If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will note that I have mentioned the enjoyable BBC series already and how much I loved watching it.
Since then, I decided to do what every screen lover does when they can't get a show out of their heads.....they read the book!
For some reason, reading Jane Eyre was not something that I ever undertook at high school. My English teacher did insist on us reading Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Oedipus Rex along with numerous Shakespearean plays, to name a few, but Jane Eyre was never a pick of his.
I really think that perhaps some of these books are best left to the wisdom of middle age to read. Certainly, life experience and a want to read, rather than having to for some high school English literature essay, mean that true appreciation of the themes of these stories are of far greater value. That is certainly the case with Jane Eyre.
I really enjoyed this book. A deeper understanding of Jane's upbringing, along with the character of Rochester are gleaned through the text. The concepts of gender independence and morality are at a fore. And I was so amazed to see such modern (timeless) themes addressed. I particularly loved Bronte's intimate style of writing in the first person. I thought perhaps that I might find the older style language tedious to read when in fact the opposite was true. And I don't think that you can ever really escape the fact that Jane Eyre, at heart, is a love story....perfect for a romanticist like me!
But the perfect part of all of this is that during reading and when it is finished, I have the new dvd to watch over and over again! *sigh* Yep....seriously tragic! ;)
