That Ajlr is driving around the east of England with a box full of bees???? :)
And she generously replied:
Yes, mention it by all means – lots of positive thoughts would be very welcome. :)
I won’t be back until about 8 on Thursday evening, but we’re going to go over then and pick the bees up, to move them straight to the apiary area that evening. I think I’ll have to be suited up when we unblock the entrance in their new home though…I’m not sure they’ll be that happy after 15 minutes in a car.
Oooh, my bees, my bees. ::goes into nurture mode:: :) **
If you think of it (and have time) send me an email. I’ve written it in my diary . . . but that still means I have to remember to look in my diary. And Thursday is handbells AND Muddlehamptons, so I will be distracted.
This then came in while I was Muddlehamptoning:
Off to pick up and move our box full of bees in about 15 minutes. Keep your fingers crossed that they don’t try and break out of it while we’re all in the car together! :)
And when I got back to the mews*** I wrote:
YAAAAAAAY. Well, you *must* be back by now . . . I hope ALL WENT WELL. :):):)
This then arrived with the subject line ‘A car with 5864 passengers’:
So, we picked up the nucleus box full of bees from out tutor’s home just now. She let us borrow a hive strap, so the lid was securely fastened for transit, and stuffed a good lump of foam rubber into the entrance hole of the nuc so no one could come out and start insisting on different driving techniques during the journey. And off we went, with our young colony of bees carefully wedged in the back of the car. I can’t say that was the most relaxing four miles we’ve ever driven, not with our ears constantly assessing the level of grumbling coming from the box. R drove as carefully as possible but small country roads are not noted for their level surfaces. When we got to their new home, I suited-up and put the box on its stand, removed the strap and then, from the back, leaned over and pulled out the plug from the entrance hole. A small and agitated cluster of bees immediately poured out of the entrance and looked around with an air of bewildered belligerence. However, there was no-one there for them to pick a fight with and when I tiptoed back 30 seconds later there were only 30 or so crawling over the front of the box, near the entrance. It was 21.45 by then, dusk, and chilly, and as I watched they all went back inside.
On Sunday we will move the colony into their full-sized brood box, on the same spot where they are now in their nuc box. It looks like being a fun morning!
I’m sure these are going to be the most wonderful bees in the history of beekeeping. I’m not sure how long it will take us to learn all their names though…†
If any of this is useful for the blog, it’s all yours. :)
THEY ARE ALREADY THE MOST WONDERFUL BEES IN THE HISTORY OF BEEKEEPING! YAAAAAAY!
I’m glad to know you aren’t driving frantically for the Channel with 5864 angry bees in hot pursuit. :)
I’m quite glad we aren’t heading for the Channel, too. :)
. . . But by that time last night I was already most of the way through a blog entry about handbells and singing. Today I emailed:
I think it is VERY NOBLE of you not to have mentioned your bees on the forum. All this goes in TONIGHT.††
I haven’t mentioned it at all, thinking you might want to use it. And yes, I’m EXTREMELY noble, it’s almost unbearable. I’ll even add to it and offer to write ‘Steps to bee-keeping IV’ in about a month’s time, if you wish. Now, where’s my halo gone…:)
The rain is coming down stair rods here at the moment. My poor bees will be sitting in the entrance to their box, looking out gloomily at all the wet and probably squabbling with each other. And the queen will be humming ‘now children, children, settle down’. (Anthropomorphise? Moi?) †††
OF COURSE I WISH IT. DON’T BE SILLY. :) ‡
Yes, I’ve been thinking of your poor bees sitting in their new home and wondering drearily why they’ve been horribly magicked to this watery place. Stair rods here too. At least cranky hellhounds don’t sting. :)
Must go to bell practice. NIALL’S HOME!!! I’M NOT IN CHARGE!!!!! YAAAAAAAAY!!!!!
* * *
* And yes, I did ask her first.
** Aside: note that I am totally on board with the nurture thing. Oisin keeps telling me that I must apply for the bat-exclusion license whether I use it or not—that it’s sensible to be prepared. Noooooo, I keep saying, my bats, my bats! He says, look, I know you’re a pathetic wet knee-jerk liberal. Get the frelling exclusion anyway while you have a sympathetic Bat Lady. She could move to Canada^ and her replacement could decide that you are superfluous to bat requirements.
