Hello again!

It has been too long. Way too long. Unintentionally long.

I'm sorry, faithful readers (if any, apart from my wonderful friends). My brilliant organizational skills combined with being in a new country, having to take care of my own laundry, and understanding college life have kept me occupied, although I have thought so many times of ideas that would make good blog posts that I have enough material for a while now, whether or not I get the time to read a lot.

Sorry for that painfully long sentence. I have really missed blogging.

I have had a number of experiences, wonderful and a little less wonderful, in the past one and a half months. I've seen the Niagara Falls twice, attended a fabulous play on Kasturba Gandhi, heard a magnificent concert on Romeo and Juliet by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, been late to class when I tried to cook upma, appalled my mom with the condition of my room when she visited, attended a garba event for Dussehra...

Having started this post yesterday, and twice before that, I think I now have an idea why I have been failing at this the past two months. I have always been terrible in writing on my life or thoughts in general - I go rambling on and on and never get anywhere. I need a focus - a particular incident or topic - and then words will just pour from me effortlessly. They usually need editing, but I can work with them. 

So for this post...

Lately, one of my earlier posts on this blog (one of the earliest) has been haunting me. I compared Charlotte Bronte unfavourably to Jane Austen, saying Bronte could never match up to Austen in my estimation. I feel now that I was unfair and rather hypocritical. What bought on this reflection? Recently, I came across a Jane Eyre vlog on Youtube in the style of the immensely popular Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and today I watched the 1996 movie version of Jane Eyre. This got me thinking about my post, and about the first few times I had read Jane Eyre (I rarely read a book only once). The book had me completely engrossed, and there was a time when I re-read certain passages in the book numerous times. My opinion of the book could, of course, have changed; but I went back to the book and re-read those same passages, and I realized that it hasn't, really. I really like Jane Eyre.

I love stills where the lighting is perfect and everybody looks beautiful because they're shown from the right angles.

So what bought on that post? One of the book bloggers I really admire, Claire from the thecaptivereader.wordpress.com, dislikes Jane Eyre. At the time I decided to blog regularly, I was reading rather a lot of The Captive Reader, and she puts things so well that I suppose I convinced myself about the deep flaws in the book. I do this sometimes when I really admire someone, and I don't do it consciously. I imbibe their opinions and convince myself that they're mine.

What was wrong with my post? First and foremost, Austen and Bronte simply cannot be compared. They were different people who wrote in different contexts in utterly different styles about very different things. An Austen romance is worlds away from a Bronte romance, which of course does not necessarily make one better than the other. 

Second, I was unjustified both in my evaluation of Rochester and in saying there is no humour in Jane Eyre. 

Mr. Rochester is the male protagonist that every wannabe dark romance has been trying to imitate for a while now. Wounded, cynical, witty, impolite in a very attention-grabbing way, and in need of love from a wonderful female creature who is whole, good and innocent enough to recover his faith in humanity, reform him and temper his cynicism all at once. This female creature manages to be sympathetic and relatable and not quite a paragon of virtue because of her passion. While I might find Rochester a tad intimidating in real life, he is somehow very magnetic in the book.  Maybe this is because, despite his occasional despotism and dominance, he comes across as capable of loving very deeply. When Rochester explains things to Jane after she has found out he is already married, I forgive him as immediately as Jane. I find it impossible to think of him as manipulative, scheming and deceitful. With his own twisted, desperate logic, Rochester sincerely believes that he would do no wrong in marrying Jane. The second time I read this book (when I was actually old enough to understand it, this time) I actually found myself wondering whether Rochester was right. What harm would it do to anybody if Jane stayed with him? She has no one to judge her and he cannot be with Bertha anyway.

However, he had no right to keep Jane in the dark and expect her to break the law.

I'm getting sidetracked. I'll keep the psychoanalysis for another post. What I meant to say is that Rochester is a suitably likable and attractive male lead. While reading the book I did not find it repulsive that they are so far apart in age (although when I consider it objectively I do)!

As for humour, Jane Eyre is not a humorous book, but it has dialogue between Jane and Rochester that is witty and entertaining. I said that 'Mr. Rochester and Jane don't ever seem to converse without undertones of something.' Don't conversations between any romantic pair have undertones? Besides, Jane Eyre is one of those rare romantic books where you can actually see the characters falling in love. Their whole relationship is built on good conversation (since neither has any sort of good looks, or so we're told). Finally, it was hypocritical of me to pretend that I read Jane Eyre in a dispassionate way, liking it just 'well enough'. I read it like I read every other book, head over heels. And surely there was something in the book that warranted this liking? 

I'm not saying Jane Eyre is completely wonderful and flawless. But it deserves admiration for a number of things, including an absorbing story (except for when Jane is with the Rivers, and it seems to drag on interminably till she meets Rochester again), very unique protagonists, and the simple fact that it generally has a large impact on the reader (I know it did on me). 

