I'd read it! It's the curse of being the least melodramatic one I think - both in terms of the books (no mad women in the attics or ghosts on the moors) and biographically speaking (she made the best fist of being a governess of all of them etc)
I'm not really one for melodrama so maybe it's for me! This is from Peter's Room on Anne: "everyone around her describes her as Dear-Gentle-Anne in a despising way, but she was the only one who didn't collapse into a nervous breakdown when things got too much and bolt for home."
So enjoyable. I think Juliet Barker was an early highlighter of how Mrs. Gaskell shaped a Brontë iconography that drove an entire industry...
But Peter's Room! Love Antonia Forest; and she was so good in her discussion of the B's, as well; especially making the excellent point that Anne was the only one who actually grapples directly with life. (The ToWH is brilliantly radical; although stylistic fireworks aren't really her style.)
The Invention of Charlotte Brontë has been on wish list since I heard about it so I'm delighted to see this positive write up! The Brontë industry is a fascinating thing and it's interesting to reflect on the emphasis put on Charlotte as the survivor, and Emily and the moors, while Anne languishes rather unfairly behind. (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is my favourite of all the Brontë novels)
There is humour in Villette when Charlotte Bronte writes about Lucy Snowe looking at a painting and making caustic comments. At the start of Wuthering Heights, Emily B makes Lockwood a hapless, even comic, figure :-)
Thank you. I think someone commented - here or elsewhere - that the humour is much more evident if listening on audiobook, which is maybe something I should try. Maybe as a reader I come to the books with preconceptions which means I don't always pick up the humour in them.
I think it's probably impossible to come to big classics like the Brontes' books without preconceptions of one sort or another. And the Brontes certainly do a lot of gloom! There isn't much humour. You have to be ready to be taken by surprise.
I'd read it! It's the curse of being the least melodramatic one I think - both in terms of the books (no mad women in the attics or ghosts on the moors) and biographically speaking (she made the best fist of being a governess of all of them etc)
I'm not really one for melodrama so maybe it's for me! This is from Peter's Room on Anne: "everyone around her describes her as Dear-Gentle-Anne in a despising way, but she was the only one who didn't collapse into a nervous breakdown when things got too much and bolt for home."
I think I'm going to have to try and track a copy of that down!
An ardent Bronte lover, I didn't know of Peter's Room, so this is a very happy discovery!
So enjoyable. I think Juliet Barker was an early highlighter of how Mrs. Gaskell shaped a Brontë iconography that drove an entire industry...
But Peter's Room! Love Antonia Forest; and she was so good in her discussion of the B's, as well; especially making the excellent point that Anne was the only one who actually grapples directly with life. (The ToWH is brilliantly radical; although stylistic fireworks aren't really her style.)
Not a Wuthering Heights fan myself...
Hail to a fellow Antonia Forest fan!
I think AF’s sympathies were very much in the Jane Austen camp.
Yes! Though she did say she loved Villette.
Fascinating. Glad I’m not the only one who’s never finished Jane Eyre.
Suspect we're not that rare!
This is a fascinating essay, though depressing.
The book wasn't depressing though, despite the subject matter.
The Invention of Charlotte Brontë has been on wish list since I heard about it so I'm delighted to see this positive write up! The Brontë industry is a fascinating thing and it's interesting to reflect on the emphasis put on Charlotte as the survivor, and Emily and the moors, while Anne languishes rather unfairly behind. (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is my favourite of all the Brontë novels)
I've never read TofWH which is fairly typical, I guess. Maybe there should be a book on the Disappearance of Anne?
There is humour in Villette when Charlotte Bronte writes about Lucy Snowe looking at a painting and making caustic comments. At the start of Wuthering Heights, Emily B makes Lockwood a hapless, even comic, figure :-)
Thank you. I think someone commented - here or elsewhere - that the humour is much more evident if listening on audiobook, which is maybe something I should try. Maybe as a reader I come to the books with preconceptions which means I don't always pick up the humour in them.
I think it's probably impossible to come to big classics like the Brontes' books without preconceptions of one sort or another. And the Brontes certainly do a lot of gloom! There isn't much humour. You have to be ready to be taken by surprise.