^ I’m sure there are lots of splendid bats in Canada
*** And had fed the hellhounds. And begun a blog post. First things first.
† Hmmmmmmm. Maybe we should have a bee-naming contest??? Hmmmmmmmm.^
^ As a happy, well-named bee might say.
†† I might even conceivably get another paragraph of PEG II written/bent/tied to the chair/negotiated for better terms with^ tonight. Or maybe I’ll ring some Cambridge on Pooka. I might even try to get the fragment of a song I wrote while I was waiting for Oisin to get back from looking at electric organs for other people onto Finale. It looks more singable than my stuff usually is. I wonder how that happened.
Or I could knit. ^^
The possibilities are dazzling.
^ I keep telling you we can’t grow llyri grass in this world.
^^ We are not discussing Sewing Up Secret Project #1.
††† Some of you may remember it was Ajlr who helped name my bats. Eadgyth is her fault.
‡ Okay, all you blog readers. Sign on the forum and leave an EAGER COMMENT about more bee-keeping posts.
Part Two. As Promised.
A pleasing degree of chemically-enhanced hilarity has been successfully achieved, and what a good thing I have something to hang a blog post on.*
Speaking of physical aspects of heroines, I’ve always found it interesting that so many have very long hair–which is to say, Harry and Aerin do.
::Cringes with embarrassment:: Yes, I’m afraid so. Harry in particular has ankle-length hair, as I recall. Good frelling doodah grief. I was very young when I wrote that, and I even knew I was being a trifle self indulgent. That’s one of the things I would change, if I could—I don’t mean literally could, I don’t know if my publisher would let me or not, but You Don’t Mess With Stories, even your own, once they’ve gone out into the world and developed their own life without you. Without a really powerful reason, and authorial embarrassment isn’t powerful enough.
And I will identify EMoon as saying this:
Characters need to be the size they are, whatever that is and I’m of the “not too much description please” persuasion. But readers vary widely in what they want/like/will stand for in physical description (I’ve had people ask plaintively why there’s not more, much more.)
. . . Because I want to agree. Strongly and vociferously. Characters are the size that they are. And I too get the complaints about not enough physical description—and I also get people who want to argue with me about what this or that character looks like. That’s fine, honey, if he or she looks like that to you. But it’s not in the book.
I’ve been picturing Jake as Latino. But I did get that he wasn’t all white.
Um. Latino is white. It’s a different ethnic from Anglo-Saxon, but it’s still white. And Jake’s dad’s name is Mendoza, so yes, he’s Latino—he’s, you know, recognisably ethnic. Pause for groaning, since of course we’re all some kind of ethnic, including the Anglo-Saxon uber-nonsense. I briefly tried—speaking of characters being what they are, and not what you make them—making Jake’s dad the one who was part black, thinking I could work in some physical description when he and Jake are having one of their rows . . . but it didn’t work. Forcing stuff on your characters never does. The nearest I got was that Jake had a photo of his mum that he used to talk to, but that’s one of the bits that was left on the cutting room floor.
I personally have always had it very clear in my head that Harry was definitely tall–and as a short person myself, left to my own devices, I will make heroines shorter, if their height isn’t absolutely necessary.
Yes. This is a kind of summing-up of what I’ve been blundering around saying in too many words. What is necessary needs to be in the story—the rest is and should be up to the reader. That’s how the characters go live for that reader. And I haven’t got a problem with readers lying to themselves a little to make a character more what they want them to be. I do it myself. What—as an author—I do object to is when readers insist on their version as the One True Version.** There aren’t that many one true versions in any aspect of life . . . but that’s another rant for another day.
One of the things I loved about reading “Sunshine,” for instance, was how amazingly little description there is for Sunshine, at least in the classic terms. We have a few side-ways descriptions (like Pat telling Sunshine how he’d described her for the desk assistant), but there isn’t a lot of the usual physical list and detail. And it left so much more for me to just allow form naturally, rather than trying to “force” an image to appear with all the “right” description. It’s not to say that my image of Sunshine isn’t clear enough that I could probably describe her like a friend I see often, it’s just that most of it is made up out of my own head, and I rather enjoy that.
Sorry. Brief pause for authorial purring. Mmmmmmmmm.
Then again, another thing I like about the McKinley heroines (and heroes!) is that they’re so rarely ever stunningly beautiful creatures, or at least not beautiful because of their “raven black hair, and emerald green eyes.”
