# Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre



## strangecs (Jun 10, 2007)

I was forced to read this in high school. For the longest time, I thought I would never read classic lit, but as soon as I put this down, I picked up Dumas' _The Count of Monte Cristo._ (Followed by _Moby Dick_ and _Anna Karanina_.) Anybody else read this? I know there is a movie by the same name, yet (like so many other novel-based films) it was nowhere near as good.


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## elizabeth_472 (Jun 10, 2007)

I just finished Jane Eyre and loved it!  One of the best books I have ever read.  I even loved the few parts that were kind of boring!  Jane Eyre is a FANTASTIC book!  I am still amazed by what I read.  I started watching the 2006 miniseries last night and am going to finish it tonight!  How exciting!

I have been thinking about reading Moby Dick.  What exactly is it about?


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## strangecs (Jun 10, 2007)

Well, it's a story about a man's journey as a whaler who gets caught up in the hunt for a paticular sperm whale, Moby Dick. It was a good read for me, but my only problem was that it took a long while before I actually got into it. The first five chapters gave me a headache, but I did enjoy it in the end. I recommend the unabridged version (as with all classics).


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## elizabeth_472 (Jun 11, 2007)

Okay, thanks.  Yeah, my friend read the abridged version of Jane Eyre, but she didn't know it was abridged until after she was finished.


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## RebelGoddess (Jun 27, 2007)

The abridged version of Jane Eyre is still good. It cuts out the first ten chapters in which we see Jane growing up. 

While her childhood and adolescence do provide great backstory and insight into who Jane is as a person, they're not vital to enjoying the book.

I've read both versions and found each just as good.

*StrangeCS* I've both read the novel and seen the movie of the Count of Monte Cristo and I have to agree with what you've heard. The movie does not do the book justice. As a stand alone, the movie can be considered fairly decent, but if you watch it with any intimate knowledge of the book, you'll be sorely dissapointed.

I've never read Moby Dick or Anna Karenina (though I do want to read the latter), so I can't really comment on those.

But what I can say, to sum up this post that is quickly becoming the boring ramblings of a writer hopeful, is that if you love Jane Eyre, you'll ADORE the first novel of my favorite author, Jasper Fforde (yes, with TWO Fs).

It's called:

The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde

(Hopefully this link will work - HTML and I are not good friends)

[link]http://www.amazon.com/Eyre-Affair-Jasper-Fforde/dp/0142001805/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-3498095-7724840?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182953780&sr=1-1[/link]

If you love Jane Eyre you'll defintely get a kick out of this fantastically written novel. 

And you'll love it even more if you've read (though knowledge of them is not necessary to enjoy the book) books such as Martin Chuzzlewit, Brahm Stocker's Dracula, and anything by Shakespeare.

I'll stop peddling Jasper Fforde's books now, lol. *blush*

Racheal


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 22, 2007)

Read Jane Austen who I found to have a wicked sense of humor, which I did not expect, and so was encouraged to try this. Thought it was terrible, over long sentimental slush with a plot that made me wince, that stuff about running away, leaving the coach at random , walking across a moor, finding a house and it being her long lost relatives who live there, how totally ridiculous is that. On the other hand I kept getting women who saw me reading it saying "Oh that was my favourite book ever" , No accounting for taste but if anyone asked I would say read Austen, she is wonderful, forget Bronte , she's rubbish.


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## Mira (Jul 29, 2007)

Really love the book Jane Eyre (In fact, I am writing a paper on it for school). Anyone who could recommend any other books that someone who likes this book might enjoy?


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## elizabeth_472 (Aug 1, 2007)

I recommend Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.


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## superchase32 (Aug 11, 2007)

Jane Eyre is a wonderful novel. A total classic. I loved the beggining with Helen Burns, Mrs Reed, Miss Temple and everything. It is a long but well worth book wich teaches you a lot from life.


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## Soph (Aug 21, 2007)

'Jane Eyre' is a wonderful novel - one of my favourites. The ending is just heart-wrenching! Mr Rochester is also one of my favourite male heroes (along with Mr Darcy of course).


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## lilacstarflower (Jun 15, 2008)

I love Mr Rochester - he has a sense of humor and seems more life-like than Darcy (even though I am an Austen fan). I thought Mr Rochester was not in the novel enough. Towards the end I found myself putting the book down quite a lot. Although I believe the encounter with St John and co was probably needed to let Jayne discover who she really was as a person and equal to Rochester, I found it a little unbelievable that she just happened to find her cousins while wandering aimlessly in the countryside. It would have been far more realistic if she had found some sort of clue in the letter her aunt eventually gave her and sought them out in my opinion. Besides that, it was a really good book

however, I still prefer Anne over the other Bronte's any day. She deserves so much more recognition. She writes with real passion


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## Walkio (Jun 15, 2008)

Not a fan of Jane Eyre at all, simply because it was too slow for my liking (the style of the day, I guess). Did no one else find it utterly emotionless? When Jane found out on her wedding day that whatshisname was already married she felt no emotion at all. There was nothing, didn't even mention her feelings even though her heart would presumably felt cleaved in two by a hotwire. It's the same as To a God Unknown by Steinbeck - when Elizabeth fell off that rock and died Joseph was just like, "Oh. Dear me. She's dead. Might as well go home, la dee dee" and that was it. When I compare that to the heart-wrenching in Auel's The Mammoth Hunters, say, the classics seem devoid of feeling and rather empty.