I also realize now that that post was a little bit from indignation at the things Bronte said about Austen. It was a lot easier to disparage an author who had the impertinence and bad taste to dislike Austen. Kidding. About the bad taste. But it certainly coloured my opinion.

And with this I shall stop for now, and I promise I will never bring this up again. 

Charlotte Bronte on Jane Austen

Addendum 11th June 2015: I later changed my opinion - refer to this blog post - Hello again!

Hello everyone who does me the favour of reading this blog (if there is anyone),

I have decided on a project to fill my summer vacation days. Inspired by this beautiful blog: http://thecaptivereader.wordpress.com/, I have decided to review a book a day. However, they shan't be new books; they will all be from my bookcase. There are many tragically unopened books on my shelves, and I intend to get cracking. I also intend to review many favourites (or, if 'reviewing' some classic greats seems too presumptuous, I shall merely write my reflections on them).

Before I get started, however, I want to talk about something I came across quite recently. I learnt that Charlotte Bronte disliked Jane Austen - in fact she was very vehement in her criticism :

"Anything like warmth or enthusiasm, anything energetic, poignant, heartfelt, is utterly out of place in commending these works: all such demonstrations the authoress would have met with a well-bred sneer, would have calmly scorned as outré or extravagant. She does her business of delineating the surface of the lives of genteel English people curiously well. There is a Chinese fidelity, a miniature delicacy, in the painting. She ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him with nothing profound. The passions are perfectly unknown to her: she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy sisterhood ... What sees keenly, speaks aptly, moves flexibly, it suits her to study: but what throbs fast and full, though hidden, what the blood rushes through, what is the unseen seat of life and the sentient target of death--this Miss Austen ignores....Jane Austen was a complete and most sensible lady, but a very incomplete and rather insensible (not senseless - woman), if this is heresy--I cannot help it."

(Source:http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/austen/)

I was absolutely astonished and a little bemused when I came across this. I have never thought of Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen in the same train of thought - they are so radically different in style that it never occurred to me to compare them. Had it, however, occurred to me do so, I have no doubt that I would have, without hesitation, concluded that Austen is far and away the superior. Austen's wit, humour, beautiful prose and  her 'normal,' yet so remarkably memorable characters - are unrivalled, in my opinion, not just by Bronte, but by any other author I have read. I have to admit that I have read only Jane Eyre by Bronte. But if this is indicative of her style and talent, why, then, they are, simply, not on the same plane. This is not to say that I dislike Jane Eyre; I like it well enough. But it has never been one of my favourites, and it has never filled me with awe at its mastery, or delight at the wit that I missed when I was younger. While reading Jane Eyre, one is quite carried away by the passion and emotion of it all. But, when one stops to reflect – what is there in Jane Eyre? I suppose Jane Eyre is very likeable; and for some mysterious reason Mr.Rochester captures the imagination of many girls, too – despite being rough, unprincipled (don’t tell me that you can justify his trying to marry Jane despite his already being married, because I think his reasoning there is twisted – ‘eccentric,’ Jane would say – and quite unsupported) and quite heavy-handed in his pursuit of Jane. But the plot, I think, is quite unremarkable, despite all the drama. And, while it is supposed to defy many conventions, it espouses many others. There is hardly any humour in Jane Eyre – or if there is, I have missed it – and when you actually think about it, this wild passion between two people of such different ages (Mr. Rochester is actually old enough to be her father) is slightly disturbing. Emma and Mr. Knightley are of different ages too, but there hardly seems to be anything ‘wild’ about their love, and I find their affection a lot more palatable. Mr.Rochester and Jane don’t ever seem to converse without undertones of something.  And when they disagree, it is on an issue of great moment, and Jane is about to be very heroic and sacrifice her love for principle and duty. Despite Bronte’s evident opinion that Austen’s works are bloodless, Austen’s characters seem somehow so much more real. They aren’t heavily dramatized or heroic – Mr. Knightley is noble, as is Mr. Darcy, but not so noble as to be un-relatable or unlikeable. And I heavily disagree with the opinion that there is no passion or poignancy in Austen’s works. These elements are simply far more subtle and understated in her books. Who could possibly say that Knightley or Darcy have no passion for their respective lady-loves? It is also incomprehensible to me that Bronte could fail so thoroughly to see the beauty of Austen’s seeming un-sentimentality, and the uniqueness and humour this lends her writing. Bronte’s characters take themselves so very seriously. Bronte’s tragic situations are unrelieved by any sensible, objective viewpoint. I can be engrossed in Bronte, but never delighted or surprised. Austen, to me, is an artist beyond compare; Bronte is a wonderful writer, but flawed, overly emotional (it seems to me) and definitely without the wit to match Austen’s genius.