I find the habitually beautiful stock character type a total and complete snore. But speaking of necessary, Beauty in ROSE DAUGHTER has to be beautiful; it’s part of the story. So does Lissar in DEERSKIN. That nonetheless didn’t stop various readers—including one famous author/critic who I’m still mad at—from slamming the latter book because I’d sold out my audience, blah blah blah blah, by reverting to the ‘beautiful heroine’ trope. READ THE STORY I WROTE AND NOT THE ONE YOU WANTED TO READ.*** Arrrrrrrgh. Although people mostly hate me for the end of Part One of DEERSKIN. I was even braced for this and it still surprised me. What? You think awful stuff doesn’t happen? Oh, my bad, awful stuff isn’t supposed to happen in a fairy-tale fantasy . . . at least not a Robin McKinley fairy-tale fantasy. Grrrrrrrrrr. It amazes me the permission some people give themselves to blame and be abusive. And that’s not even touching my major rant about DEERSKIN, which is about the people who tell me in outrage that I’ve RUINED my heroine, that she is RUINED . . . hey, great, you guys, please get on the next rocketship to Alpha Centauri and don’t hang around on this planet making it harder for people who have awful stuff to get over to get on with their lives. . . .
DEERSKIN isn’t for everyone. No book is for everyone. And that’s fine. I just wish a few more people would remember that their personal opinion is their personal opinion and not the latest delivery from Mt Sinai.
Over-description narrows the imagination.
Yes.
I’m tall enough that it’s the sort of thing that people comment on. I never forget how tall I am (since if you’re a woman I am probably looking at the top of your head), so when Sunshine didn’t have that awareness, I figured she was probably somewhere around average height. I was a little disappointed
You realise that remarks like this are what drive authors to drink, or to getting jobs as warehouse technicians.† We can’t be all things to all people. We can’t write all stories for all readers; we can’t make perfect matches between readers and stories. We can only do the best we can by the stories the Story Council sends us. I can’t write enough tall characters to suit everyone who wants tall characters, and I can’t write enough short characters for people who want short characters. †† Which is kind of where we all came in, since this conversation began with me tearing my hair over an email from a reader who claimed that most of my heroines were too short.
I wanted to grow up to be Harry or Aerin or Cecily or Rosie or Sunshine or Mirasol or Sylvi. Life, that freller, is disappointing. But at least we do have stories.
* * *
* . . . having also been awakened by the phone two hours before my alarm was due to go off. Moan. However, the need to appear sane and coherent to a superfluous in law whose chief impression of me is that I’m American and another of these peculiar writer people^ woke me up so thoroughly there was no chance of getting back to sleep. Which at least meant hellhounds had a nice hurtle before the arrival of Computer Archangel Raphael. Who says there’s at least a month’s wait for an iPad 2. There are two iPad 1s among our visiting houseful.^^ They are hideously desirable. It’s going to be a long month.
^ Couldn’t Peter have married an office manager or a mechanic or something?
^^ We were playing Scrabble on one of them at dinner around the glasses of champagne. Fortunately we were playing in teams, so I could just say, mm hmm, good idea, occasionally. I am terrible at Scrabble.
** This kind of thing leads to trashing a book for not being the book that reader wanted at that moment, or expected from that writer, and never mind what the book is. Hell has a whole special subdivision dedicated to the permanent containment of these people. The only reading material found anywhere in its smoking ravines is the backs of cereal boxes. For eternity. Old cereal boxes. This infernal area is however shared with the people who read books wrong and trash them for what these readers thought they read.
*** See previous footnote. Did I mention the sharpened stakes in the bottoms of the smoking ravines?
† Or office managers. Or mechanics.
†† Or red-haired characters, or not red-haired characters; or fat characters—I get kind of a lot of mail from women who are offended that I don’t seem to have written any heroines with weight problems; or boys, or not boys: opinions are divided on Jake, either I’m such a genderist and it’s about time or I’ve sold out my (female) audience again; and I get a lot of mail from people who feel there should be more kissing. Visible, centre-stage kissing. Which is pretty well balanced by the people who are mortally offended by the kinky almost-sex in SUNSHINE. . . .