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## BOURBON (Jun 15, 2008)

if there was a celebrity death-match between Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen...I'd put my money on Chaz...
"Reader, I slaughtered her..."


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## lilacstarflower (Jun 15, 2008)

Good one Bourbon lol


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## Roxane (Jun 15, 2008)

Yes Jane Eyre is amazing (though I agree about the first couple of chapters)! I love Wuthering heights too. Walkio, obviously the language reads more slowly than todays literature, but I think there is so much beauty, style and class over it too.

Another classic must read, though it isn't originally in English is "La dame aux camélias" (Alexandre Dumas), otherwise I can think of "An ideal Husband" (Oscar Wild), and "Persuasion " (Jane Austen).


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## Olly Buckle (Aug 13, 2008)

Those first chapters gained her some notoriety at the time because scandals over the running of schools were in the news and she had had a favourite sister who had died in similar circumstances. However, although the book may have influenced public opinion in the debate she was not an initiator of debate on injustice in the way that Dickens was.
 Jane Austen is so toweringly superior in her insight and wit I find it hard to understand why anyone bothers with this, it struck me as the "chick lit." of its day.


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## sweet_caroline (Sep 11, 2008)

I first read jane eyre when I was 13, this book became another world for me, one that I lived in for weeks, and I swear i get memories of junior high mixed up with scenes from that book.  since jr. high i've read it about a hundred and twenty times I'm sure.


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## KangTheMad (Sep 17, 2008)

Roxane said:


> Yes Jane Eyre is amazing (though I agree about the first couple of chapters)! I love Wuthering heights too. Walkio, obviously the language reads more slowly than todays literature, but I think there is so much beauty, style and class over it too.
> 
> Another classic must read, though it isn't originally in English is "La dame aux camélias" (Alexandre Dumas), otherwise I can think of "An ideal Husband" (Oscar Wild), and "Persuasion " (Jane Austen).


 

Jane austin? Never really liked her...*looks around, realises no other guy has read JA*


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## Vendredi-is-Friday (Sep 24, 2008)

*Bountiful language.*

Hello.

Jane Eyre is a favorite of mine, and perhaps the first book of classical literature that I have ever read with any zeal.

Since I have first read her work I have read other authors from her general time period, and regardless of gender or setting or location, I have yet to read someone who uses such a bountiful sort of language.

It is almost as if her style makes her words feel beyond the English language.


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## Mike C (Sep 26, 2008)

Olly Buckle said:


> Jane Austen is so toweringly superior in her insight and wit I find it hard to understand why anyone bothers with this, it struck me as the "chick lit." of its day.



Whoa there boy!

Austen wrote about an idealised two dimensional world where the poor only existed within her own context - you were poor if you had to downsize slightly and let a couple of the servants go.  The working classes only appear in her books when they're serving tea. The greatest hardship that she could imagine was marrying someone less than wealthy. 

Certainly she's witty and insightful, but she lived and wrote in a bubble. The Brontes were grounded more in the real world.


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## evadri (Feb 14, 2009)

I have two favourite books and Jane Eyre is one of them. When I read it, I felt absorbed into her world. I loved the language and I deeply identified with Jane, so I didn't even notice if parts of it were slow-moving. I agree that Mr Rochester should have been in it more! Well, I wanted him in it more...but if he was, maybe we wouldn't have wanted him as much?

Just a quick comment about the chances of stumbling upon her cousins' house: In those days, the world was a lot smaller. Generally, people didn't move far from where they were born. Also, communities were small and so people could be related to a lot of people in the area, by marriage and in-laws' in-laws and such. So, while it is quite random, it could have been possible and it isn't as ridiculous as it would be in a modern story. And, for the record, I was so caught up in the story that I never noticed if it was plausible or not.

I think that Jane's supposed lack of feeling when she hears that Mr Rochester is already married is to do with her exceptional self-control and the shield that she has created to protect herself from all the hardship she's experienced. At that point, where the worst thing imaginable has occured, she doesn't allow herself to feel all the emotion that would naturally occur because it is just too devastating. She gets the hell out of there and deals with the emotional consequences later on. That's what I think anyway.


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## Robosquad (May 21, 2009)

I love most "classic" stories (ie. English class staples), but I've always hated Victorian literature.

I read _Jane Eyre _this year for my first English class in college. I absolutely do not grasp what people see in it. The writing's droll, the characters are thin, the plot is sadly full of contrivances which hinder what might have been a good story. Seriously, Jane goes through a long journey (prompted by the most absurd coincidence ever), meets parallels of herself in characters like St. John, only to end up Rochester's equal, which Bronte had to symbolize by _literally making Jane his eyes and right hand?_

That's laaaaaaaame. That's about thirty different flavors of lame, and not even the most aggregious example in the book. I still wrote a grad A analytical paper on the novel. I understood it. I just really, really hated it. 

Looks like it turned you on to some seriously good books though.


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## caelum (Jul 30, 2009)

I've heard a lot about this book, recently bought it, and will be reading it soon.  Looking forward to it.  Can anyone tell me how it compares to Wuthering Heights?  I love that one to death.


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## Mr. Madeleine (Nov 11, 2009)

I loved _Jane Eyre_, I've read the novel and used to have it on audio-cassettes, listened to it quite a few times walking to work. I've of course much enjoyed Emily's _Wuthering Heights_ and I also highly recommend the novels of Anne Bronte, _Agnes Grey _and _The Tenant of Wildfell Hall_. From the same period, George Eliot's _Middlemarch_ is a definite must-read. Then I suggest Thomas Hardy's _Far From the Madding Crowd_ and _Return of the Native_ etc. Really, the list is endless.


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## Deleted member 33527 (Dec 11, 2009)

I loved Jane Eyre. It's my favorite book as of yet. I read Wuthering Heights first, but personally I think the former is way better. Wuthering Heights was good because it had a lot of crazy drama, but I don't think there was a real point to it. I saw the Jane Eyre movie about a week ago. Wasn't too disappointed with it. The actors were decent enough, and at times I cried, sappy as I am. I'm waiting for the Wuthering Heights movie at the library.


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## Mira (Dec 13, 2009)

Oops, this thread has been on her a long time. I first wrote something, and then realized I've already responded!


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## caelum (Jan 5, 2010)

Okay, just read Jane Eyre, and I'm more inclined to agree with Olly - sorry ladies.  Thought it was pretty damn good at parts, especially the beginning in the school and the early encounters between Rochester and Jane, but not the second half.

The second half got weird, religious and sappy.  Weird cause it turned out Rochester has a freaken lunatic wife hiding in his closet, and weird because for some reason that was never really elucidated, Jane just freaken abandons him at the wedding bit.  Her dream guy who is ultra rich?  Just up and walks into the blue? WTF. She sort of pleaded "moral principals" having to do with him already having a wife or something, but come on.  Didn't buy that at all, I was literally screaming at the book, "Get back there Jane, crazy bitch!  So what, they can spike the quazimoto wife's gruel with some fucking arsenic."  But then again, maybe that's a sign of a gripping story?  Screaming at the book?

And then, hahahhahahahahahhahahhahaha, okay.  Total bullshit was her wandering across the random countryside and running into her _cousins._  When she was begging for bread and shit right before that, I was actually like, "Yeah, you deserve this bitch.  Abandons poor Rochester.  He couldn't help the fact he has a psycho spouse in his closet who haunts the place at night.  Just abandons him."  And then way later, when I found out Rochester's eyes were knocked out . . . grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.  I wanted to punch Jane out.  I'm surprised Rocky took her back.  At least his sight sort of came back.  The last hundred pages of the book I just skimmed.

Also, I felt gipped that there wasn't a Rocky vs. Jane sex scene.  Are there any existing classic lit sex scenes?  Probably wouldn't be very hot with all the victorian words, but then again, it could be.

I think Wuthering Heights is better, but I loved Jane Eyre's portrayal of a "go-getter" woman who defied norms - very brave.  When I found out Charlotte Bronte actually went to a school like that, I was seriously irked out.  Freaken nazi ass headmaster.  Kids should have mutineed and gone children of the corn on that dictastor.


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## Cressida (Mar 3, 2010)

I live Jane Eyre, it is one of my favourite classics. The descriptive parts are compelling and there is so much suppressed emotion. If you have ever visited Haworth you can quite imagine that living there might have been one of the reasons that the Brontes wrote the way they did. It is on the outskirts of Keighley now but then it must have been way out on the moors and the Parsonage is right in the middle of the graveyard!  The TB might have also helped.

I first read the book 35 years ago and have often returned to it since, actually not as often as I have re-read Arthur Ransome though. Sadly one simply could not get away with calling ones heroines Cissy and Titty these days though.

I would recommend Rebecca as it is an excellent read but very dark. Lots of undertones which echo du Mauriers own life. 

Not a fan of Jane Austen personally. I rather like Thomas Hardy though. Can't bear E M Forster, A Passage to India was desperate with the film on fast forward. 

WOuld really recommend absolutely anything by Evelyn Waugh especially Decline and Fall. Also do read Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis.


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