I’m not listening, you know. I only listen to the story. I can only listen to the story. This kind of thing is just the fire-ants a malign fate is tipping down your collar while you’re trying to work.
A Merry Mod Christmas
So a couple of months ago I found this great t shirt. (Actually I found it about six months ago, only they were all sold out. So I went huh, I didn’t want it anyway, stupid old t shirt. And then in the next catalogue there it was again and I said you evil ratbags you are teasing me in an evil ratbaggy way!!!! But then I went on line and it was available again.) And I said HA HA HA HA HA HA I will buy one for each of my mods as a CHRISTMAS PRESENT, sort of, and I will then ask if they could each pleeeeeease model their excellent mod-type t shirt and I would then have an INSTANT CHRISTMAS POST. It didn’t work out quite as planned. But hey. And since it didn’t work out quite as planned, keep scrolling, there will be a kind of Double Seventh as a gap-filler.
The team t-shirt which, given the reading habits of the mods, should read, "Whence might I procure one?"
Maren with Lola. Unites States.
Tabbs napping, oblivious to Amanda's (AJLR) cool t-shirt. England.
Southdowner with the gorgeous Louie. England.
Find the hidden ferret! jmeadows, United States.
That'll do, Bramble. b_twin_1, Australia.
Black Bear sporting sporty bear hat minus cats plus giraffes. United States.
So, like, Merry/Happy Christmas, slightly late solstice, slightly early standard new year, whatever, I’m sure you can find an excuse to open a bottle of champagne. I mean, we’re all celebrating, and you’re reading this blog, aren’t you?
JANE EYRE, II
http://melissa-writing.livejournal.com/410076.html ‘But Robin . . . he LIES to her.’
Yes he does. Eventually you have to say ‘I liked this book/character; it worked for me; I didn’t like it; it didn’t work for me.’ And just by the way, I find it absolutely weird, Melissa, that you think the book is fabulous but dislike Rochester so much!
I’m afraid this post is likely to be terrifyingly long because I’m going to make my life a little easier and quote a lot, since I also want to respond to some of the things people have said on my forum. I suggest a fresh pot of tea and a large plate of cookies. . . .
But first, to respond to Melissa’s post:
Jealousy. Sorry, this made me laugh. I can sure see you’re not a Scorpio. I am, and jealousy is just part of the package. It’s also a dead common human emotion—or fault, if you prefer: I’d be happy to be without mine—but the majority of us, I’d guess, get through without behaving any worse than those of you not so burdened. It even provides a service—jealousy is a sign that the thing in your life that’s arousing it needs looking at. (I can think of nicer calls for attention . . . but still.) I don’t myself see anything in the way he tells the story—the way Bronte tells the story—to suggest that he’s going to turn into a brute if/when he falls in love—possibly again, but really for the first time, since this story of jealousy is about the foolishness of young men, and specifically of himself. What strikes me in this scene is how clear it is that he’s already falling for Jane and already wrestling with the awful choice he’s going to have to make, and the awful situation he’s in—and how much more awful it’s going to become as soon as he lets himself realise he’s in love with Jane. He’s not even terribly interested in this story of his young self—‘ . . . waking out of his scowling abstraction, he turned his eyes towards me, and the shade seemed to clear off his brow. “Oh, I had forgotten [the mistress]!”’ This is not the pathological brute still brooding on the escaped possession. And as for Jane’s not being shocked . . . well brought up young ladies, which Jane is not, are expected to pretend to be shocked . . . but wealthy men did take mistresses, and everyone in that world knew it. She’s merely failing to be hypocritical. Lack of ‘normal’ hypocrisy is one of the things Edward falls in love with her for. The only scandalous thing is Edward telling her about the indiscretions of his youth: but this is part of the (somewhat eccentric) building of their relationship.
And, well, um, so is her listening to him. Okay, it’s politically incorrect, if you like . . . but she is eighteen years old and spent the first ten of them being the poor relation and the latter eight at Lowood, a ‘charitable institution’ for homeless girls, which is to say jail (or gaol); and he’s thirty-five or so and has, as they say, been around. He is going to have more stories to tell than she is. One of the fascinating things about Jane is just how self-taught she is: how wholly she has created herself with precious little outside help: that’s also part of her draw for Edward, that she is so strong a character and yet so clean and clear. He is—it seems to me—attracted to the clarity; he’s been banging around the world looking for something, having lost himself and his self-respect by trying to please his thoroughly unpleasant father and older brother. It’s to his credit that he immediately recognises Jane’s worth—we’ve been told often enough how pretty she is not, as well as lacking in little items like money and family connections.
Moody and surly? Eh. I’m moody and surly, and I have one or two friends. And a reasonably sane if long-suffering husband of twenty years.
And ‘She’s the mirror here. He talks; she listens. He educates sweet innocent Jane’? Horsefeathers. I’m demonstrating a little surliness here myself. Usually when we hear Edward monologuing, he’s talking to some aspect of the story—Adele’s background, for example. But look at the conversations Bronte gives us between Edward and Jane: look at their first exchange after Edward’s fall, when Jane finds out who the mysterious horseman was: ‘ . . . are you fond of presents?’
‘I hardly know, sir; I have little experience of them; they are generally thought pleasant things.’
‘Generally thought? But what do you think?’
‘I should be obliged to take time, sir, before I could give you an answer worthy of your acceptance . . .’
This exchange always makes me laugh; this is so Jane—and so not a pliant girl eager to be some man’s mirror.* And, um, if I were watching my husband romance another woman in my house, I would certainly be tetchy, but if I set fire to his bed-curtains that would still make me a homicidal maniac who ought to be locked up, although a clever barrister might get me off on grounds of diminished responsibility.
I agree however that reader sympathy for Edward Rochester pretty well stands or falls on whether one can weather that he lied to Jane about the tenant of the attic. It’s a grotesquely repulsive—and alienating—thing to have done. I can get over it because I see him as loving her so much he cannot bear the thought of losing her—the thought of losing her makes him a little mad himself—and I see him as loving her for the right reasons too: her intelligence and her strength of will and purpose. Her clarity. Her selfness. Edward has always, from the time Jane meets him, lived rather near the edge, on account of the strain, the despair of hopelessness of that mad wife in the attic—one of the things I’m always intrigued by when I reread it is just how near the edge he seems to me to be—the same edge that the repellent lunatics in WUTHERING HEIGHTS spend the entire book over. But it’s like: oh, yeah, those Bronte girls, they were sisters.** And one of the things they shared, apparently, was knowing how screwed up love and circumstances can make you.
And Melissa . . . so suggest something. I’m a crank. I guarantee I will have an uncooperative take on something else we could argue about.
And now from the Days in the Life forum.
[These are merely in the order they were posted:]
Melissa Mead
As a person who would’ve been locked in an attic myself, though (because of physical disability), I’ve never seen Rochester as someone that I could be attracted to.
Well, no! Not necessarily! Most Famous Cripple in Literature, Tiny Tim, CHRISTMAS CAROL! And I’m pretty sure both Charlotte Yonge and Louisa May Alcott (and Mrs Ewing) have the occasional physically disabled character tucked away here and there—and the rather awful Clara in HEIDI, although she doesn’t stay disabled. Oh, and THE LITTLE LAME PRINCE—and he does stay disabled. I will think of twenty-seven more, better examples as soon as I post this. Suggestions welcome. Venturing into nonfiction, Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, went to school till he was twelve, and while his problems would get a lot worse later on, he was still clearly disabled. (According to wiki his mum was disabled too, but they don’t know the details, and she managed to marry and have kids.) And Florence Nightingale spent more than half her life erratically bedridden and unable to walk.
And while it’s too late (1924) to be really relevant here, my favourite ‘disabled’ romance: PRECIOUS BANE by Mary Webb. The heroine has a harelip and knows she is physically repulsive and will therefore never be loved, never marry nor have children. Wrong.
Black Bear
. . . institutionalization at that time usually resulted in an early death, either from disease, abuse, or misadventure. Rochester’s desire to fulfill his responsibility to his wife and to care for her despite the fact that she is apparently homicidally psychotic is Bronte’s way of showing us that he IS a good guy, even when it’s to his own detriment.
This is how I’ve always read it. I grant you the way he goes about it is less than a perfect system, but that seems to me part of his kettle of fish: he hates the situation and is furious and despairing about being caught in it—and he is caught in it. And, of course, it’s great for the plot of a melodrama. One of the things we haven’t got into is the strong tradition of Gothic literature that JANE EYRE swims in.
danceswithpahis
I feel that St John gets a great big FAIL because he misses the whole point of the faith he’s wanting to go preach in India . . . Jesus . . . said that the greatest commandment is to love God with everything you have and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, said that without love you gain nothing, have nothing, and are nothing, no matter what “good deeds” you do. In light of this, someone who pretends he’s going to go share Christianity with the heathen Indians but is cold and compassionless has severely betrayed his faith. . . .
We haven’t talked about St John either. Poor old St John, whom everyone hates. I don’t, actually. He’s the polar opposite to Rochester, isn’t he? Coldly, inhumanly perfect, and therefore imperfect? And he also wants to marry Jane, although for the wrong reasons. I believe in the reality of his faith and his desire to serve—he’s just not very good at it—he’s not very good at people. He’s flawed too, just differently. It must be significant that the book ends with Jane reading St John’s last letter. He knows he’s dying; the Indian climate has done for him. “‘My Master,’ he says, ‘has forewarned me. Daily He announces more distinctly, ‘Surely I come quickly!’ and hourly I more eagerly respond, ‘Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!’” She believes in him and therefore so do I; I think he got himself sorted out, just as she and Edward did—that that’s the point too.
zerlina
It is precisely Mr Rochester’s flaws that make him attractive and Mr St. John’s cold, unloving, unlovable perfection that have you cheering for Mr Rochester.
Yep. Clever girl, our Charlotte.
Judith
I don’t have a problem with him [lying]. It is, of course, my 20th/21st century morality in contrast to that of the writer. When reading that part, I always find myself saying, “Jane, you idiot, take him up on his offer! Go to the south of France with him and live happily ever after!”
Sorry, but this really makes me lay my ears back and prepare to kick. I do not feel you can take Jane’s decision out of context like that. As you say, that’s your modern morality. I think you need to leave it at the door, and pick it up again on the way out. If you can’t feel Jane’s fatally insoluble dilemma—exactly the same as Edward’s, from the other side—then there’s no story. She/they wouldn’t live happily ever after! That’s the POINT!
My big objection to him — and it’s a HUGE one for me — is his treatment of Jane when he torments her with Blanche Ingram and when he does the whole gypsy fortune-teller bit. It’s just plain sadistic and uncalled-for, and I couldn’t see myself ever forgiving it.
Yes. I see this. It’s valid to me too, like the fact that he lies to her—yes, he lies to her. Yes, he plays with her appallingly over Blanche Ingram. (Although the gypsy fortune-teller thing makes me go, What?, every time. The only way I can buy Edward Rochester disguised as a gypsy fortune-teller is to remind myself firmly that the Gothic literature tradition allows a few flights of nonsensical fantasy, and this is JANE EYRE’s.) I see it as another manifestation of what a mess Edward’s past has made of him—having recognised Jane’s worth he can’t bring himself to court her straightforwardly; she is too self-contained, self-possessed; he has to try to startle her into some expression of love. It’s not, ahem, attractive. I get it, but it’s not Edward at his best.
E Moon
Intellectually, I can understand Charlotte Bronte’s reasons for depicting relationships between men and women as she does…but I still don’t like ‘em. (I’m not a fan of George Eliot, either, and for some of the same reasons.)
Love George Eliot. Just by the way. And I’d argue against you about this too.
Charlotte needed serious doses of psychoactive medications herself, IMO. All those harshly controlled heroines…all the emphasis on control issues, for that matter…and the stifling “squashed” feeling of the writing itself…ick. Bits of Shirley escape that but in the end our heroine is finally mastered by the stern, unyielding character of the tutor. Shudder.
I see it as a clear-eyed demonstration of what it felt like, being an intelligent woman in that world.
. . . it isn’t his keeping her in the attic that set me against him, but his dishonesty–not just the original Bluebeard’s Secret sort of thing, concealing who was up there, though that was bad enough (to me), but his intention to marry Jane and make her a partner to bigamy, which would give her no legal standing at all, in an age when the protection of marriage meant so much, and remove her status (small though it was) as a virtuous spinster.
He’s half-mad with the impossibility of the situation—with loving her, knowing he can’t have her, unable to face losing her. I don’t say no to what you’re saying, I just say that I see where (I think) he’s coming from. I also believe that he does love her and would have stood by her. He would know what he’s doing by making her party to bigamy; but I’d say that one of the things Bronte has made clear both through his decision to take care of Bertha rather than dropping her in the river one night and by raising Adele is that he keeps his promises.
Jeanne Marie
I liked Rochester – not just found him attractive, but LIKED him, in the way that Jane did on her first encounter with him. Firstly, he actually addressed her and had conversation with her, in a manner equal to equal – not common among male-female relationships of the day.
YES. I used to keep going back to JANE EYRE when I was in college and reading Victorian literature by the yard. I love Dickens, but his ‘virtuous’ women make me nuts. He was good at the sick cookies—not the ones you’d take home to the family. I loved it that Edward Rochester is even-handedly cranky. I’d’ve liked him less—as Jane says of herself—if he’d had more ‘address’.
Secondly, as is mentioned by Robin and others, his willingness to take in a child who might but probably isn’t his speaks volumes as to the basic quality of his character.
I think that a lot of the reveal of the mad wife in the attic (who I truly believe was mad – again, why distrust the author’s story without cause?) is, in my opinion, not only to reveal Rochester’s basic goodness of character, despite his dishonesty to Jane about it, but also to say something about the folly of youth. Rochester, in his youth, wanted to be in his father’s good graces, and saw a way to do it that wasn’t illegal nor repugnant – and, to refute another comment, no he did NOT know his wife was mad when he married her. HER family knew it, and we suspect that Rochester’s father and brother knew it, too, which argues strongly for THEIR characters as being the real Bad Guys in absentia of the story. How cruel is it to tell your child ” hey, marry this woman and we’ll accept you back into the family we threw you out of,” knowing she was mad but wealthy – clearly their motives are highly suspect. Rochester’s willingness to marry wasn’t based on anything but a desire to be welcomed back into his family. I’ve known people to do worse things for the same reason. Again, it argues strongly for his essential goodness that he doesn’t throw her into an institution when he discovers she’s mad, but has her cared for privately, in his own home, albeit secretly.
Yes. One of the reasons I found Melissa’s take on the wife in the attic thing so surprising (okay, despite MADWOMAN IN THE ATTIC which I should admit I found rather long and hectoring) is that when Bronte finally lets him tell his story it’s almost too slanted in Edward’s favour—it’s too obvious that he was set up for ruin. I was really rattled to find out that anyone could take it any other way. And just in case anyone is going to say that Edward would tell his own story to the woman he loves to excuse himself as much as possible, Mrs Fairfax tells Jane early on that he was badly treated by his own family and that that is partly responsible for his gloomy outlook.
Susan Cassidy
Robin says, “I can see no good reason not to believe the story as we’re told it…Edward Rochester’s tragedy—and Jane Eyre’s—to my eye is that Rochester is as trapped by his society as his (mad) wife is trapped in his attic.”
This is so true to me. You don’t have to like Mr. Rochester, but you have to take him within the context of Bronte’s story (where she makes it clear that his wife was locked up because she was mad). You don’t have much of a book if you don’t accept that premise.
YES. And Susan Cassidy has now said in about a hundred words what it’s taking me a couple thousand or so to say. . . .
Diane in MN
There are obviously melodramatic aspects to Bronte’s treatment of Bertha, but she was writing in the middle of the 19th century, and as Robin and many others point out, there weren’t a lot of options for dealing with insanity. Rochester has money and could probably have afforded to set up a separate establishment for his wife somewhere else, but that wouldn’t have served Bronte’s story. There are certain givens that the reader has to accept if she is going to go forward with the book in hand, after all.
Yes. She was writing in a specific time and a specific literary tradition. And the bottom line for me is . . . I love JANE EYRE to pieces. It’s one of my desert island books.
So there, any nay-sayers who’ve read this far. Nyah.
* * *
* Much as it pains me to quote Shakespeare, I always think here of Othello:
She loved me for the dangers I had pass’d,
And I loved her that she did pity them.
In my Shakespeare-resistant defense, I love them from Verdi’s Otello, not from the frelling Bard. They’re the basis of the most fabulous love duet. Even if Desdemona was the most lamentable wet. Speaking of standard drippy females.
** I need to reread TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL. I remember it as being overtly darker than JANE EYRE but less loopy than WUTHERING, but I wouldn’t want to rely on it. I can’t remember anything about AGNES GREY although I’m pretty sure I read it. And yes, I’ve read all of Charlotte.